typical 3-bed: 1,200-1,800L
Advanced options
Kerosene holds ~10.35 kWh per litre: at 62p/L through an 88% boiler that's ~6.8p per kWh of delivered heat: usually cheaper than electricity, pricier than mains gas, and volatile with the crude market. Off-grid rules of thumb: prices dip in summer (buy June-September, never in a January cold snap), 500L minimum orders get worse per-litre rates than 900L+, local oil clubs bulk-buy at genuine discounts, and a dipstick or gauge beats running dry (which airlocks the system and costs a call-out).
What The Heating Oil Cost Calculator Works Out
- Cost per year: litres used multiplied by the pence-per-litre price. A typical three-bed off-grid home burns 1,200 to 1,800 litres a year; at 62p that is GBP 750 to GBP 1,100, but the price is a spot market tracking crude and the season, not a regulated tariff.
- Effective price per kWh of heat: kerosene holds 10.35 kWh a litre, and your boiler efficiency decides how much reaches the radiators. At 62p through an 88% boiler that is about 6.8p per kWh of delivered heat, between mains gas and everything electric in the fuel league.
- Buy it like a trader: the same litre routinely costs 15% to 25% more in a January cold snap than in July, so summer fill plus winter top-up is the off-grid household's most reliable saving. Quote three suppliers per order and keep the tank above a quarter: running dry airlocks the burner and turns a fuel order into an engineer's call-out.
- Litres per delivery (advanced): sets the number of deliveries a year and the bill per tanker visit. The 500-litre minimum order pays a worse per-litre rate than 900 litres and up, and a village oil club aggregates neighbours' orders into tanker-load discounts.
- Cold-snap premium and winter share (advanced): the percentage uplift a distress purchase carries and how much of your oil you actually buy in winter. The yearly cost is adjusted accordingly; the default of 0% winter buying keeps the basic answer unchanged.
- Cold-snap penalty (advanced): what the whole year's oil would cost extra if all of it were bought at the premium, and how much of that penalty your current buying pattern incurs.
- Same heat from mains gas (advanced): the delivered kilowatt-hours bought as gas at the current price cap rate through a 90% boiler, for the lucky few within reach of a main.
- Same heat from a heat pump (advanced): the delivered heat divided by the pump's coefficient of performance (3 is typical, 2.5 to 4 the range) at your electricity rate. Off-grid the comparison runs against oil's 7p rather than gas's, which flatters the pump's case exactly as the grant schemes intend.
- Per month and per delivery (advanced): the monthly set-aside that smooths a lumpy bill and how many months of heat each delivery buys. Budget payment plans offer the same smoothing at a modest premium.