Night time electricity is now cheaper source of heat then oil. Maybe a sign of oil bubble.

more likely a sign that electricity cost is about to soar.

There is no oil bubble, high oil prices are here to stay.

It seems to be a common misunderstanding to compare raw energy with delivered energy. Daytime electricity is around 20c/kWh incl all the levies and stuff.
What do you think the seasonal efficiency of your boiler is? It's probably less than 50% taking into account standing losses etc. I know this to be the case from heat measurements on commercial boilers. Overall seasonal efficiencies can be much lower, maybe 35%. At this rate oil is 3 times the cost of the raw energy. At 88c/l the raw energy is 8.5c/kWh, add another 5% for boiler servicing and replacement, and you start to look pretty expensive.
Then add the fact that and oil system is far more difficult to control in terms of timing in individual rooms and temperature, and you come to form the opinion that heating with electricity has been a better proposition for quite some time now, at the day rate.
Incidentally I dont rate nite rate storage heating, too much of the heat gets wasted, particularly in houses.

It's more like 60% to 90%, at least thats what Canadians think http://oee.nrcan.gc.ca/residential/pers ... cfm?attr=4 and that is seasonal effiency. So let's say you have this old cast iron boiler and you extract only 6 kWh from liter of oil,that is still 14c/kWh for heat delievered. Oil systems can also be equipped with thermostats and you usually have one already in place, while electricity heating needs investment.

I'm not talking about old cast iron boilers (which are probably in fact much better than most of the crap that makes up our installed base btw), I'm talking about the majority of conventional boilers in place as it stands. For the ones that are more efficient, such as recovery of heat from the flue, this feature may not be even enabled, or set correctly. Any boiler operating efficiently will need regulay maintenance, testing and adjustment.

The fact is that modern boilers I've seen tested have a seasonal efficiency of around 55%, which would be better than your average domestic boiler. This is not postulation from some guy on a blog, or from an ivory tower, it is hard data from the ground

Then add distribution losses in the pipework to get the heat to the place you want it, and losses in storage (such as hot water cylinders) and your overall efficiency drops probably below 40%.

Then add the fact that you cannot control for time and temperature very well even with zoned heating, as you are heating zones rather than rooms, and you will probably end up wasting another 50% of your energy.

Regarding your comment on electrical heaters, you can buy a radiant electrical heater for €10-20, controlled by a timed / thermostat socket. A socket thermostat is €15 and a timer is €5. So there is minimal costs on investment. Separately radiant heat gets projected better than convection heaters (used in wet heating systems) I use an oil filled radiator for the bedroom as obviously lighting is not an option during the night.

We cycle on and of maybe 6 times during the night in one room only. If you tried to use an oil boiler to do that, you can imagine the mount of heat you would waste.

The result is that our heating and hot water bills are €300 / year for a 1300 sq ft detached house, D1 energy rating, without suffering physical discomfort, but we have made window inserts (which prevent radiant heat loss through windows at night time, as even double glazed windows have half the insulating value of an uninsulated wall)

A quick point about night rate Storage Heaters... Most people don't have a clue how to use them, particularly in schools where the consumer doesn't directly pay the bill. Usually the controls are set in one position and left like that, not just throughout the day, but through out the entire year!

I'm in the midst of writing up a simple 'users guide' for the primary school to try to limit the energy usage and I estimate that we'll cut the entire energy bill for the school by more than 40% just by using the storage heaters correctly.

Schools are probably one of the best applications for storage rads, since they need a burst of heat in the morning. I totally agree about use of them. I been in situations where I get active resentment at the idea of having to go around adjusting them during the heating season

How about 'Input' and 'Output' set to max 24-7-365?

Is it the user's fault.
There were storage heaters in my apartment. No owners manual.
Went looking on the manufacturer's web site and found none.
Only worked out how they work by disassembling one and reading the general principles behind them on wikipedia or how stuff works website.

They're not a black box to most people, they're beige and most people can't figure out how they work.

I stopped using them except during the deepest depths of winter as they always gave heat when I was either tucked up in bed or out and about, not in the evening when I needed them.

I used a flame effect remote control fire effect heater instead as it gave heat when I needed it and only when I needed it.

Bargain alert: this week I just bought an electric oscilliating fan heater in Aldi for 19.99 with remote control, timer and thermostat with 3 year warranty. I expect it will make it's way to ALDI Ireland in due course.

If you are only in your house or apartment for 2 or 3 hours a day then conventional central heating is very wasteful.

Money saving tip #375: If you live in a semi-d or terraced house run a ground source heat pumping system in the wall against neighboring house, thereby extracting free heat.

I've been thinking...

The basic chemistry of diesel, light fuel oil (domestic heating oil) and gas turbine aviation fuel is pretty much the same and if your engine is sufficiently basic they're interchangeable.
Now, one of the main problems with using biodiesel (or home heating oil) in modern common rail diesels, aside from any duty implications, is that diesels have been engineered to a level of sensitivity that precludes using any fuel lacking appropriate detergents and lubricants. Is this now the case for oil-burning boilers? In other words, even if you can't run your car on domestic heating oil, could you heat your house with biodiesel? If you lived down the road from McDonald's, would anyone even notice?

(OK, I know that biodiesel differs somewhat from the fossil fuels, but if two types combustion chamber designed for alkanes can burn alkyl esters, is there a good reason why the other can't?)

Instant soluions to cold/draughts - I find in the winter that when I'm sitting on the sofa for any length of time, eg. watching a movie, that my feet and legs from the knees down get really cold. Sounds obvious but a lot of people don't do this - just get yourself a nice big soft snuggly fleece blanket/throw, they're cheap in places like Ikea. Throw it over your legs when sitting on the sofa watching a movie and it keeps you really warm. A big blanket is more sociable too if you have a significant other and you won't have to turn the heating up too high just to heat your feet.

If you live in an old house with a big draughty front door, consider getting/making a big heavy curtain to go over it (on the inside) and make sure it trails on the floor by a couple of inches - you can remove it in the summer. It will be a very effective draught stopper and it can look very stylish in an old-school way if you get the right one. I lived in a big old barn of a house in the mountains in Spain a couple of years ago and it was freezing in the winter. A big heavy velvet curtain in front of the front door made a massive difference. Tapestries etc were used as draught excluders as well back in the day, they're not just there to be pretty.

Finally, if you live in a place without double glazing, this kind of stuff is a great cheap and short term solution, esp if you are in a rental property: http://reviews.wickes.co.uk/9987-en_gb/210014/reviews.htm

Coles2 strikes some points with me. I have storage heaters in our new rental and underfloor heating. I have zero idea how to use them as there's two dials called Input and Output. why not just a temperature setting ?

And as for the underfloor heating. I have a degree in physics and I can design and fix most known types of software and hardware but this shit is miles beyond that.

I have the joy of owning a house where the underfloor heating installation was never properly finished, and it gave problems for five years, but neither the original installer or the equipment supplier would come and look at it. As a result i know every nook and cranny of it, and have even managed to install replacement parts which had to be ordered from Germany.

The ESB used to employ a guy to go around explaining these systems to people in the 90's. Maybe they still do.