How long does 1,000 litres of heating oil last?
For an average UK home that heats with oil, about five months of steady use. For a small, well-insulated house it can be a whole year, and for a big draughty one, perhaps two or three months in a cold winter (my estimate). The tables below show where your house is likely to fall, and the last section works it out from your own tank.
Days by litres used a year
The oil supplier Rix puts the average UK home using heating oil at 2,512 litres a year (Rix, heating oil usage calculator). The other rows are examples I picked to bracket it. "Spread evenly" divides the year into 365 equal days. A cold stretch burns more than that, so the last column assumes twice the yearly average a day. That factor is my assumption, not a measured figure.
| Litres a year | Litres a day, average | 1,000 L lasts, spread evenly | 1,000 L lasts, cold stretch |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1,000 | 2.7 | 365 days | 182 days |
| 1,500 | 4.1 | 243 days | 121 days |
| 2,512 | 6.9 | 145 days | 72 days |
| 3,500 | 9.6 | 104 days | 52 days |
Your own yearly figure is on your delivery tickets: add up the litres over twelve months. One supplier says the same 1,000 litres "may last one home a year, and it may last one family three months" (Crown Oil).
Days by hours the boiler runs
Rix also gives a burn rate of 2.33 litres per hour of heating, about 24 kWh an hour at 10.35 kWh per litre of kerosene. It quotes cold days at 8 to 15 hours of heating. Here is 1,000 litres at that rate for three patterns of day.
| Heating hours a day | Litres a day | 1,000 L lasts |
|---|---|---|
| 4 | 9.3 | 107 days |
| 8 | 18.6 | 53 days |
| 15 | 35.0 | 28 days |
In energy terms, 1,000 litres holds about 10,350 kWh of fuel, using Rix's 10.35 kWh per litre. Their average home uses about 26,000 kWh a year, so one 1,000 litre delivery covers roughly 40% of a year. The kWh per litre is a gross figure, so the heat that reaches the radiators is lower once boiler losses are taken off.
Is 1,000 litres a full tank?
Often it is a little under. Many bunded tanks hold 1,200 litres or more (the 1200 litre oil tank chart has the depth-to-litres tables), and a 1,000 litre delivery into a half-empty one leaves room. Check the level first and order what fits. Delivery minimums vary by area; Crown Oil lists 500 litres as the minimum for home heating oil in the North West.
Work out your own number
Averages only get you so far. Two dips of the tank a week or two apart give your actual rate. Example: a Titan EcoSafe ES1225 dipped at 100 cm on 4 January (803 L) and at 90 cm on 18 January (723 L). That is 80 litres in 14 days, 5.7 litres a day, so the 601 litres above a 10% reserve last another 104 days. The litres come from the label capacity scaled to the tank's outside size, so treat them as approximate (the 1200 litre page explains why).
Open this example in the calculator and replace the dates and depths with yours. The page how long will heating oil last explains the same steps in gallons.
What moves the number
- If your boiler also heats the water, it burns oil all year, so a summer with no heating still uses some.
- Insulation, house size, boiler efficiency and how many hours the heating is on all change the number.
- Rix puts the storage life of heating oil at 18 to 24 months if it is kept and maintained properly, so a slow year is not a reason to rush it.