Written by
Shaun Curtis
on 30 Apr 2025
and updated on
30 Apr 2025
Categorised in
Tips and Advice
If you’ve been used to mains heating, moving to a home with oil fired central heating can be a shock to the system. You no longer have a constant supply of heating, there is a tank in your garden that you must periodically buy oil to fill, not to mention keeping it in good shape.
Being on the mains, you never have to worry about these things – and if that’s all you’ve known up to now, this guide is for you.
Not every home in the UK is connected to the gas grid, for many this is virtually impossible without vast expense. The great majority of these households rely on heating oil as their source of heating and hot water. Many towns and villages in East Anglia, the South West and especially Northern Ireland and more isolated areas are exclusively heated by heating oil.
An average heating oil set up is quite simple; there is a tank in the garden to store the oil, which is then fed to a boiler via pipes to the house (or wherever your boiler is). The rest is very conventional, a thermostat controls your heating to the radiators and your hot water.
The main oil that homes use is Kerosene, specifically Kerosene28, when you search for heating oil with us, we’ll simply call it heating oil.
This is the likely the main liquid you’ll be buying from us. Regular heating oil is sometimes referred to as Kero, K28 or Kerosene28, it’s all the same thing. You order it from us, it’s delivered to your tank and ready to fire your boiler!
Largely similar to regular heating oil except the supplier will add some extra performance boosting additive to make your boiler more efficient. We think it’s worth it and it’s why we offer an additive during purchases or regular heating oil.
We’re not quite there yet but it is expected that HVO will be replacing heating oil at some point in the future. It is an almost drop-in replacement for heating oil, with only minor adjustments to your boiler in order for it to handle HVO.
HVO stands for hydrotreated vegetable oil and is essentially bio-diesel. Waste fats are introduced to hydrogen which results in a combustible, 100% renewable, fossil-free fuel.
There are over 200 suppliers live pricing on our platform at any one time. This gives you access to almost all of the nation’s suppliers when you get a quote with us.
Up and down the country, we compare the prices of both local and national heating oil suppliers. We’ll do the hard work so all you have to do is enter your postcode and instantly see the best price from most of the suppliers in your area.
When multiple customers place orders in a small area (towns, villages etc), we’ll try to group these orders so that suppliers can deliver in a more efficient way. This reduces their costs, and they pass the savings on to you.
Another way to save your heating oil is to understand just how much you’re using. Our Smart Monitor enables you to track your usage, so you can predict when you might need a top-up.
Using heating oil additives can increase the efficiency of your boiler. Additives reduce sludge build up and help your boiler run much cleaner, using less oil in the process.
As well as additives, it’s important to keep your boiler in tip-top condition with annual boiler servicing.
Oil tanks, whilst appearing very simple from the outside can house all sorts of gremlins, from water ingress, to cracks and condensation. All leading to one of two things, water mixing with your oil, or a leak.
Condensation occurs often during summer and you leave your tank with a low oil level. The warmer ambient temperature on the outside of your tank causes condensation to form and water ends up in your tank.
It's quite obvious that water in your oil is probably not a good idea, it can cause havoc with your heating oil system. The build of of bugs and sludge can really hamper the performance of your boiler, leading to increased heating costs or even breakdowns.
The worst thing that can happen to your tank is for it to crack and leak. If your tank is mounted incorrectly or damaged, you can end up with a leak. This is a serious environmental concern. Should any kerosene (the odd drip is likely okay) leak into your garden, the resulting clean-up can be catastrophic.
Because Kerosene is corrosive, should there be a sizeable leak, the clean up operation requires digging the ground until there is no trace of Kerosene left.
If you’re used to or prefer a simple monthly payment without having to even think about heating oil, our automatic predictive ordering service, Connected, will be right up your street.
All you need to do is fit a monitor to your tank (or we can arrange this!) and relax. We’ll handle checking your levels and ordering for you. We promise you’ll never run out of oil; it’ll be just like being on mains gas.
You can read more about automatic ordering here.
We’ve been providing customers just like you with heating oil for over 20 years. 500,000 customers and 100,000 Trustpilot reviews later, we’re the go-to for heating oil in the UK.
If you need any help or advice, our team are always on-hand to help. Whether it’s about ordering oil, paying monthly, getting your boiler serviced or anything else, give us a call on 01480 775454.
