Heating water - Heating oil or imersion?

missmaus

Hello,
Wondered if anyone could help. We live in an area with no mains gas. We use heating oil for heating the central heating and water. Since nov 2010 the price of the oil has doubled to about 7o p per litre and I'm wondering whether it would be cheaper to heat the water by the immersion heater. We heat the water once a day for about an hour and this usually does us. I'm in the process of moving electric suppliers so that we're getting the best deal there. As an adjunct, if I have the central heating on and I put on the hot water aswell, am I saving anything or are the heating and water systems different and i'm using the same amount of oil as if I was using them seperately? Hope this is not too muddled. Thanks in advance for any help offered!!

macman

Oil is more than gas, but it's still much cheaper than heating by electricity.
Putting both CH and DHW on will use more oil than CH alone, assuming that the hot water needs to be brought up to the regulated temp. They are on separate circuits, but still supplied from the same boiler.

A._Badger

macman wrote: »

Oil is more than gas, but it's still much cheaper than heating by electricity.
Putting both CH and DHW on will use more oil than CH alone, assuming that the hot water needs to be brought up to the regulated temp. They are on separate circuits, but still supplied from the same boiler.

How about E7?

I'm currently dithering with the idea of heating a tank daily using E7 as opposed to oil, given the outrageous price hike this year.

Cardew

A litre of CH oil contains 10.2kWh, so at 70p a litre it mean you pay just under 7p per kWh before you consider the efficiency of your boiler. That efficiency can vary from a theoretical 95% for a very moderen boilers - down to perhaps as low as 50% to a badly maintained 30 year old model.

So, depending what price you pay for your electricity, there is little to chose between oil and the immersion heater.

I'm currently dithering with the idea of heating a tank daily using E7 as opposed to oil, given the outrageous price hike this year.

For most people without storage heating, the premium you pay on electricity used during the 17 hour period makes Economy 7 uneconomic.