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Servicing, repairs, installations and tank checks for oil-fired heating across BA, BS, GL and SN, carried out by OFTEC registered technicians.
If your home is off the mains gas grid, as many rural properties across the South West are, oil is one of the most common ways to heat it. The biggest difference from gas is simple: with gas, the fuel arrives through a pipe from the street and you never think about it. With oil, the fuel lives on your property, in a tank you can see, and it is delivered to you by tanker. That one difference is why oil systems need looking after a little more carefully, and why it pays to understand how yours actually works.
Here is the journey your fuel takes, from the tank to a warm radiator:
In other words, an oil boiler is a “wet” heating system that works in exactly the same way a gas boiler does. It burns fuel to heat water for your radiators and taps. The only real difference is that the fuel store, the filter and the supply line are all yours, which makes an annual service more important, not less.
Oil boilers come as either heat-only (also called regular or conventional) models that work alongside a hot water cylinder, or combi models that heat water on demand. Older non-condensing boilers wasted a great deal of heat up the flue; a modern condensing oil boiler recovers much of that heat and can run at well over 90% efficiency, which on an oil system, where you are paying for every litre, makes a real difference to your bills.
As an OFTEC registered business we can supply, install, service and repair oil-fired boilers, and self-certify the work so you receive the correct building regulations notification without needing a separate inspection. We install quality appliances from manufacturers such as Worcester Bosch, Grant and Warmflow, several of which carry extended manufacturer guarantees when installed and serviced by a registered engineer.
An oil service is a longer job than a gas one (typically around two hours), because a proper service means stripping the boiler down rather than simply checking it over. It also includes a look at the tank and supply, which is where a great many oil heating problems actually begin.
The tank is the part of an oil system most likely to cause an expensive problem, and the part most often ignored. A leak is not simply lost fuel: heating oil contamination is treated as pollution, and the clean-up cost commonly runs into thousands of pounds, and it is not always covered by home insurance. Plastic tanks grow brittle with age and sunlight; steel tanks corrode from the inside out. Getting the tank right, and keeping an eye on it, matters.
Domestic oil storage is governed by Building Regulations (Approved Document J) and OFTEC guidance, which set out how a tank must be supported and where it can be positioned. When we install a new tank, or inspect an existing one, these are the requirements we work to.
A full oil tank is extremely heavy, so its base is not a detail to be left to chance:
To reduce the risk of a fire spreading to or from the tank, minimum separation distances apply. As a general guide, a domestic tank should be positioned:
A bunded tank is a tank within a tank. The outer shell contains the contents of the inner one if it ever fails, so a leak is caught rather than released into the ground. A single skin tank has no such second line of defence.
Building regulations and OFTEC guidance call for a bunded tank in most domestic situations: where the tank sits within ten metres of a watercourse or a drain, close to a boundary, above a hard surface where a spill could spread, where the fill point is more than ten metres from the tank, or where it holds more than 2,500 litres. If you have an older single skin tank, we will tell you plainly whether it needs replacing now, or whether it is sound and simply worth keeping an eye on. We will not sell you a tank you do not need.
Most oil breakdowns come down to a handful of causes: a blocked nozzle or filter, a burner that has drifted out of adjustment, contaminated fuel, a tripped fire valve, or air in the supply line. We carry common parts on the van, which is a large part of why most repairs are finished on the first visit.
If your boiler has locked out, reset it once. If it locks out again, stop and call us. Repeated resetting pumps unburnt oil into the combustion chamber, and turns a small job into a large one.
Modern condensing oil boilers are considerably more efficient than the units they replace, and a replacement is often the better economic answer once a boiler is beyond sensible repair. We will survey the property, talk through the options and give you a fixed price before any work begins, including any flue, tank or supply work needed to make the installation compliant.
If you are thinking further ahead, moving away from oil altogether to a low-carbon system such as an air source heat pump may attract a government grant under the Boiler Upgrade Scheme (up to £7,500 towards eligible installations). This grant does not apply to a like-for-like oil replacement, but if it is something you are considering we are happy to talk it through honestly and help you weigh it up.
The questions we are asked most often about oil boilers and tanks.
This is the single most common oil call-out, and often the simplest to sort. When a tank runs dry, air gets into the fuel line, so even after a top-up the boiler will not fire. First, find the burner’s reset button (a small red or amber button on the burner) and press it once. If it fires and stays lit, you are done. If it locks out again, stop. The line needs bleeding to clear the airlock, which is a quick job for an engineer. Do not keep pressing reset: each attempt pumps unburnt oil into the combustion chamber and turns a ten-minute fix into a much bigger one.
No, and this catches a lot of people out. A general plumber handles pipes, radiators and taps, but oil-fired appliances legally require an OFTEC registered technician who is trained on burners, fuel pumps, photocells and combustion. We are OFTEC registered, so we can service, repair, install and certify oil systems properly, rather than leaving you half-fixed.
Once a year. An annual service keeps the boiler running safely and efficiently, catches small faults before they become breakdowns, and, importantly, keeps any manufacturer warranty valid. Most warranties are void the moment a boiler misses its yearly service, so it is false economy to skip it.
It depends entirely on your home, the weather and how long the heating is on, so treat any figure as a rough guide rather than a promise. As a very general example, a system burning around four litres an hour, run for a few hours a day, will get through a few hundred litres over a month in the colder part of the year. The best guide is your own tank gauge: check it regularly through winter and order before it drops too low, as running completely dry causes the airlock problem above.
Yes, always, and we would say that even though it sometimes costs us the job. Oil boilers are robust, and a great many faults quoted as “needs replacing” turn out to be a worn nozzle, a dirty photocell, a tired pump or a blocked filter. These are parts, not a whole new boiler. We will tell you honestly whether yours is worth repairing or genuinely at the end of its life, and we will never sell you a replacement you do not need.
Very little. The oil provides the heat; electricity only runs the burner, the pump and the controls, which draw a small amount of power. Your heating cost is overwhelmingly the oil itself, not the electricity to run the boiler.