Post by @edavies@functional.cafe

2026-09-12 08:29 UTC

Ordered a heating oil tank fill on Thur Sept 3rd. Not urgent as I estimated it would take about 850 litres and the tank has a nominal capacity of 1000 litres, actually a bit more but probably not ideal to get too close to the bottom. Actual delivery on Mon 7th was 861L vs estimate (from logged boiler flow temperatures) of 856L - so pretty good estimate. My theory for not waiting a bit was that, with the low usage at this time of year, it wouldn&#39;t make much difference to when I next needed a refill and the situation in the Middle East could only get worse. Indeed, with the recent kerfuffle in Yemen the price seems to have gone up from £1.05/L to £1.14/L (https://www.boilerjuice.com/heating-oil-prices-scotland/) though the supplier I use tends to charge a little less than that. Haven&#39;t had the invoice yet. Still horribly expensive. My last fill in January was just under £0.59/L. Thank that git Trump. And yet the UK government is still going out of its way to discourage heat pumps.

Replies (2)

@theolodian@mastodon.social 2026-09-12 08:42

@edavies@functional.cafe is the £9K grant for a heat pump only in England?

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@jpnp@mas.to 2026-09-12 19:04

@edavies@functional.cafe How are UK gov discouraging heatpumps? Plenty of vested interests are and, judging by some of my recent conversations, they're still having an effect, but gov has: ● Increased BUS grant subsidy to £9k for oil boilers ● Loosened PD rights making heat pumps easier to site (without this I wouldn't have one and would probably still be arguing with local planning dept) ● Is bringing in changes which will lead to almost all new houses having heat pumps (coming in too slowly & a decade later than should have been) ● Has removing policy costs & VAT from electricity not gas, lowering the spark gap and making electric heat more competitive ● Is in the process of rolling out low/no interest loans through Warm Homes scheme ● Is running adverts on local radio & podcasts (at least where I listen) extoling the benefits of heat pumps Not that we shouldn't be electrifying faster, but I can't think of anything they've done to actively discourage heat pumps.

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