Bringing stability by protecting yourself from fluctuations in fuel prices

Fuel prices and their volatility

There have been fluctuations in fuel prices for as long as I can remember, going back to the 1970s when power cuts affected both industry and residential homes. At that time, the disruption was caused by industrial action by the coal miners. Since then, our reliance on oil and gas has grown, and today our lives are almost entirely dependent on electricity.

Whenever there is unrest in oil‑producing nations, our fuel prices are affected. Over the last 20 years, prices have risen and fallen as sanctions are imposed and later lifted. Gas and oil prices have also shifted in response to wars and even political attitudes toward global warming.

Reducing your reliance on oil, gas and the electricity from the mains grid can help you with your finances and in turn help reduce anxiety.

Many of the energy companies will allow customers to spread their spend evenly throughout the year thus reducing the fluctuations which come with the seasons therefore one has to consider ways to reduce the annual spend on heating and not focus on any individual month.

An integrated heating system which incorporates Solar thermal and Wood burning with a more conventional gas or oil boiler makes a lot of sense.

Solar Thermal

Solar thermal is almost ignored in the UK, and surprisingly few people even know what it is. When solar energy is mentioned, most people immediately picture a roof covered in PV panels. Yet those who have solar thermal installed will tell you how well it performs during the summer months.

Wood Boiler Stove

One of the easiest ways to reduce your dependence on oil and gas in the winter is to integrate a wood burning boiler stove. These are not so common and many people who sell wood burning stoves will not be qualified to sell or install them so they are not widely available. Those who are not qualified will most likely put off interested customers and try and sell them a simple wood burning stove which they are familiar with.

Historically wood burning boiler stoves were used to replace open fires with back boilers. In these situations the boiler stove acted as a heat source that could be used to operate a rudimentary central heating system but was limited by its manual operation and meant that if the fire was left to burn out at night then there would be no heating in the morning until the fire was relit. I like to think of this as a heat distribution system so when the fire is lit in one room it can distribute the heat to other rooms via the hot water being pumped round radiators in the house.

Thermal stores

The use of a thermal store in conjunction with a wood boiler stove can change everything and enable heat to be stored overnight so allowing the heat produced from the wood boiler stove in the evening to be stored through the night and used in the morning before the stove is re lit. The thermal store can also be used to provide domestic hot water throughout the property. I like to consider the thermal store as a ‘junction box’ for the home heating, allowing multiple heat sources to be integrated to provide DHW and central heating for the whole property.