oil fired heating, advice required

gooner99

Hi, I want to check out a couple of things for my mother's house. She has oil fired central heating with rads which was installed about 15 years ago, so the boiler (firebird) is not a condensing one. Her house is a 3 bedroom (no more than 900 to 1000sqm) bungalow without attic conversion.House was build 1970 with cavity wall, but no insulation.It has since been pumped and the attic insulated.She also has double glazing and the seals were checked and replaced where needed last year. Today when I was there she was telling me she is now spending €200 every 4 to 5 weeks on oil. I guess a factor in this is down to her being retired and in the house all day. I was just thinking on how we could reduce her heating bill a bit and which options would be the best bang for her buck.

She doesn't have TRV's on any of her rads. Would installing these help, what type/brand should we get and could I possibly install them myself?

Also she told me that her control (non digital type) is broken (timer gone) and although she never used the timer often (preferring to switch it on and off herself), she has a problem where in the summer if she wants to heat the hot water tank, she also needs to put up the heating switch as well as the hot water one. Again would there be an advantage on changing this control unit and could that be the cause of her having the put on the heating just to get hot water, or would there be something else gone elsewhere on her system?

Hope you guys can help us. If you want any more info on the system, I'll see what I can do. Thanks in advance.

jimf

based on 5 weeks this works out at approx 6 litres of oil per day depending on the number of hours she has it on this is not really excessive at this time of year does she also have another source of heat and yes timer would be a good idea to get sorted as you just can so easily forget to turn off if on constantly

jimjimt

Perhaps a simple setup would be best.

TRV's for all the rads. They do help if the rads are big enough to heat the room in full. If for no other reason they do make turning on and off a rad very easy.

It might be best to install two basic time clocks to separate hot water from the radiators. One clock for rads. One clock for hot water. This can only be done if you have zone valves and if the valves are wired correctly through the auxiliary/relay.

You can go all out bells and whistle but I think in this case the above will help some and user friendly.

€200 every four to five weeks is about 50l of oil a week. So not bad. Everyone makes the mistake of measuring oil in Euros and not Liters and understandably so. But really it should be liters per week for the size of your house.

Kerosene = 1L .90¢
€200 = 223L
223l/35days = 6.4L per day
6.4L kerosene = 64kw of heat per day produced

Boiler Efficiency 85%
64kw x .85 = 54.5kw into your rads 10 kw into space......
Heating on for 5 hours = 10.9 kw/hr

Boiler Efficiency 95%
64kw x .95 = 60.8 kw into your rads 3.2 kw into space......
Heating on for 6 hours = 10.13 kw/hr

Idbatterim

as she is in bungalow. might just be cheapest to heat room she is using with electric heater...

gooner99

jimf wrote: »

based on 5 weeks this works out at approx 6 litres of oil per day depending on the number of hours she has it on this is not really excessive at this time of year does she also have another source of heat and yes timer would be a good idea to get sorted as you just can so easily forget to turn off if on constantly

Thanks for the reply. No other source of heating.She used to have an open fire, but after a chimney fire she was scared to put on a fire and ended up only with a couple of turf/coal and no heat. She's not keen to go back to the fire again. Sounds like her use is not so bad then so.

gooner99

jimjimt wrote: »

Perhaps a simple setup would be best.

TRV's for all the rads. They do help if the rads are big enough to heat the room in full. If for no other reason they do make turning on and off a rad very easy.

It might be best to install two basic time clocks to separate hot water from the radiators. One clock for rads. One clock for hot water. This can only be done if you have zone valves and if the valves are wired correctly through the auxiliary/relay.

You can go all out bells and whistle but I think in this case the above will help some and user friendly.

€200 every four to five weeks is about 50l of oil a week. So not bad. Everyone makes the mistake of measuring oil in Euros and not Liters and understandably so. But really it should be liters per week for the size of your house.

Kerosene = 1L .90¢
€200 = 223L
223l/35days = 6.4L per day
6.4L kerosene = 64kw of heat per day produced

Boiler Efficiency 85%
64kw x .85 = 54.5kw into your rads 10 kw into space......
Heating on for 5 hours = 10.9 kw/hr

Boiler Efficiency 95%
64kw x .95 = 60.8 kw into your rads 3.2 kw into space......
Heating on for 6 hours = 10.13 kw/hr

Thanks for that.I guess her use is not so bad. I must ask her if she always had to switch on the heating switch when she only wanted hot water, as I can't remember if it was always the case myself. How would I check if there are zone valves, would they be next to the boiler?

