"Helen" wrote in message
oups.com...
Hello
6 years ago we bought a house with a oil Rayburn Royal OF7 fitted in it
- this provided all our heating,hot water and cooking. As we wanted to
put in more radiators we discovered that the Rayburn didn't have
sufficient capacity and we were advised to buy a new oil central
heating boiler for our heating and hot water and use the Rayburn just
for cooking. We now only have the cooker section lit. The Rayburn is
on a cooker setting of 2 all day everyday which gives a temperature
reading of 190 deg. We also use a LPG hob.

We have a 3 bedroomed detached house in an exposed area. We are using
between 5000 and 6000 litres of oil a year - this seems a rather large
amount and we are looking at trying to lower this. The obvious answer
seems to be to get rid of the Rayburn. Before we do can anyone give me
an idea how much oil the Rayburn is likely to be using? Should we be
turning the Rayburn down when it's not being used? I've contacted
Rayburn but haven't had a reply from them. If the Rayburn goes it is
likely to be replaced by something similar - does anyone know if the
newer models are more oil efficient?

Any help would be greatly appreciated
Regards
Helen


As a first step and making the assumption you have alternative cooking means
try taking a tank level reading. turning off the Rayburn for a week or more
then take a second reading to estimate the oil usage over that period
without the Rayburn running. Then repeat with the Rayburn running and
provided there isn't an extreme change in weather conditions you should have
a reasonable basis to judge what your course of action should be. (Oil usage
meters are available but not usually worth the cost here.)
The rayburn (and Aga) uses a natural draught vapourising oil burner as
opposed to a pressure jet and such vapourising burneres are NOT efficient by
any stretch of the imagination.
As regards the actual central heating usage this depends vastly on the
efficiency of the boiler, size of and insulation/draught proofing of the
house, occupation/control patterns etc. The above tests will give you a
better handle on the problems. It may be that the actual usage by the
Rayburn is high but affordable whereas the heating may be the culprit (I
don't know your financial circumstances so I cannot give an opinion) so it
could be that your house is leaking heat all over the place.
Can you fill in some of the blanks for us?

NB vapourising oil burners NEED a high level of ventilation which introduces
a lot of cold air into the room/house.
They have a high risk of Carbon Monoxide production unlike most pressure jet
type