heating help please

tiddly_widdly

We have storage heaters and they are on econoomy 7. They have never been particularly cheap to run. Our bills are at the minute between £70 and £140 per month with British Gas, which is working out cheaper than other suppliers we were on

However, in this cold patch we've just had, we've been trying to keep the house warm and last months bill was £400 and this months is £800. My husband had a fit, (understandably)

We have put off changing them up to now but I dont think we can any longer.

Obviously, all heating seems to be getting more expensive. but should we go for Gas, Electric or Oil central heating. Or is there another alternative?

Any help would be appreciated.

macman

At current prices, (mains) gas CH is going to be the cheapest. Followed by oil, then electric.

mr-mr_2

Is it not cheaper to run a heater off the electric then use mains gas which seems to be priced sky high.

macman

No it is not-gas is approx 1/3 of the cost of electricity per kWh!
Gas heating is less efficient, but it's still vastly cheaper.
If you just want to heat one room with a 2kW convector, rather than heat a whole house by gas CH, then yes it might well be cheaper-but in that case you are not comparing like with like.

mr-mr_2

So what's the answer to try and keep heating costs down?

macman

Cheapest gas and electric tariffs, good insulation (prioritise loft, cavity walls and double glazing/draughtproofing), modern heating controls (TRV's, 24/7 programmers).
And lots of woolly jumpers!

penrhyn

If only they can get sheep to mate with kangaroos.:D

I'll get me coat.

savemoney

You appear to be paying an awful lot for heating there, hope your storage heaters are on E7 tariff

Like others said gas is much cheaper to use than electric. I would also look at ways if you haven't already of insulating your home and cutting down on drafts

B&Q have loft insulation at £1 a roll its £3 for 3 rolls joined together

Pincher

tiddly_widdly wrote: »

We have storage heaters and they are on econoomy 7.

However, in this cold patch we've just had, we've been trying to keep the house warm and last months bill was £400 and this months is £800.

Any help would be appreciated.

£800 on Economy 7 in December?

Theory 1: Meter Reading wrong way round

Theory 2: You are using the storage heaters like fan heaters during the day.

soya

the £400 & £800 bills are they the actual usage for the month or massively increased DD bills?

do you have the storage heater on 24/7? My guess it that the heat depleted quicker during the cold day and started using the day electricity to maintain the requested temperature.

HappyMJ

£800 for 1 month. That's 24 hours 7 days a week at constant usage of more than 7kw per hour @ 16p per unit. Or 11kw per hour every hour @ 10p per unit. Your house must be very warm all the time.