Is Electric Central Heating now a viable option?

2

Comments

  • mech_2
    mech_2 Posts: 620 Forumite
    For comparison with amtrakuk, I live alone in a small 3-bed semi (2 bed plus box-room really) with a condensing mains-gas fired combi boiler (it cost £1600 in 2005 to replace my old boiler and hot water tank). My summer gas usage is roughly 6 units per day and electricity usage is 4.8 units/day. Annual usage would be about 13000 kWh/year gas, 2100 kWh/year electricity (if I was at home all year round) which would fit a dual fuel direct debit of £56 a month on my current tariff (Scottish Power Fixed 2011).

    Average boiler life expectancy is around 15 years (forget the myths). I wouldn't bother with servicing every year, especially with a new boiler. Nobody in my family ever has.

    I wouldn't bother with boiler cover either - £18 a month times 15 years is £3240. More than enough for a few repairs and a new boiler at the end of it.
  • tyllwyd
    tyllwyd Posts: 5,496 Forumite
    We used to have electric night storage heaters (in a 3 bed 1930s house) and last year changed to gas central heating. We have found the gas cheaper, and it heats up a lot quicker when you need it - in particular when we've been away for the weekend and come back to a cold house. On the other hand, with the night storage heaters there was a background heat most of the time, so on average it seemed warmer. The tariff we were on had quite a few daytime hours, so I did have to learn to look at the weather and switch off the heaters manually if it was a warm day - throwing the windows open because it was stuffy on a nice autumn morning was an expensive habit.
  • amtrakuk
    amtrakuk Posts: 630 Forumite
    mech wrote: »
    For comparison with amtrakuk, I live alone in a small 3-bed semi (2 bed plus box-room really) with a condensing mains-gas fired combi boiler (it cost £1600 in 2005 to replace my old boiler and hot water tank). My summer gas usage is roughly 6 units per day and electricity usage is 4.8 units/day. Annual usage would be about 13000 kWh/year gas, 2100 kWh/year electricity (if I was at home all year round) which would fit a dual fuel direct debit of £56 a month on my current tariff (Scottish Power Fixed 2011).

    Average boiler life expectancy is around 15 years (forget the myths). I wouldn't bother with servicing every year, especially with a new boiler. Nobody in my family ever has.

    I wouldn't bother with boiler cover either - £18 a month times 15 years is £3240. More than enough for a few repairs and a new boiler at the end of it.

    I can see you're point with servicing a new boiler. I inherited my ravenheat combi with the house when I moved in. Its not until it goes wrong you realise how much you miss it. Im not a corgi engineer so therefor am unable to service or repair the boiler by law.

    About 4 years ago the clock went on the boiler which disabled the whole thing (no heating or hot water). I could have got a boiler engineer to replace it but that would have been a 5 day wait and about £50 to replace, even though the clock itself was about £15.

    Last year was the nail in the coffin for it. The heat exchanger went and the central heating system needed flushing (the cause of the heat exchanger failing). It was a catch 22 as the BG engineer said on a boiler of this age (about 7-8 years) if he power flushed the system it would burst the heat exchanger. i was told the heat exchanger was not covered by the cover I had.

    From what I understand older boilers though not as efficient were built to last. Newer boilers use cheap material to keep the costs down, if the manufacturers were confident their boiler would last 10+ years surely the warranty would reflect this, eg http://www.diy.com/diy/jsp/bq/nav/nav.jsp?action=detail&fh_secondid=9375633&fh_view_size=6&fh_location=%2f%2fcatal!!!1%2fen_GB&fh_search=boiler&fh_eds=ß&fh_refview=search&ts=1220544093574&isSearch=true £399 for a condensing combi but only has 1 year warranty
  • bryanb
    bryanb Posts: 4,988
    First Post Combo Breaker First Anniversary
    Forumite
    mogedwards wrote: »

    I need to replace my gas boiler, which is about 20 years old and has never had a problem,.

    .......Why?
    This is an open forum, anyone can post and I just did !
  • mech_2
    mech_2 Posts: 620 Forumite
    amtrakuk wrote: »
    I can see you're point with servicing a new boiler. I inherited my ravenheat combi with the house when I moved in. Its not until it goes wrong you realise how much you miss it. Im not a corgi engineer so therefor am unable to service or repair the boiler by law.

    About 4 years ago the clock went on the boiler which disabled the whole thing (no heating or hot water). I could have got a boiler engineer to replace it but that would have been a 5 day wait and about £50 to replace, even though the clock itself was about £15.

