I heard the myth of don't get a house that heats with oil....True or not? Oil users can you please tell me your bill amounts so that I don't have to worry as much. Thank you. 

We have lived out on the economy since we got here.(Don't like base housing) You will be hard pressed to find a house with out oil heating. However, since you get a alotment for utilites, it is not that bad, as long as you set up a payment plan. What we do is we do direct debit from our pounds account for 100 pounds a month. This works out just fine, and we live in a really big house for England.

My advice, if you do live off base, set up a direct debit with your oil company so that you do not get hit with a big bill as soon as it gets cold. Some times to fill a tank can cost from 400 pounds on up depending the size of the tank. Also depending on your useage and how cold it gets, you might have to fill it a little more though out the year. 

We just filled our oil tank 2300 litres and it cost £1326.47 from cps fuels 

I think that is a little much, must be the company. Did you pay out of pocket or do you do direct debit? 

Alton did you have to still pay £100 alotment that Steph was talking about or did you just pay all at once...... and how long did the tank last ? the house we are looking at is 1600 sq ft 

We have an old barn conversion that is gas heated. If you look, you can find one! If you go into letting agencies and specfically ask for gas heating, they have quite a few. We were also told to stay away from oil and I'm glad we did. Although I wouldn't recommend living off base reguardless if you don't have your finances in order period. 

Ours is gas heated! When we were looking for a house, we actually didnt look at a single one with oil {and not on purpose} 

Ours is gas heated as well. I did not want oil so we didn't even bother looking at them. There is actually tons out there that aren't oil, but you will (usually) have to leave Mildenhall/Lakenheath/Beck Row area.

We found two houses in Lakenheath village that were gas heated though, just didnt like the house lol. 

We lived in 2 houses off base- one heated by gas (1yr) the other heated by oil (2yrs). We got our oil from Total Butler and were spending 700+GBP almost every month and a half.... Its what finally forced us into base housing (wished we would have moved into BH sooner). Dont know why it was so high. The house was big and COLD- I still had 3 space heaters for warmth. 

You want CHEESE on that !!!!! 

My wife and I have lived in a three-bedroom, oil-heated bungalow for almost two years now. When we moved in, the oil tank had about 6 inches in it, and since then we've only bought oil once. We only put 500 liters in, and that cost us roughly 250 GBP from Total Butler. We're about to order the same again. We're conservative with our heat - we turn off radiators in rooms we don't frequent and keep those doors shut. The heat is also on a timer, so it starts just before we wake up and shuts off after we leave, and then clicks on again about an hour before we get home and shuts off right after we go to bed. We keep it somewhat low, and have no problem running around the house in comfy sweats and using big blankets. I do have an electric space heater, but I usually just click it on in the bathroom in the morning so I don't step out of the shower and freeze my butt off. For the record, this house was only 6 months old when we moved in. Older houses may not be as efficient. 

AF Cartoonist, good point about the age of the home. Our old barn conversion was a 200 year old structure....but was renovated in 1989. So, regardless it was still old and outdated. It was oil heated and we only lived there for just under a year. We put 500 liters of oil in the tank 3 times in that timeframe. We did all the same things you are currently doing in your home, big blankets, warm clothes, keeping unused rooms closed, turning off radiators that weren't needed....we even turned off the heater for the water (as the showers are already heated).

Still, the house was so inefficient that we STILL had to constantly buy those bags of wood from the BXtra to help heat the home. In the end, we closed off the entire rear portion of the house and literally lived in the living room next to the wood stove as we had ran out of oil and was broke from constantly buying it. People knock base housing for various reasons....but this winter our house will be HOT, thanks Uncle Sam! 

When I lived in a bungalow we filled it with 500 every 4 months or so depending on winter or summer and it was about 300 pounds each time they came out and delivered it. Eventually we moved to a different house because we were sick of it costing so much. But this was also around the time when the exchange rate hit $2.10 to a pound which was not very nice on the wallet. 

