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Is ‘fuel poverty’ becoming a concern?

The term ‘fuel poverty’ is used by the Government to describe anyone living in a UK property and is spending 10% or more of their income on heating their home. Sadly this accounts for more than 4 million households in England* alone, with homeowners being unable to sustain the heating in their home. So how can you prevent this from happening?

There are many contributing factors to anyone being classed as in ‘fuel poverty’ particularly notable, and that can be remedied, are consumers not getting the best heating oil prices available to them and poor energy efficiency of the property.

Improving Energy Efficiency

As a general rule you should heat your home to 21° in main living areas and 18° in others for a satisfactory all round, liveable temperature. Although some of the below points may seem simple they are often overlooked and have proven time and again to help maintain the temperature in your property:

• Where possible, and particularly in rooms that need more heat, make sure all windows and doors are closed so prevent the heat from escaping
• Make sure any radiators, oil burners, Aga’s etc. are not covered or have anything in front of them so the heat doesn’t get trapped
• Use draft excluders throughout for extra insulation
• Do a home energy check to see how efficiently our property is running

Finding the Best Heating Oil Prices

Whether you are currently with a supplier or looking for a new one, an online search for ‘heating oil prices’ means you can apply for instant quotes and gather together enough information to compare the varying heating oil prices offered by different companies.

Although it may seem like a laborious task having to trawl the Internet, using the search ‘heating oil prices’ will bring up the most relevant results and a lot of the sites on the first and some of the second page of Google have quick, simple instant tools that give you a quote in just a few minutes. One example is Rix Petroleum who offer a step – by – step process throughout their website.

Don’t fall into the ‘fuel poverty’ trap. Although there are other factors to consider simply by searching for the best heating oil prices available and adopting some easy techniques your home will maintain financial and physical comfort for you and your family.

*Figure from http://www.poverty.org.uk/80/index.shtml