Electric or oil?

Limana68

Hi there,
We are moving soon to a 3 bed semi in a small village ( No gas in village) The current owners have Electric Economy 7 heating at the mo.
We have never lived in a house with this system before, so have no idea how much the bills are going to be! At the mo we pay £52 mth for both gas and electric.
My question is do you think it would be a good investment to install Oil central heating? Is this more efficient and cheaper than electric? Or just upgrade the current electric heaters?( think theyve been in the house for years)
Was also worried that if there was a power cut, then we will have no heating apart from the coal fire in lounge.
Your thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks
Liz

bruce2110

your best starting point is to talk to the current home owners and find out what they pay at the moment, if there not helpful i'm sure some of your soon to be nieghbours could help you!!

as a plumber, i have noticed that customers do pay alot more when they switch to elec only,(but it is what you get use to though) and yes if there is a power cut you will loose the lot...

but remeber, the depending on the area you live in, the cost of installing oil fired system won't be cheap :eek:

again, do your research, and check your local area for plumbers and costing this into your move, get several qoutes for this type of installation.

if you also check on this board, you will find a lot of help regarding the bulk purchase costs of oil, there are quite a few sites that will compare the prices for your area ect

also on this site, you could also do comparisons on the cost of the cheapest elec suppliers, it could work out cheaper in the short term if you only intend to live there for a few years, as the money you pay out upgrading to oil will take many years to pay you back in savings compared to the electricity!!


hth, Bruce2110

Limana68

Thanks for your reply Bruce, the current owners are elderly and receive discounts for their bills but they rave about the electric heating! I must admit whenever we go and visit the house is always lovely and warm.
Well I will be busy doing loadsa research me thinks!!

Liz

Cardew

If you do a search you will find several threads discussing this subject.

This article will also be of interest.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/main.jhtml?xml=/property/2005/10/12/pjeff12.xml&sSheet=/property/2005/10/12/ixpright12.html

Mikeyorks

Bit of a converse story.

We moved into a large farmhouse on top of a Yorks Moor some 20 years ago. The oil fired c/h was via radiators and from a boiler that was absolutely huge and on it's last legs, The replacement quotes were enormous, and that partially because all the downstairs copper pipe feeds had been buried in the concrete floor, which had eaten into them and all needed replacing.

Couldn't afford that at the time - so ripped the whole lot out and installed Econ 7 storage in all but the main living rooms. In those (it had a separate 'granny'flat') we put large multi-fuel closed stoves.

We lived that way for 18 years. And personally I found the Econ 7 very good. But this was a 400 year old farmhouse and poorly insulated. as, despite the 2 feet thick walls, all the primary windows were very large single glazed sliding sash. Yes, complete with the lead weights and original pine shutters on the inside. They looked delightful, but are extremely draughty at above 1000 feet in a Yorks winter.

Experienced advice (hopefully)? :- Econ 7 is a background heating system - unless the property is extremely well insulated. And, even then, you will need some supplementary heat in the evenings of cold days - as the stored heat cools when you most need it. The risk from power cuts is slender - as the cut would need to be across most of the 7 hours the heaters store the heat during the night. Only happened to us once - owing to exceptional icing conditions bringing down the overhead cables that terminated on the pole in our garden. So would suggest its not a major worry

The heaters are basically maintenance free. So I wouldn't rush to replace the ones you say are 'years' old. Unless the outer covers haven't been well looked after and look decorously disastrous? The only real 'wear and tear' item is the bi-metallic strip that controls the heat input. It's very rare that one of those goes - and they're easy enough to replace provided you can identify the make / model - as the manufacturers tend to carry spares for years after sales of the heater are discontinued. But I did take the outer covers off every year or two to vac the dust out of the inside - astonishing how it accumulates from the air being circulated.

But you do need to be a bit of a weather forecaster! Nothing more irritating than having them on full, in a cold spell, then it's suddenly a warm day and you have to open a window to let out that heat you've just stored !

Personally - I'd live with them for a while before deciding whether to change. And, only if displeased, assess the cost of an oil system, where to site the tank etc.

Cost - we were paying £100 monthly when we left a year ago. But that covered the background heating / light / cooking and water heating for a very large and poorly insulated house

thyme_2

My monthly payments approximately worked out last year at 30.00 with economy 7 slimline but not the very latest and am all electric house. I have an alternative fuel in sitting room if temp changes too much which will push heat to other rooms. As to power cuts if they happen in day doesnt affect storage heating. If it happens at night then unless it is all night it seems to be sufficient to heat the following day. I agree with others if its not broke don't fix it wait until you have done some research and have lived there for a while. It will help the budget I am sure lol!;)