Because people are now ordering home heating oil in smaller quantities, last week, quotes were nearly at an all time high of 95c per litre, and will probably keep increasing.

This means that home heating oil has increased in price by 111% in the last 24 months alone in Ireland.

If you buy your home heating oil in large quantities and can get the best price, approx 85c per litre, it has still increased by 90%.

This means that if you needed to spend €3,000 on home heating oil in 2009, then to get the same heat in the winter of 2011, it will cost you an astonishing €6,000 plus. Add in the possibility of record breaking freezing temperatures again, the risk of continuing high and rising oil prices and people are going to be in for significant financial pressure next winter.

According to the current monthly report from the CSO for March 2011: “ The most notable changes in the year were increases Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas & Other fuels was +12.5%.”

 CSO:-  ” The main factors contributing to the monthly change were as follows: Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas & Other Fuels rose due to higher mortgage interest repayments and an increase in the cost of home heating oil.”

What to do?; If you have not insulated your home, both attic and walls, you are throwing away money, there are still government grants from SEAI (www.seai.ie). After insulating your home to a decent standard, you should install a solar hot water system and you will get free hot water for several months of the year. Surface Power’s solar systems have the highest certified performance globally at 783 kWhrs/m2/yr, realtime data on www.surfacepower.com/live.html Substantial government grants are still available. Payback is now extremely short with oil at these levels.

These actions will result in more than a 60% saving in energy in your home annually.

SEE GRAPH BELOW