Heating oil price is up again to 142.20ppl today.
That is ridiculous given that petrol is 135.9ppl and a lot of that price is fuel duty and 20% VAT, whereas only 5% of the heating oil price is VAT.
Boiler Juice have answered the obvious question, Why doesn’t heating oil move in line with crude oil or petrol prices?
“Heating oil prices do not always rise or fall at the same rate as petrol, diesel, or crude oil. The delivered price of heating oil includes several additional factors, such as:
– Local availability of kerosene (a smaller and more regional market)
– Terminal, storage, and operational costs
– Haulage and delivery logistics
Because the heating oil market is more localised and less standardised than petrol, prices can move faster or appear more volatile.”
Yeah yeah, if you say so. We never buy from Boiler Juice (although it’s the easiest site for checking prices), not least because they charge a £12.99 service charge on every order, no matter what size. We are part of a local group who place an order on the last Friday of the month and generally get a better price than I, as an individual, can We did feel sorry for the new-to-the-area person who last month wondered aloud if he could place less than the minimum order of 500 litres because he didn’t have the money to pay for that amount. I guess he’s very cold right now.
We have discovered that, at this time of year, our now super-insulated house (well, as far as we can be in a property made of stone with its origins in the 17th century) can maintain a temperature of 17°C at this time of year, despite an outside temperature of 6°C maximum, given that the Aga is in the central part (that’s not going off), and provided we have the wood burner alight down the far end. That is more than acceptable.
After a few days of warm weather, including glorious sun and 18 degrees yesterday, it was around zero overnight with flurries of snow (which didn’t settle) this morning. We could see snow on the other (north) side of the valley (about 30 miles away), which is a hundred or so feet higher than us, until late afternoon.
First snowdrops appeared here on 21st January. First Iris Reticula soon after, first crocuses last week, and the first daffodils at the beginning of this week And, exactly a year after the first paths were cut in the orchard by Vroom Vroom, the (then) new ride-on lawn mower, I re-cut those paths yesterday. Let’s gloss over how I got VV stuck in the b33 enclosure, so that Mr BW had to remove the grass box and then lift it round so that I could get it back out. Oops. Luckily those b33s flying were in a good mood and didn’t give me any trouble.
Shep and I are having a competition to see who is most lacking in energy this week. I’m not sure who is winning.
