cheapest way to heat house

lordFSA

I know using GCH is the most efficient, but since I live alone, I dont need the whole house heated. So I was wondering, would it be cheaper for me to use an electric heater in the room I am in, or still stick with the GCH? Or maybe use the GCH for background heating and combine it with the electric?

Cardew

Use gas - switch off heating in the rooms not occupied.

victor2

Or, if you want the central heating to be available to heat the whole house without messing about with radiators, get a fan heater for just the room you use. Get one with thermostatic control and different settings like 1 or 2 KW. A 1KW heater will cost whatever your electricity charge per kWh is if you run it for an hour. I picked one up, with the features I mentioned, from my local B&M store just the other week for £7.99.
If you do turn radiators off except the one(s) you need, leave them on just a little to prevent possible frost damage.

JasX

Shut down heating / radiators in rooms not occupied.

Close all doors (esp to rooms not occupied).

Exclude drafts.

Invest in a blanket (/or spare duvet sheet) and keep it near the sofa.

Pincher

If you have a Band A gas boiler, for 10pence, you get

3kWh from gas, and
1kWh from electricity.

So obviously you would use gas, if the heat can be directed to one room only.

Unfortunately, the room thermostat in the hallway means that the boiler is kept on until the hallway is heated to the target temperature. If you turn off the hallway radiator, this will never happen, so the boiler stays on all the time.

Check your boiler specifications, and see whether it is a "modulating" boiler. It means the boiler turns the gas usage down, when it sees the returning water is still hot, so less heat is needed. On my set up, the digital thermostat has to be set to the correct mode to activate modulation, otherwise it's full power or nothing.

If your boiler can modulate down to 3kW, which should be plenty to keep one room warm, you can afford to have the boiler on continuously for the time you want to occupy that room. This means for every hour you have it on, you are spending 10 pence,
and you have a warm room. For exactly the same 10p, you can run a 1kW electric heater, and have a lukewarm room.

At initial startup, the room is cold, so the returning water is lukewarm, so the boiler goes full blast, and you hear a roar. Once the water is hot, the boiler will modulate down, and you hear a murmur. The hallway themostat will keep the boiler on.

victor2

So many IFs there.
I have a 25 year old boiler, which is nowhere near 100% efficient, but does a good job and would cost a fortune to replace.
As frequently stated here, electric heaters are 100% efficient, so 1KW in means 1KW out into the room it is heating. Add in the cost of the electricity to pump the water around the central heating system, the heat lost through the pipework to and from the only radiator switched on, plus presumably the one which is permanently on, unless there's some sort of bypass system, and it gets very complicated to figure out the cost.
I just have the central heating on a timer for mornings and evenings, then use a fan heater as and when I need extra heat during the day in the room I spend most of the day in.

Pincher

victor2 wrote: »

So many IFs there.

I know. The traditional GCH is just not meant for such precise targeted usage. If you can get 3kWh instead of 1kWh for the same money, there is a glow of satisfaction for the inner Scrooge, that's all.