A bit more detail in the question might help. Assuming you mean for house heating or for domestic hot water (not your car) then a bit of info about how big the house is and how much oil you use at present would be useful.
Nick
As a ballpark figure what sort of improvement in efficiency might one reasonably expect from a modern condensating oil boiler against an early 70's Ferroli behemoth which is about 1/2 cu/m in size and has a separate replaceable burner !
Buying into a NEW oil fired system........ madness madness, madness - obviously the price rise of €0.15 per litre in the last week hasn't filtered out to the campagne.
Look at Solar and life looks brighter and more comforatble and more affordable no matter what the Barrel price is.
....... Or am I missing the all important view of reality.
Andrew
ErnieY wrote: As a ballpark figure what sort of improvement in efficiency might one reasonably expect from a modern condensating oil boiler against an early 70's Ferroli behemoth which is about 1/2 cu/m in size and has a separate replaceable burner !
I would be very interested in this as well. Not only do we have a giant old inefficient oil fuelled boiler, I would love to take down the chimney breast that runs up through the middle of the house that it is connected to. I have asked our plumber about a condensating boiler and he says it is not a good idea, our house is too big for this, in fact I had difficulty explaining to him what a condensating boiler is. Our house is not very big at around 200 meters.
I wonder perhaps that condensating boilers aren't that common in France or is it just our plumber? Does anyone here have a suggestion about what sort of boiler we should be looking at and would it need a chimney? I have asked similar questions here before and as with the OP it does seem to be a real conundrum at the moment because of the price of oil.
By the way, we have iron rads and our plumber has suggested that we look at an external above ground heat pump in the future to subsidise our current huge red duel fuel (wood and oil but have never tried using wood based on what others have said about not trying it) to run the central heating and hot water.
foxyloxy25 wrote:I'm Plod (on my wife's log-in!). The house has 3/4 bedrooms, two baths and hot water and central heating come from oil. I had thought that the cost of conversion would make it not viable financially but wondered if anybody had done it. I think we have a relatively limited time in this house so the cost of any major expenditure (eg solar) may not be recouped.
'recoup'... 'pay-back'.... amortisation.... get your money back'.....!!!!!!
I hear this all the time when anyone is looking at renewable energy systems.
Its really funny that I never read it or heard anything like it when a renovator is talking about fossil fuel systems which are by far the majority of installations. Its a curious piece of psychology I think ,that in the past we've been ripped off, dumped on, lied too, polluted out of or health and generally taken the mickey out off by energy giants for generation and we just accept it.... 'OK well if that's what it cost then I guess I just have to pay it... 've got no choice after all'.
Now that there are viable choices... that actually work, and are better for comfort, health, purse, environment community, its 'that's all very well my son with your fancy renewable energy gizmo but when am I going to get my money back? What…! 8 years!!!!! Can't wait that long... you're joking! Its ugly too....!
(never seen a pretty oil boiler in my life)
Its going to be the next generation that will have the foresight to understand and act on the consequence of their individual choices for home energy consumption because its sure that this generation is too pre-occupied with keeping the 'home (oil) fires burning, and keeping those carbon emission coming', maintaing the staus quo to change anything even if the price climbs faster than a rattle snake up a drain pipe.
I don't think that anyone should have to be a crusader to consider these technologies seriously,…… just awake and with an elementary grasp of arithmetic will do.
Here's hoping that I have put this audience to sleep!
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