Replacing AGA - heating options?

laxeylady

It's that time of year again when me and him indoors fall out about how much the Aga is costing us to run. It's gas and also heats the water, we also have a gas fire in the dining room but we rarely use that. Over the previous year we used 28000 kw of gas. We used 9000 kw of electricity. We have convector heaters in bedrooms for cold snaps, a dehumidifier running during day and the immersion gets used every other day. We are on economy 7. I love the aga but know that spending this much money on a cooker that keeps one room warm and heats the water is a tad excessive. So what are our options? We don't want central heating. We use a wood stove to heat living room and the bedrooms are well insulated and toasty with the electric heaters when they're needed. Hubby is looking at a boiler just to provide hot water but to me that means the upset of getting rid of cold and hot tanks (plus our shower is a pumped mixer) and we would still have a cold kitchen. I thought underfloor heating in kitchen, and use the immersion heater for the water. Would this be as expensive as the aga? I can't find cost figures for immersion heating to compare. Hubby is dead against increasing our electric usage - hence his boiler idea. I don't know anything about underfloor heating either - can you get gas ones?? Any advice gratefully received.

undaunted

Would a rayburn be much more expensive to run for you?

If not that could give you central heating & heat the water thus removing the cost of the various other heating systems you are currently using.

Rayburn claim "When a Rayburn is used for cooking, heating and hot water, it operates at a level of fuel efficiency that equals – and sometimes betters – the separate provision of these functions." but unfortunately the only figures they quote are for the none central heating models

http://www.rayburn-web.co.uk/information-for-owners/living-with-a-rayburn/rayburnomics-.aspx

macman

Your electricity usage is already huge-more than twice the average. Gas heating is about a third of the price of electric heating, depending on the efficiency of your AGA.
Why are you on E7 if you have convectors and no storage heaters? I very much doubt that you are using the 33% (3,000kWh pa) cheap rate electricity that is typically required to make E7 cheaper than single rate.

laxeylady

We considered a rayburn but have spent the last year completely gutting the upstairs so don't want to be lifting carpets or having ugly pipes running up walls. Will look at the link though, cheers. Macman, we had storage heaters and have gradually replaced them. We still use our dishwasher and washer at night. Is our usage really that much higher than normal? Will get hubby to check scottish powers figures. I didn't know what 'normal' figures were. Cheers.

macman

laxeylady wrote: »

We considered a rayburn but have spent the last year completely gutting the upstairs so don't want to be lifting carpets or having ugly pipes running up walls. Will look at the link though, cheers. Macman, we had storage heaters and have gradually replaced them. We still use our dishwasher and washer at night. Is our usage really that much higher than normal? Will get hubby to check scottish powers figures. I didn't know what 'normal' figures were. Cheers.

That will not use anything like enough to justify E7. You should have switched to single rate when the storage heaters went. Get out your last year's bills and add up your usage on each rate-day and night. I doubt you'll be using anything like 3,000 kWh on cheap rate. And all your other usage is being charged at a premium price over standard rate.
Average UK usage is around 3,500 kWh for a 3 b/r house with gas CH and DHW.

laxeylady

Will trawl through our bills and have a rethink. The aga gets a stay of execution in the meantime! Thanks again.

laxeylady

Checked through our meter readings and for the last 12 months we have used 2445 kw of nightime leccy and 7025 kw of daytime. Now I need to find out the different tariffs! Lord knows what we have been using it on. We only bought the heaters in summer and the kids have only been using them for a couple of weeks! Sheesh!

HappyMJ

laxeylady wrote: »

Checked through our meter readings and for the last 12 months we have used 2445 kw of nightime leccy and 7025 kw of daytime. Now I need to find out the different tariffs! Lord knows what we have been using it on. We only bought the heaters in summer and the kids have only been using them for a couple of weeks! Sheesh!

That's only 26% at night. According to my tariff Npower price protector east midlands the difference would be

E7 tier 1 = £179.52
E7 tier 2 = £954.00
E7 night rate = £109.78
VAT = £62.17
Total = £1,305.47

If it was standard then it would be
Tier 1 = £118.66
Tier 2 = £1,114.61
VAT = £61.66
Total = £1,294.93

So if you switched to a standard tariff you would save 88 pence per month. Not a big difference but it is a saving. Personally I'd stay on the E7 tariff and stop using the convector heaters as much. I've never had storage heaters and I have an E7 tariff. I heat my water using night rate electricity during the summer so it brings my usage at night up to about 30% and the cost is the same either way.

Installing a boiler just for hot water will never save you money over heating the water using night rate electricity. It will appear cheaper on the bill but the boiler has maintenance costs to consider.

I would set a timer on the dehumidifier to run it only at night. It will remove enough humidity in that time.

macman

But if you cut your huge overall usage, the majority of that cut will presumably be on the expensive day rate. So you'll push your cheap rate usage over the magic 33% mark.
I still can't quite work out how you can use 2,445kWh on cheap rate running only a washing machine and dishwasher overnight?

[Deleted User]

laxeylady wrote: »

It's that time of year again when me and him indoors fall out about how much the Aga is costing us to run. It's gas and also heats the water, we also have a gas fire in the dining room but we rarely use that. Over the previous year we used 28000 kw of gas. We used 9000 kw of electricity. We have convector heaters in bedrooms for cold snaps, a dehumidifier running during day and the immersion gets used every other day. We are on economy 7. I love the aga but know that spending this much money on a cooker that keeps one room warm and heats the water is a tad excessive. So what are our options? We don't want central heating. We use a wood stove to heat living room and the bedrooms are well insulated and toasty with the electric heaters when they're needed. Hubby is looking at a boiler just to provide hot water but to me that means the upset of getting rid of cold and hot tanks (plus our shower is a pumped mixer) and we would still have a cold kitchen. I thought underfloor heating in kitchen, and use the immersion heater for the water. Would this be as expensive as the aga? I can't find cost figures for immersion heating to compare. Hubby is dead against increasing our electric usage - hence his boiler idea. I don't know anything about underfloor heating either - can you get gas ones?? Any advice gratefully received.

Apologies if I missed this... are you on mains gas or LPG?

Pincher

laxeylady wrote: »

I don't know anything about underfloor heating either - can you get gas ones?? Any advice gratefully received.

Gas boilers can supply regular radiators and under floor heating at the same time. The underfloor heating prefers lower temperatures, but that can be taken care of by using a thermostatic mixer.

You have to rip out the concrete floor by about 200mm deep. Insulate with 100mm of Kingspan underneath, and the periphery, otherwise all your heat goes into the ground and walls.

You must plan your kitchen layout meticulously.
Heating under your fridge/freezer is of course silly, but heating under cabinets with food can lead to food spoiling and possibly worse.

Poor planning will also lead to unheated patches, giving you a sinking feeling every time you step on it.