    Last year was the nail in the coffin for it. The heat exchanger went and the central heating system needed flushing (the cause of the heat exchanger failing). It was a catch 22 as the BG engineer said on a boiler of this age (about 7-8 years) if he power flushed the system it would burst the heat exchanger. i was told the heat exchanger was not covered by the cover I had.
    Oh dear, rotten luck. Though I notice you don't say he said it was unrepairable, just that it wasn't covered for the repair. Did you investigate what the repair would have cost compared with a new boiler install?
    From what I understand older boilers though not as efficient were built to last. Newer boilers use cheap material to keep the costs down, if the manufacturers were confident their boiler would last 10+ years surely the warranty would reflect this,
    I know that's the accepted wisdom, and old cast-iron boilers are certainly chunkier, but surely there's an element of natural selection going on there? If a boiler has lasted 20 years, it can't have been that shoddy to begin with. But that doesn't mean that all the boilers manufactured 20+ years ago were destined to last that long. I have seen estimates that 20% of boilers in the UK are over 20 years old. Even with a 20% growth in the installed boiler population since then, that means 76% of the boilers in use 20 years ago have been replaced already.

    Or look at UK boiler sales. Of an installed base of 21 million, the replacement market is about 1.2 million. That suggests to me an average lifetime of 17.5 years, though that doesn't necessarily mean every boiler that was replaced was unrepairable.

    As I understand it, boiler manufacturers are obliged to stock spares for a given model for at least 10 years. This would put a minimum on their life expectancy barring economic factors, but I would be surprised if it was cheaper and less labour to replace a whole boiler (probably involving alterations to the plumbing) than to replace any given part. Obviously, switching to electricity sidesteps the costs in either case (issues of running costs aside), but most people don't seem to go down that route anyway.
    Gosh that is ludicrously cheap. I think mine probably retailed at about double that when it was new.

    I'm not sure I can hold warranties as an indication of life expectancy though. What warranties did boilers come with 30 years ago?
  • Cardew
    Cardew Posts: 29,036
    Name Dropper First Anniversary First Post Rampant Recycler
    Forumite
    mech wrote: »
    I know that's the accepted wisdom, and old cast-iron boilers are certainly chunkier, but surely there's an element of natural selection going on there? If a boiler has lasted 20 years, it can't have been that shoddy to begin with.

    This is an interesting and very important(from a money saving perspective) subject.

    I have read plenty of reports that, as modern condensing boilers are stuffed full of electronics, that 10 years life expectancy is as much as you can expect.(in line with the Daily Telegraph article in post #6 above) Reports of heat exchangers and PCBs needing replacement abound.

    Now I have no idea if that is true, and it is very difficult to find any reliable data to support or disagree with that figure.

    I don't know if you have read this article about a report from Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors:

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2667457/Green-initiatives-are-waste-of-money-experts-warn.html
    About boilers they state:
    Installing a condensing boiler – frequently cited as one of the best ways to improve the energy efficiency of a home – can take 18 years to make a pay back.
    The average cost of installing one of these modern boilers is £1,720, but saves on average just £95 off people's gas bills.
    I would disagree with their economics!

    If someone invested £1,720 it would produce at least £95 in interest. If the boiler lasts 10 years and needs to be renewed, it makes no sense to me to replace a boiler.

    The above is why I am soldiering on with my 20 year old gas boiler, because I don't believe it is an economic proposition for me to change.
  • mech wrote: »
    Oh dear, rotten luck. Though I notice you don't say he said it was unrepairable, just that it wasn't covered for the repair. Did you investigate what the repair would have cost compared with a new boiler install?

    I know that's the accepted wisdom, and old cast-iron boilers are certainly chunkier, but surely there's an element of natural selection going on there? If a boiler has lasted 20 years, it can't have been that shoddy to begin with. But that doesn't mean that all the boilers manufactured 20+ years ago were destined to last that long. I have seen estimates that 20% of boilers in the UK are over 20 years old. Even with a 20% growth in the installed boiler population since then, that means 76% of the boilers in use 20 years ago have been replaced already.

    Or look at UK boiler sales. Of an installed base of 21 million, the replacement market is about 1.2 million. That suggests to me an average lifetime of 17.5 years, though that doesn't necessarily mean every boiler that was replaced was unrepairable.

    As I understand it, boiler manufacturers are obliged to stock spares for a given model for at least 10 years. This would put a minimum on their life expectancy barring economic factors, but I would be surprised if it was cheaper and less labour to replace a whole boiler (probably involving alterations to the plumbing) than to replace any given part. Obviously, switching to electricity sidesteps the costs in either case (issues of running costs aside), but most people don't seem to go down that route anyway.


    Gosh that is ludicrously cheap. I think mine probably retailed at about double that when it was new.

    I'm not sure I can hold warranties as an indication of life expectancy though. What warranties did boilers come with 30 years ago?

    Hi there.

    I was advised to get the boiler changed as was more economical to do this in the long run, new wine in old bottles syndrome.

    My mother has a forced air heating system that seems as old as the house, she has been in the house for 18 years and although still under british gas home-care is still going strong except for the odd thermocouple needing replaced every 4 or 5 years. She was worried about having to replace the boiler after one year it was making some rather unhealthy noises. Turns out the fan motor bearings had failed and these were duly replaced.

