Moving to house with electricity only - estimated bills????

CampbellH

I've found a few similar posts to this but most people seem to be looking at costs of installation as well as running costs so I was hoping somebody might have a bit more info.

I'm currently househunting and have so far limited myself to viewing properties with gas central heating as I'm in a place with electric heating at the moment and it seems fairly expensive. However, I was accidentally shown round a property that had only electric and as it was quite nice am considering moving in.

I need to know how much bills would be living in a flat that only has electricity versus a flat running on gas? It's a two bed flat. I'm guessing that heating is the biggest cost but there's also other costs such as heating hot water, cooking etc. that will contribute to bills. If anybody has any idea what the bills would be for electric compared with gas that would be very useful as I can work out whether moving in will work out to be too expensive?

noviceatsaving

Hi Campbell

I currently live in a two bedroom flat with just electric. The cost varies a lot depending on the time of year - we currently pay just over £60 a month but have quite a bit of a debt due to last winter, about £100. The cost evens out over the summer though as we use very little then. We very rarely turn the boiler on and use the kettle for most things like washing up - after we moved in we racked up about £60 in debt to the company over two months, so turned it off quick after that and now only 'boost' when we need to. We did heat the front room in the winter (using the economy time) and left the bedrooms' heaters off. One is smaller and had the PC in, so stayed fairly warm, and the main bedroom was only for sleeping anyway.

Anyway, to sum that up, we rarely use the boiler but do use the heat when needed and pay about £60 a month.

Cardew

You should expect electrical heating and hot water to cost between two to three times as much as gas - it largely depends on the efficiency of the gas boiler.

I assume you are renting? If not, you need to also factor in the cost of servicing the gas boiler.

CampbellH

Thanks both for the replies. That's useful info to have. I am renting which is why I only need to worry about running costs rather than things like servicing. Now I just have to make up my mind whether the cost is prohbitive to me moving in. Decisions decisions!

spinningsheep

My mate moved to a brand new property with electric convection heaters, not economy 7, and his bill was roughly £150 a quarter so that sounds about right. Was a 1 bed apartment, electric immersion (economy 7) and electric cooker/hob. But that was mid block flat so he was benefiting from the heat of the surrounding flats too, and being a new build the flat was very well insulated. He hardly needed the heaters on apart from on the coldest days and they were literally on for an hour or 2 in the evenings.