Heating with Kerosene and Spending Too Much Money

This question is impossible to answer because we don't know where you live. Reasonable for Canada, unreasonable for Florida.

Ireland

You have lots of good advice, so far. Here are my additional suggestions.

1. Measure the temperature of your flue gas to see if you are sending your heat up the chimney. Perhaps your heat exchanger is not doing its job. You want the temp > 100 degC (212 degF) to keep water vapor from condensing, but you do not want it > 200 degC (424 degF) because then you are heating the great outdoors. High efficiency furnaces have provision for condensing the water vapor and collecting that heat ... from your description, I doubt that you have one of those.

2. Look at the burner and flame. If the flame is yellow and producing black smoke, it is not getting enough oxygen, is burning too rich, is producing toxic carbon monoxide AND is coating your chimney with sludge that is predisposing your home to a chimney fire. You definitely do not want that outcome.

HAVE FUN!

So, with the attic, your heating 600m² ? That does sound like too much oil. My home is about that size. When I burnt oil to heat, I'd use about half that, even in the dead of a New England winter.

How do you measure your usage?

How cold does it get on an average February night?

How much hot water use?

Insulation?

I put 100l in and waited until it ran out divided that by the number of hours that it had ran since it was filled.

It doesn't get nearly as cold as it does with you. it has been unseasonally cold since the new year with temperatures getting down to 20 to 30 degrees.

There is 50 mm foam insulation in the wall cavities and 100mm foam insulation in the rafter spaces.

I have electric showers which would provide the most of the hot water used. washing the dinner dishes and a washing machine would be the the only times the hot water would be used.

I have looked at the boiler specs and it is rated to a max of 110,000 btu's or 32kw I think that this is too small to efficently heat the house.

"boiler specs and it is rated to a max of 110,000 btu's"

That should be more than enough to heat your home. I heat my entire house with a 68K pellet stove, and it keeps the house warm and toasty even when the temp. drops below 0F,(-18C).

So, to answer your question, yes, I think that's a lot of oil per day.

I would advise to check your calculations again, and if you get the same, call the company that last serviced the burner to come back and explain why you are using so much oil.

Also, ask neighbors that have similar equipment how much fuel they use.

Let us know how you make out.

And, if you could install an hour meter on the burner itself, you could calculate it's LPH. Compare that to the nozzle installed in the burner.

You can reduce your consumption by mounting the thermostat in the area where you want to be most comfortable and then closing off that area from the rest of the rooms with doors, sliding doors, curtains, small oriental rugs hung in the doorway, whatever. The rest of the rooms will still be heated when the primary rooms receive heat but you will be confining heat to the comfort area and not letting it "escape" to the other rooms. The other rooms will be a little colder during the times when they are least used. The good thing is that when heat is needed in those rooms, it just requires opening the doorway.

To test this theory on your particular floor plan, you can temporarily use plastic sheeting. Placement of the thermostat is the key. Try to place it in an area that is exposed to the least outside walls.

Johnny C

Insulate!! If you think you can't improve your insulation, think again and again for that matter. Insulation has been covered here on CR4 many times. Go search and invest in the right thing. Ireland or where ever! Good luck, Ky.

I agree, especially check the door nd window seals provided they're double galzed otherwise it's all hopeless.

Thanks for the good answer Mate! Just kidding. We have covered miles of it and the results should be there for all to see. I am to computer elitarite to put up a link! maybe you could?

Good insulation, good windows and don't heat rooms till just before you use them as they should not get "cold" within 24 hours anyway, or at least mine don't in my well insulated house.

Who built the house? was the insulation done exactly as you say? Do you ever get black mold on any areas where maybe there is not a lot of air movement? Is your boiler temperature too high and therefore inefficient?

I have a smaller boiler (27KW) which is actually far bigger than a plumber would install for a house of around 135 Sq.meter here in Germany (18Kw would be correct). I wanted bigger as bigger is better as it heats the water "on the fly" and 18Kw only gives a dribble, I like a good heavy shower!!! Not running around trying to get wet under those stupid showers most Brits have at home!!!!

I run the boiler at around 50°C when it is not under 0°C and about 60°C when outside goes below 0°C. I also have a pellets burner in the kitchen (which keeps upstairs also warm) to keep costs and usage of gas down.....it also looks great!!

The boiler temperatures are the same even if the pellets burner is not in use. The warmth of the pellets just keeps the thermostats to off when its running.....its that simple.

I have thermostats in each room that are programmed to warm to specific temperatures at specific times of day, this saves a lot of money and are well worth the investment.

I found that training the family did not work at all and rooms would be left running at full blast night and day......if I left it to them!!!

Get an engineer with a thermal imaging camera to come and photograph your house from all sides when all rooms are being heated, at night, you may get a shock!!!! That will show you what needs to be done and will save on money and frustration in the long run....

"Get an engineer with a thermal imaging camera to come and photograph your house"

Don't mention it

I saw the other day on the news that some company is doing thermal imaging of houses and the results were...shocking for a country like UK.

There are properties with good market values for all the wrong reasons, they have some of the worst insulations. In general buildings are shocking; no double glazing, no wall insulation, either non-existant or extremely bad seals on both doors & windows and the list goes on.

You are right and not just for the UK, here in Germany its exactly the same!!!

Those are all good idea's with insulation and all. However, there is something basically wrong here. Ether Johnny C measured incorrectly, or the burner has a problem.

If the outside temp is somewhere between 20F and 30F, I could open all my windows and still not burn 12 gallons in a 24 hour period.

So, with those not too severe outside temps, even a very poorly insulated house, of this size, should not burn more than 4 or 5 gallons a day.

Johnny says the burner was serviced in December. It's time to call the service technician back, and explain why the excessive usage.

Just checking to see if there is any black smoke or the burner is black would suggest to much fuel to air......

But I agree, the service person must get back asap.....

Andy,

The boiler is burning very clean. Apart from the condensationbeing evaporated off the boiler when it starts up cold that is the only visible emmision coming out of the flue

Thats a bad good sign of a well adjusted boiler....Bad that it looks like an insulation problem or drafts and leaks.

You need the Guy with the thermal imaging camera, or buy one and rent yourself out to others!!

I know from my previous home that an oversized chimney will lose a lot of heated air when the furnace is not on. the house was built in 1910 for a coal burner in the basement and wood [?] or oil in the kitchen. when we bought the house it had a small nat gas hot water heater in the base, a moderate 90 000 BTU nat gas furnace beside it and a large wood burner fireplace in the middle floor. i found out just how much heated air was coming out of the house by going on the roof and sticking my face over the top of the chimney. it was like one of those public washroom hot air hand dryers. and there was no heat demand on the furn/hot water tank.and no fire in fireplace. the baffle plate was non fitting in the fireplace so I taped and sealed the fireplace opening. this helped immensely. there was also a lot of air being sucked out from the hot water tank and the furnace when not in demand especially when even slightly windy outside. enough to blow out the pilot lights occasionally.New house, half the size, half the kids left, all electric, triple glass in the door, double in the windows. hope you solve, good luck.