Electric heating

albyota

Andy, I have to ask, how big is your house to be using that amount of electricity?

Pincher

He doesn't have gas.

albyota

Pincher, Nor do I, I was asking as there may be alternatives

andyrpsmith

I have a four bedroom thatched house built in 1670. No gas or oil. No double glazing until three weeks ago. No cavity walls!

I knew my heating costs would be quite high but I was shocked at my £3000 bill after I moved in 2008.

I thought about heat pumps but with an old house that is not as energy efficient it would not be that useful.

With the secondary glazing in the lounge is 8C with no heating on when outside is -1C

Before I guess it was between 0 and 3C as we used to have ice on the inside. Also the noise and condensation has been reduced by a huge amount.

Andy

albyota

If the house has now got double glazing, albeit 'secondary' thats a big plus, are they typically thick stone walls? (as once heated have great thermal mass, and can be better than standard cavity walls IMO), have most draughts been dealt with? (you don't want to completely seal the house as this would be cause other problems)
The reallity is that, at the moment you are using direct electric (100%) to heat the (in your words 'not as energy inefficient') house, heat pump's (i'm sure you have already researched) in the winter are around 220% efficient, so you could be getting the same amount of heat into the house for 'at least' half the cost. Although the capital cost to install can be upto £10k, the RHI incentives coming through hopefully could make it viable.

Pincher

albyota wrote: »

Pincher, Nor do I, I was asking as there may be alternatives

I just meant that medium user assumes 20,500kWh gas and 3,300kWh electricity, so 23,232kWh is exactly on profile:
i.e. there is nothing high about the kWh consumed.

I like heat pumps as well, but a 350 year old thatched cottage will have a lot of English Heritage issues. Splits are unlikely, Ground Source is possible but more expensive. In order to maintain the character of the place, I would have said solid fuel with backboiler, plus thermal store feeding under floor heating. UFH is unobtrusive.