Many factors will come into cost of heating regardless of fuel used. Age of boiler, insulation, useage etc.

Like AF Cartoonist our oil costs are low, we moved into our house when new 4 years ago and the fuel tank was empty. We have three bedrooms and a neigbour attached either side which helps hold the heat in. As I'm a SAHM with my youngest being 2 years old the heating is on 24/7 during the cold months although turned low when I go to bed or go out for the day and turned back up when needed. We buy 900 liters (as this is the amount most companies start to discount at) every two years, so we have bought 3 lots since being here and have nearly a full tank still :).

When we had our boiler serviced last year the guy commented on the fact that had our house been built 6 months later we would have had an even more efficient boiler!

I know that many begrudge paying for things in rented accomodation but if your loft insulation isn't 270mm your heating bill will be high, its worth paying for even if you can't get the money back from the landlord if you are going to be there more than a year as you will save on heating:
http://www.npower.com/web/diyloftinsulation/index.htm 

I am with beverley on this one it depends on the house, the house we moved into was older and probably not as fuel efficient as newer homes. 

I agree, it does completely depend on the house. We live in a house that was built in late 80's early 90's with brand new windows and such. We got oil back in August, cause I knew it was going to start to get cold in September. I got 400 pounds worth (but we do direct debit, so we had money already with the company) which ended up being 900 liters , and looks like we will not have to fill again till maybe January or February (Granted, it was probably this good of a price, cause we got it filled in the summer). We have a regulated thermostat that cuts on and off depending on the temperature in the house so it stays constant. 

We use oil-- have lived in two very large places with it. One was a barn conversion with heated flooring. You could stand in front of a closed door and feel the breeze-- we went through oil pretty quickly. It really depends on the house (double glazing, good seals on the doors and windows etc). The allowance you get and some common sense manage to make it all work. Also, you can play oil companies against each other-- call one for a quote and then call others asking them to beat it. AND you can go in with neighbors and set up deliveries at the same time and have more taken off per liter.
It's more important to get a house that meets your needs than to worry so much about which fuels heat it. 

Oh, Sandgi-- have the realtor show you the energy efficiency chart for the house you're looking at. If we had seen one on our barn conversion, we would've known it would be expensive. 

With my family we have some annoying debt....so really anything on the economy is a major expense. We have a new car payment of approx $440 per month, another car payment (for our truck back in the states) of $250 per month, Child Support at $230 per month, Star Card running around $230 per month, and a couple other debts totaling $250ish per month. Plus we put $60 in the savings account every month. So for us, any "allowance" the USAF gave us for utilities barely helped. If I could get a job that would be great. Sadly it's like pulling teeth to find a job....unless I want to work for AAFES as a cashier (which I won't....I worked for AAFES at our last base and didn't like it at all!).

Long story about the other car payment, but suffice to say getting that truck was a bad financial move we wish we could reverse (I miss my MUSTANG!). So, for the people that actually "bank" money here....*applause* for you, cause that isn't us. Lol! Not yet anyway. 

We lived off base for 2 years in an oil heated home. It was a brand new build, but it was very poorly built (as we soon found out). It was also a LARGE home, far more than we needed and the oil ate our lunch. It was awful trying to keep the tank full and we never even used it in the summer as we could switch over to the immersion for the water heater for several months.
We had an 1800 litre tank and it cost a pretty penny to fill and we filled it more than we should have. If not for that it would not have been quite so expensive to live off base for us, but our utility pay did not even come close to covering it. We also kept the radiators off in unused rooms, low in rooms that were not as frequently used and had it set to go off/down at certain times. It mattered not. ha! A gas house was on our list for sure! You can do an advanced search for a gas heated home rather than oil on most of the realty sites.
Granted, a poorly built 3 story 5bdrm/5bath home @ 3600+ sqft is A LOT of house to heat. So if you are going for an oil house, then just make sure to take into consideration how well insulated it is etc...
We just moved onto base in the summer and I will say it IS quite nice not to worry with the oil at all. Add that with the insulation this place must have I'm baking every morning and opening windows to cool off! 