At the minute she turns on and off the heating as needed.So I guess sometimes it could be on for too long, as I often go in and it's quite hot. Would I be right in saying that if we fitted TRV's then even if she left the heating on too long once the rads get to the set temp the boiler would stop cycling and this would save her oil?

Maybe money would be better spend on doubling the insulation in the easiest place possible, the attic?

gooner99

Idbatterim wrote: »

as she is in bungalow. might just be cheapest to heat room she is using with electric heater...

Yes she spends all day in her sitting room and she has an electric fire where her open fire was, but she only uses it if she comes in after being out and the house is very cold. It's one of those mock open fire types, I think it has 2 settings and has a fan. I never thought of using this to just heat this one room.But would it be quite expensive to run,that's the question. It might be better to add TRV's and set them low in her other rooms, so as she gets good heat in her sitting room from the ofch, but not overheat the other rooms and maybe save that way?

Billy Bunting

gooner99 wrote: »

She used to have an open fire, but after a chimney fire she was scared to put on a fire and ended up only with a couple of turf/coal and no heat. She's not keen to go back to the fire again. Sounds like her use is not so bad then so.

I hope you've closed off that flue, that would loose a lot of heat.

If you have pumped the cavity and done the loft insulation then you could possibly down rate the boiler, a good OFTEC registered engineer will have Flue Gas Analysis equipment and will be able to tweek the boiler to its max efficiency while burning less fuel.

jimjimt

The more insulation the better.

Zone valves are mostly in hot-presses but can be install in the boiler house or presses where there is a collection pipes.

Best to get a plumber who can install TRV's, zone valves, time clocks and service the boiler all in one job for best value. Always someone who can do this type of work locally.

gooner99

jimjimt wrote: »

The more insulation the better.

Zone valves are mostly in hot-presses but can be install in the boiler house or presses where there is a collection pipes.

Best to get a plumber who can install TRV's, zone valves, time clocks and service the boiler all in one job for best value. Always someone who can do this type of work locally.

Pretty sure there is something like you have linked in her little boilerhouse.I'll have and take a pic when its bright.Thanks

John T Carroll

gooner99 wrote: »

Hi, I want to check out a couple of things for my mother's house. She has oil fired central heating with rads which was installed about 15 years ago, so the boiler (firebird) is not a condensing one. Her house is a 3 bedroom (no more than 900 to 1000sqm) bungalow without attic conversion.House was build 1970 with cavity wall, but no insulation.It has since been pumped and the attic insulated.She also has double glazing and the seals were checked and replaced where needed last year. Today when I was there she was telling me she is now spending €200 every 4 to 5 weeks on oil. I guess a factor in this is down to her being retired and in the house all day. I was just thinking on how we could reduce her heating bill a bit and which options would be the best bang for her buck.

She doesn't have TRV's on any of her rads. Would installing these help, what type/brand should we get and could I possibly install them myself?

Also she told me that her control (non digital type) is broken (timer gone) and although she never used the timer often (preferring to switch it on and off herself), she has a problem where in the summer if she wants to heat the hot water tank, she also needs to put up the heating switch as well as the hot water one. Again would there be an advantage on changing this control unit and could that be the cause of her having the put on the heating just to get hot water, or would there be something else gone elsewhere on her system?

Hope you guys can help us. If you want any more info on the system, I'll see what I can do. Thanks in advance.

TRV's are relatively easy to fit, I recently fitted 10 of these in my daughter's house, these were Sanbra Fyffe and cost about E12 each, I,ve the same models fitted in my own house. If possible, fit these on the rad returns as they will sense a more representative room temperature. To identify the rad returns, fire up the boiler from a cold condition and after say 10 minutes or so feel the rad pipes, the cold one(s) is the return!. Again for the same reason, the TRV's should be mounted with the sensing element horizontal as this will keep them a little further away from the rads. Ensure that ONE of the rads does not have a TRV (say the hallway or one of the smaller rads in a non living room).
My oil consumption is similar to your mother's, about 6 to 7 Litres/Day in a 3 bed semi with a 16X12 Ft "SunRoom" (solid roof) and an attic conversion.I recently renewed my mechanical type timer after 20 years, I replaced it with like for like and installed a Flash Timer Model 31031 for about E42.
As stated in the other posts, you should check out the motorised valves/controls, I use a 2 Port Honeywell V4043H valve....approx E60.