Ditch the gas?

newtothishousemalarkey

Given the sharp rise in gas prices recently we are considering installing electric underfloor heating instead of gas fired central heating, and wondering if anyone has used an electric boiler purely for hot water?
Any advice or experience welcome as I'm still confused between different kinds of boiler - they all seem to assume they're to run a heating system.
Does anyone think this will make financial sense - with new loft and cavity wall insulation ?

Thank you

penrhyn

In case you haven't noticed gas and electric prices are linked.

Electricity is 4 times more expensive than gas, and the differential will most probably continue.

moonrakerz

penrhyn wrote: »

Electricity is 4 times more expensive than gas, and the differential will most probably continue.

.............as a third of the electricity in the UK is produced by gas fired power stations.

smogit2

You can get electric tap water only boilers, we have one, it looks like a normal tank insulated tank, but has a note on it saying it is a disk heater.

We have a choice of electricity or oil, and I reckon electricity is cheaper - not to say more reliable and no delivery worries.

Compared to gas, we have storage heaters + economy 7 (cheap electricity at night - 12-7am ish, slightly higher than normal in the day) and pay about the same as we did with gas+electricity living in a similar sized house before.

So... if you stay on day rate electricity underfloor heating is probably going to be more expensive (by some margin!). But. It may work out well in some places - I imagine underfloor heating will save money if you have cavernous rooms and don't want to heat the roof space, but have the floor not so cold, but for a normal house it seems not a good idea.

C_Mababejive

Electricity is a secondary fuel,i,e you have to burn fossil fuels to produce it.

For this reason alone,electric will never be cheaper than gas.

I really feel that for the sake of economy,a better switch would be to move backwards to the days when people had a good,well insulted hot water cylinder which was heated by a low input gas circulator..do they still make circulators?

moonrakerz

C_Mababejive wrote: »

do they still make circulators?

Yep ! I've got one inside my warm air unit.

http://www.johnsonandstarley.co.uk/downloads/ZZ0301.pdf

Barneysmom

After the last 2 bills I've decided that even if it's cold the heating has to stay off till at least September.
It's just too expensive now, so more layers for us, we've got plenty of t shirts and jumpers.

I never had central heating in my old house so I reckon we've got a bit molleycoddled and don't really need it, it's become a habit to flick the switch instead of going upstairs for another layer.

C_Mababejive

moonrakerz wrote: »

Yep ! I've got one inside my warm air unit.

http://www.johnsonandstarley.co.uk/downloads/ZZ0301.pdf

Yes these are excellent but i was thinking of a standalone unit. They used to do small balanced flued ones which were excellent.

giraffe69

well insulted hot water cylinder

I do this to mine if it leaks

sk240

Gas is the cheapest option for heating, electricity is 3 times more expensive for the same heat output.
Rather than going to the expense of changing your heating system you should get the house insulated as much as you can.
You can get the loft and cavity walls done for less than £400
Next if your boiler is quite old, get it replaced, you could see an efficiency improvement of upto 30%, this woluld reduce your bills by a third.