I had heard the advice Steph gave about the direct debit and was going to do that until I read online that since the oil prices can change daily and vary by the company you could just put 100 pounds aside (in a savings account) then you can shop around for the cheapest oil rather than the company already having your money...they'll have to be cheapest for your business!

We just moved into a house using oil after almost 2 years of gas and had to paid about 300 pounds for 500 liters through boilerjuice since it was our very first purchase and needed it within 2 days. We'll see how long that last!

Depending on where you live, you might want to buy a lock for your oil tank though...there were some complaints about people stealing theirs.

Oh, I wish our child support was in the $200s! We're paying over $700 a month for a single kid! 

---, where I come from (the actual area) there is NO jobs to be had. Everybody that has a job won't leave it till they either die, or find a better job in a different area far, far away from Pennsylvania. The cost of living in the area coupled with the cost of support for my kid means I have three choices 1) Don't buy a car, 2)Don't live in my own place or 3) Eat bologna, ramen and potted meat for the rest of my life while driving a rusted out Parisienne, still living with my Dad.

$700 a month would have been a ridiculous amount. It goes by your income, currently I have none. I stay at home and raise my Son while my wife pays the support. It's cheaper than daycare! I've signed the papers and my ex's Husband is going to adopt my other son (whom I was never allowed to know, my ex and her family only wanted a baby....when they got it they pushed me out of the picture. So, he's 10 now and I still don't know him. It's quite painful for me, but his family does take good care of him).

Sorry OP, didn't mean to take it so off course! Lol! It's been soooo long and I wanted to clarify that particular situation. My hometown area is very poor (although it is a nice looking place) so $230 is like GOLD. That's rent on a decent apartment! Once the adoption goes through (we have been waiting over a year) then the child support will stop and we can put the past behind us (it is full of hurt). Plus my Son will have the same last name as his other siblings. It's a tough situation but it's all for the best, his interest. There, that's my dirty laundry for the day. Lol!

As for Oil heating: verdict, it isn't bad as long as the house/boiler is efficient. If you find a place that doesn't have this combination then stay away as it's going to get pricey...and COLD! 

Oh did it get mentioned that the companies can also set up average billing? Like they do back in the states. The oil company we ended up using all the time had the average billing. We had to fill up (I say fill up but we never filled it all the way, we never won the lottery you know!)and then there was a monthly payment for one year of about 75 quid and then at the year end, they would base it on your usage and either refund the difference or adjust it accordingly. 

aimee --- 5 hours ago - quote - flag comment - hide comments
Oh did it get mentioned that the companies can also set up average billing? Like they do back in the states. The oil company we ended up using all the time had the average billing. We had to fill up (I say fill up but we never filled it all the way, we never won the lottery you know!)and then there was a monthly payment for one year of about 75 quid and then at the year end, they would base it on your usage and either refund the difference or adjust it accordingly.

BUT be warned if they fill up less than 900 liters a time you get charged more, I had this set up and they were coming out to put silly ammounts in which worked out uneconomical.

Better to put the money aside and buy when you need it in my experience or if you don't trust yourself to do this ask the oil company if they will take a direct debit but ONLY fill on your instruction to stop them coming out unnecessarily. 

Better to put the money aside and buy when you need it in my experience or if you don't trust yourself to do this ask the oil company if they will take a direct debit but ONLY fill on your instruction to stop them coming out unnecessarily.


Well yes I wouldn't have them just come out randomly. I would think it would be up to you to contact them and let them know you were getting low. 

When I signed up to this service they were confident they could estimate your usage and would send a tanker out when they 'estimated' you would need oil to save you calling. Sounds great in theory but they got it soo wrong for us.