    She asked how much it would be replace the boiler but the BG engineer advised her to keep the forced air system as there is very little to go wrong with forced air systems compared with a radiator system.
  • mech_2
    mech_2 Posts: 620 Forumite
    Cardew wrote: »
    This is an interesting and very important(from a money saving perspective) subject.
    Yes, so it's important not to be too hasty.
    I have read plenty of reports that, as modern condensing boilers are stuffed full of electronics, that 10 years life expectancy is as much as you can expect.(in line with the Daily Telegraph article in post #6 above) Reports of heat exchangers and PCBs needing replacement abound.
    Heat exchangers, yes. As I understand it, the early British built condensing boilers were dreadfully bad designs. They were just conventional boilers with a second heat exchanger tacked onto them. Small amountss of the acidic condensate would get to the unhardened primary heat exchanger would eventually rot it. Not really relevant to new boilers and statistically unimportant as well, because condensing boilers made up a tiny proportion of the market at that point, but I'm sure people whose boilers failed complained loudly.

    I've not heard very many reports of dead PCBs. Anecdotal rather than statistical? I junked my 20 year old washing machine because it was ugly and noisy, not because it didn't work and that was full of electronics too - old enough to have "microprocessor controlled" emblazoned on it in big letters. In fact most electronic goods get junked for mechanical faults or obsolescence, not because they break down. Voyager 1 was launched a few months before I was born and it's still sending data back to Earth.

    Still, a replacement PCB for my boiler costs £150, a replacement heat exchanger costs £105. The boiler retailed at something in the region of £800-£900.
    Now I have no idea if that is true, and it is very difficult to find any reliable data to support or disagree with that figure.
    Indeed, but I'm not sure I'd rely on a newspaper. This report: http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file20973.pdf has a section on scrapping rates on page 29, though it is from 2005.
    I don't know if you have read this article about a report from Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors:

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2667457/Green-initiatives-are-waste-of-money-experts-warn.html
    About boilers they state:


    I would disagree with their economics!

    If someone invested £1,720 it would produce at least £95 in interest. If the boiler lasts 10 years and needs to be renewed, it makes no sense to me to replace a boiler.
    To be pedantic, you really should take inflation off the interest and probably add it to ongoing savings too.
    The above is why I am soldiering on with my 20 year old gas boiler, because I don't believe it is an economic proposition for me to change.
    I don't think it's sensible to replace a working boiler purely to gain lower running costs, but if a boiler has already failed it's not clear to me that it's better to switch to possibly more expensive fuels.

    Old boilers will all fail eventually anyway, it's just a matter of when.
  • Cardew
    Cardew Posts: 29,036
    Name Dropper First Anniversary First Post Rampant Recycler
    Forumite
    mech wrote: »

    If someone invested £1,720 it would produce at least £95 in interest.

    To be pedantic, you really should take inflation off the interest and probably add it to ongoing savings too.

    Agree with all your post above. I thought the Government study in the link you provided was excellent.

    I hope indeed that 15 years is a more typical lifespan for boilers than the 10 years that is bandied about.

    On the economics of replacement, to be equally pendantic you could add a whole string of other factors into the equation. My point was that so many people seem to adopt a simplistic view about payback times. e.g. Capital expentiture £3,000 annual savings £200 therefore payback in 15 years.
  • Cardew
    Cardew Posts: 29,036
    Name Dropper First Anniversary First Post Rampant Recycler
    Forumite
    I will give it a go!

    Firstly, there have been new regulations on ventilation for boilers. My boiler is in a purpose built outside boiler room attached to the garage. For 15 years it was OK but then I have had to have a new additional ventilation vent cut through the wall.

    I won't advise on the safety issue as I am not qualified to do so, but personally I can't see that any boiler in a properly vented situation should present a problem. As for the "its a Death Trap" comment but it is OK carry on using it for another year!!!!!!

    Question 2 The electric v gas running costs question has been discussed in several threads in this forum and I suggest you read them. Essentially it boils down to higher running costs of electric(but no maintenance or new boiler installation costs) versus lower gas prices. Lots of other factors - economy 7 etc to be put into the equation.

    Why not give it a trial? A few heaters won't cost much.

    Question 3. A wall mounted Combi is likely to be cheaper to install. You can choose to have it supplying your HW tank(I would) or remove tank and have it supplying HW on demand. No losses from HW tank but not a plentiful supply of HW - particularly in winter.

    Question 4 No No No! The option in question 2 will provide the same heat for a fraction of the price of installation.
This discussion has been closed.
Meet your Ambassadors

Categories

  • All Categories
  • 342.5K Banking & Borrowing
  • 249.9K Reduce Debt & Boost Income
  • 449.4K Spending & Discounts
  • 234.6K Work, Benefits & Business
  • 607.1K Mortgages, Homes & Bills
  • 172.8K Life & Family
  • 247.4K Travel & Transport
  • 1.5M Hobbies & Leisure
  • 15.8K Discuss & Feedback
  • 15.1K Coronavirus Support Boards