Heating oil subsidy

adrianc I wish I'd seen this earlier. I learnt last night that my father's tank is now below 10%. He gets through a lot of heating oil as he is 90 and lives in an old place. He is on auto order and the order was system generated on 12/01.

I spoke to them last night, but it was too late to be able to talk to support staff who could give me an ETA.

This is quite concerning: what reason have Avanti been giving for lack of delivery ?

I don't know how these systems work, but I'm thinking that having the system empty i.e. run out could be particularly bad (not just from a keeping warm point of view I mean). 

EDIT: Pretty unimpressed with these guys right now. I got through to one bit of the support centre, told me it was the wrong part, then put through to another. I spent another 35+ minutes on flaming hold. And when I got through, they told me I'd must been put through to the order centre again and they couldn't give me a delivery date. 

The one part of the energy support is the bit about if power included in the rent, you have to apply for the £400.

I know a couple of landlords who do include the Gas / Electric in the rent, primarily because they don't want the properties to end up with prepayment meters.
they haven't increased the rent with the energy costs increasing, so why should the tenants get £400 "free"

We have a block of council flats nearby where the heating is included in the rent, basically the tenants electricity bill is only for Lighting, cooking etc, given I know some are on benefits they have been given more than the cost of the bills in support

Refinery went down in December for maintenance, nobody told the distributors, who were just surprised by not receiving deliveries - then the really cold bit after NY.

They swore blind they were just about back to normal, but didn't answer why ours had got missed...


We have run out before... No issues. Both boiler and hob fired straight up once the air's out the lines. There are bleed points on the tank and stop valve just outside the house, too.

How do the running costs of oil compare to using gas? Most of the online info I've seen so far is way out of date.

...and the answer is 52p + 5% VAT.

Quite pleasantly surprised.

Are you taking the costs of moving house into account?

Mains gas has always been WAY cheaper. Those of us on oil or bulk LPG do not have the option of mains gas.

There's about 7kWh in a litre of gas, so my 52p+vat = just under 8p/kWh. The current price cap is 10p/kWh - the average was 3p a couple of years ago.

But don't forget the tank rental - £5.50/mo + 5% vat - and the hassle. My tank had to be relocated to fit current regs when we moved in. I had to arrange a concrete base and a trench to do that. Then there's the fun of deliveries. Oh, and your boiler and hob have to be rejetted for LPG, while most (mains) gas boiler servicers can't work on LPG boilers - the certification is different.

...oh, yes...

Our tree surgeon told me the other year about a job he was doing near here.

Somebody's non-bunded oil tank had sprung a major leak, low down, days after being filled... 100m from the river.

He was involved in cutting several poisoned mature trees down. He thought the final clean-up bill would cost the insurers about £30-40k, if not more, and they'd been lucky to catch it quickly.