Currently oil heating, now offer of gas - help!

Polly_Wolly_Doodle

Hi, don't know if anyone can help but please reply if you have any suggestions of how i can research this.

We are in a village and have oil for heating and hot water. We also have electricity for everything else including cooker and showers.

Today a bloke for the Energy Saving Trust or something similar appeared at the door saying that the village is getting mains gas in July(ish). The council are apparently converting all their houses to gas from solid fuel (brilliant as at the moment the washing stinks of chemical smokeless coal when it dries outside!) and will be buying boilers in bulk and will be selling off any surplus ones at cost price to non-Council properties.

Now i'm wondering are there any websites that can do a simple calculation on running costs and installation costs to give us something to think about.
At the moment we buy oil as required and obviously you pay up front, which means no extra DDs and once you've paid that's it. We seem to be able to be quite frugal with it, only put the heating and hot water on when we need it rather than on a timer. However the boiler isn't in it's first flush of youth and will need replacing at some point in the next five years (if not earlier).
I'd imagine the council houses will get combi boilers, so more efficient?
The other thing then that occurs is would we be better with an all electric system, i know you can get wet electric systems and i'd prefer that to storage.

Thanks,
PWD.

gas4you

Why would the council buy more boilers than they need?

I smell a rat here somewhere.

Cardew

The Energy Saving Trust don't knock on doors! I also smell a rat!!!

Phone the council and ask what is happening, it may well be that the contractor for the council houses might be able to fit gas CH at a subsidised rate with council approval.

There is no doubt that gas CH is cheaper than oil and electricity, however it is not cheap to install and there could be a further hefty charge to get gas from the main gas supply to your house.

Polly_Wolly_Doodle

Thanks Guys,
He did look genuine, Scottish Government sweatshirt, pda, id badges etc etc. We'll see what comes through the post. It was more the costs of gas versus electricity versus oil that i wanted to investigate.

bobmedley

Something similar in this thread - note the payback period

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/40690926#Comment_40690926

Also remember that if you have an old non-condensing oil boiler, they can often last for decades - new gas condensing ones appear to last around 7 - 10 years tops, so you should factor that in as well. Why do you think your current boiler needs replacing within the next 5 years?

Can't see how moving to electric would be economical at 10p/11p per kw unless you install storage heaters and E7 which would be a retrograde step if you are used to the controllability of a 'wet' heating system. An electric boiler would cost around three times as much as gas, unless you can get a tariff to suit (E7/E10?) you will be using standard rate electricity to heat the house and that's not cheap. (but it should be maintenance free saving perhaps £100 p.a.)

Check out the threads re heat pumps (there are quite a few:D), but again I doubt whether they would be cheaper than gas and the cost can be up to £10k to install (gas should be around £2k'ish).

I would wait for the figures and crunch the numbers carefully before making a decision.

Polly_Wolly_Doodle

Thanks Bob,
I think you can get 'wet' electric but probably cost prohibitive, although may be a 'greener' way to go.
Suppose being on gas would help when it comes to moving house as well. Will start the searching for boiler prices and fitting.
But you are right our oil boiler is about 15 years old and pretty much maintenance free, which doesn't sound the case with gas combis...
Cheers,
Polly.