Note added 4th March 2017 by Steve J.
This post still seems to be getting quite a few views. A good source for oil, not available when the post was originally written is the village oil club, details of which can be found here
This email has come in from Keith P requesting information.
Last October I ordered 2200 litres of heating oil on the internet from Go Locate Fuel. It was 1.6 pence a litre cheaper (£35 total) than the price quoted by Peak Oil on the same day. Who delivered it? Peak Oil! However my tank would only take 2034 litres, and despite the promise of Go Locate Fuel to refund any amount less than that ordered I have not received said refund of £70. And the likelihood of receiving it seems slim, since I have since found a website full of complaints about Go Locate – many, many people claiming to have paid hundreds of pounds and not receiving fuel at all. So I feel lucky that I received nearly all I ordered, even though it was delivered late. I will not be using them again and recommend anybody contemplating doing so to check out the internet reviews of this company first.
That said, hope springs eternal. I have just ordered from Halso at what I thought was a competitive price by paying with a debit card when placing the order. Hours later I found another website called Boiler Juice which has been running since 2004. When I put in a request for a quote it turned out 0.45 pence per litre cheaper than I had just paid! On 2000 litres that’s £9.00 cheaper. Before I commit myself to dealing with this website in future, has anyone in the village any experience of dealing with Boiler Juice? Are they reliable? Keith Parsons.
PARWICH.ORG 
I am sorry to hear of your bad experience with the other website.
We have a number of customer testimonials on the following page, which may help you to make your decision: http://www.boilerjuice.com/feedback.php
Our network of participating suppliers includes local, regional and national suppliers, all of which enter their prices into our website directly, we then select the lowest price supplier from those that participate with us.
Keith,
I had a look at boiler juice but didn’t find them the best price. I rang all the local oil companies, and it was the last one on the list that gave the best price (naturally).
One thing to be aware of, is that apparently people are having oil stolen from their tanks. So be careful about identifying on line when you are filling up, because you just don’t know how wide this blog is read and it might make you a target for theives.
Debs
I’ve just read this. I used to work for Go Locate Fuel. The idea behind the company was to stop the stranglehold of companies such as BoilerJuice, who claim to be independent but actually own the vast majority of smaller companies that people think are separate.
When you order heating oil the price is hiked up by the cost of delivery. Ordering in bulk reduces the cost per litre, ergo making it cheaper for everybody, if ordered via GLF. Therefore the price per litre would have been cheaper than if you’d ordered it directly through the company that delivered it.
However, if anyone orders more than would fit in their tank, any over-order amount gets added to the account that customer has with us (in the example of the original poster, £70 would have been knocked off the next order rather than refunded).
As most will know, the whole of the UK was on standstill during December and January last year due to the inclemental weather conditions, to such an extent that the Government stepped in to try and help ease the situation. GLF offered 3 different delivery options, all of which clearly stated the delivery timescale for that relevant delivery option. Obviously the cheaper the price, the longer the delivery. Unfortunately, due to the poor weather, the vast majority of customers didn’t read any of the information, they simply saw the cheap prices, and ordered it, expecting it to be delivered immediately. As the basis behind Go Locate Fuel was to group orders together and order in bulk to keep the cost down, these orders would often take up to 4 weeks for delivery, something our website clearly stated, if people would have taken the time to read it. This lead to a large amount of customers then slating us in the media and on websites, and in turn people with legitimate orders that were en route, cancelled. The company is no longer operationable, which means companies like BoilerJuice can continue to monopolise the industry and therefore costs remain higher than they ought to be.
My heart goes out to those who are being left with little option when it comes to ordering heating oil through companies like these, they can thank those who left it til the last minute last year, didn’t read any information and ordered just on price. Their failure to hold their hands up and admit they jumped in with both feet and blamed us for something they’d done has left everyone else in the lurch. Good luck to those out there who need heating oil at decent prices.
having read what you said about boiler juice i feel that one statement of yours is wrong its not always cheaper to order direct and not from bj, to that end northern oils deliver for bj, their prices today are a hell of a lot higher than bj and its about 19 to 20 pence per liter, in this world we all hate paying for fuel, i use waste engine oil in my burner, but if i run out its bj for me, because they do what they say.
We have our oil from Halso. We pay an agreed fixed amount every month by direct debit. Halso then do a ‘top up’ system and call in without us ordering and top up our tanks. They leave a slip saying how much they have left and then we get an invoice telling us exactly how much this has cost us. The price is excellent and far below anything that I have seen quoted.
The advantages for us are that we can budget easily all year round – no bumper bills during the winter and we never run out of oil! Every now and again we have to make an adjustment to the amount – sometimes up and sometimes down.Halso like it because they can top up after visits to other people and they get money all year round. Seems a ‘win win’ situation to us.
That is interesting Patti.I had no idea that Halso offered this option even though I usually use them for my oil. I’ll certainly talk to them about this top up system. Thank you for your post.
Yes, I like the idea of budgeting through the year too. Thanks Patti!
In our village in East Yorkshire we operate our own Oil Buying group of approx 50 members all live within a 2 mile radius we order on a fixed calendar 5 times a year we always obtain prices of between 5% and 10% below Boiler Juice prices by our own dealing if anyone would like further details 01430 861194