Just after filling my oil tank a while back, I had two very irritating conversations. One with Nia, who said that her man in Leek charges 5p per litre less then Halso and Peak Oil. And one with Jane B who said that, whenever they are quoted a price per litre by Halso or Peak Oil, they always haggle and get a reduction. I felt I had paid over the odds.
So, please tell me – where do you get your oil? Does anyone have a cheap(er) supplier? Do you always shop around and, if so, who tends to be cheaper? Do you always haggle and get the pence-per-litre price knocked down and, if so, by how much? Who has had the price reduced by the most? If you get a good price next time you buy, put it on the blog so we can all jump on the bandwagon and get hold of some cheaper oil. This information would be useful for everyone in the village who heats their house and water with oil.
PARWICH.ORG 
And as this is Lynne G’s debut post on PARWICH.ORG, I’d just like to welcome her to the blog team.
Welcome, Lynne!
Hi Lynne, we get ours from Shell because it’s cheaper and they have always come down on the price if we’ve quoted costs from other suppliers. Peak Oil have always been the most expensive and least keen to do a deal! We’ll prpobably stock up again soon actually because the price is better now than it’s been for months and its probably not going to last!
We’ve always used Peak Oil, and I’m embarassed to admit that we’ve never haggled. Bearing in mind the horrific cost of the last two refills, I think we need to start shopping around….
I do not use oil, but why not get an oil users group together – cordinate delveries, reduce mileage and negotiate possibly even better prices.
I would just like to point out that I don`t have ` a man` in Leek…..
We used 4 Fuels last week and paid 33p/litre. What is everyone else on?
38p I’m ashamed to say.
mike G’s comment about getting together with a bulk order is a really good one- Shell would have given us a further discount had we done this- we just ran out of oil in mid July!! ha. So not many takers.
We need some more just to keep us topped up whilst the price is low, so if anyone else is interested in getting a bulk order from the same supplier (I’m sure having afew houses in the same village is good discount negotiating strategy- it is for Shell anyway) do you want to get in touch?
We buy from Halso but because we are bad on checking how much oil we have (we have two tanks and one was fitted pre Watchman era) we use a top up scheme so that whenever they are delivering in the village they come and check and top up if necessary. I suspect we are paying over the odds for the service but will now check.
I also wonder if they charge one price if you make a point to ask the price and a slightly higher price if you just order the oil.
A consortium of oil buyers is a great idea. If people like this idea, let us know and we can work out some procedure for getting together to order and negotiating with the main suppliers (Peak, Halso, 4 Fuels and Shell – any others?).
I wonder whether the Propane users can do the same? (although as the tank belongs to the gas company, and they normally ask you to sign supply contracts which cover a period).
Our propane bills seem to have gone through the roof over the last year or so, but I guess its no different to any other fuel.
Anybody have propane stories/advice they want to share?
It is worth trying Dove Fuels for oil, I always found them very competitive. Maybe Mr Currington would do a deal for those using solid fuel.
We use Halso. We bought a 1000 litres just before Christmas. At that time, we paid £387 inc. VAT, which I think was ~36.9 pence per litre.
I have spoken to Halso previously about some sort of oil “syndicate” but came to the conclusion that it would require a “lead coordinator” and would require a fair amount of time / organisation.
My understanding is that the price per litre changes daily and also changes according to how much oil you are buying. If you only order 500 litres the price per litre can be quite a lot more than if you order 1000 litres. I can’t recall what the next volume of oil is for the next price drop. For Halso, if six of you order 500 L they will treat it as a single order of 3,000 litres for working out the price….
The heating part of Halso said that they could offer good reductions on boiler servicing if a few people (can’t recall exactly but think they said they could do 4-6 a day) had their boilers serviced on the same day, as I understand a reasonable chunk of the service costs relates to getting the chap here in the first place.
There is a website called Boilerjuice which I looked at a couple of years ago, a work colleague recommended them.At that time there were not enough people in the area registered for them to be interested -it is obvious now that there would be, so it may be a simpler way to get a bulk deal than trying to start an independent group.Have a look and see what you think.
Hi,
I’m sufficiently keen on the idea of oil buying groups that I am doing two things. I’m setting up a directory to help people find a local scheme and I’m helping folk get a local scheme off the gournd if they want to. I already run a successful scheme in my own village. We’ve saved almost £10,000 in under three years. If anyone’s interested you can contact me via richard@oilconsolidation.co.uk
There is a bot of organisation but it’s really not that hard and the savings are well worth it.
At the moment the directory looks a little lonely with just my group on there but I want it to expand!
http://www.oilconsolidation.co.uk
Cheers – Richard
…one point I forgot to make in my last post. In the three years I have been running a syndicate I have always beaten the BoilerJuice price by a decent margin. In January that was by 6p/litre.
Every syndicate organizer I have spoken to says BJ is expensive.
Stoddards at Cheadle were cheaper than Peak Oil or Dove Fuels this morning.
I read with interest all the comments regarding the purchase of oil. I live in Devon and in March 2009 started a village oil co-operative which now, in a little over 7 months has grown to 110 families. We order four times a year with most members e-mailing their oil order to me. On the pre-selected day I then telephone 12 companies and ‘play them off against one another’. Our next order in December will probably be for about 50,000 plus litres so the discount we get is considerable. The biggest savers are people who normally order only 500 litres as they now are not penalised getting the 1000 litre price plus the bulk purchase discount. I have also started a yearly oil servicing co-operative, with a selected engineer charging between £40 & £50 servicing 50 boilers all in the same area over the same time. Start your own co-operative its the only way forward!
Hi,
interesting discussion, i work for universal fuels who are like a uk wide consortuim and they call round all the local suppliers for you and get you the lowest price. What do you think?
p.s.boiler juice are 10p over are current price and are more expencive then most other suppliers as well.
agree consortuims are the best way forward.