LPG or Oil??

adr0ck

you may get a better response on the green and ethical moneysaving board

my understanding from speaking to worcester bosch chap is that they will cost more to run in electricity per year than lpg or oil would cost to heat

Cardew

From what I have read it is the huge capital cost of installing that is the biggest problem.

If you pay £20,000 to install, just the interest payments @ 6% alone(before you start to pay back the loan) are £1,200 and you ain't going to make that sort of saving.

harryhound

Many thanks to both of you for these observations.

It looks like you spoke to someone at Worcester, who cannot understand why he has been givwen this new product to sell - I had the same problem !

If you are sucking the heat out of the garden and pumping it into underfloor heating the installation of what is in effect a boiler replacement should not cost more than 10K (the "hot" side of the equation costs the same what ever sort of boiler you have if you go for underfloor). It qualifies for a "green" kick-back from the government.

You are meant to get a Coefficient of Performance of 4 ie you put in 1 unit of electricity and get out 4 units of heat. There is also an element of night storage in that you keep the big fridge freezer trundling along 24 hours per day, it might throttle itself back on a warm sunny afternoon and produces maximum output during the economy 7 night.

As a newly retired pensioner, I have loads of cash but a much reduced income, so I can afford to pay cash if it makes sense to "future proof" my heating. (I don't think Gordon has thought of a way of taxing carbon SAVING
but he charges me 20% on interest, half of which is simply keeping up with inflation.)

I think the French are going for it in a big way, because they need to keep all those nuclear power stations ticking over.

I don't want to hijack this thread so I will start my own. I'm only "light green",
I'm in it more for the money not the nice warm feeling of looking after the planet.

Harry.

Cardew

harryhound wrote: »

As a newly retired pensioner, I have loads of cash but a much reduced income, so I can afford to pay cash if it makes sense to "future proof" my heating. (I don't think Gordon has thought of a way of taxing carbon SAVING
but he charges me 20% on interest, half of which is simply keeping up with inflation.)


Harry.

I think a thread on this would be a good idea.

However, whilst I take your point about you personally being 'asset rich but income poor', if you are to do a realistic appraisal of the economics it is still important to take into account the costs of the system and the interest charges in borrowing the sums for the installation; or in your case the compounded lost interest on money withdrawn from investments.

My objection to the way Solar/wind systems are marketed(even if you were to accept the often criminally optimistic claims for their output) is the simplistic 'pay back' calculations used e.g. System cost £10,000 savings £500pa so pay back time is 20 years.

If you have a £100,000 mortgage, and pay back £5,000 a year, your period of mortgage is not 20 years - and neither is the £10,000/£500pa example above.

The other thing is to take into account maintenance/servicing etc, again there is an assumption that these things run forever - they don't!

adr0ck

my question to the bosch rep regarding these was

"what would the financial cost in electricity be a year to run one of these in a new build 3 - 4 bedroom house"

the answer round about £1000

£1000 a year in electric just to run it

harryhound

Thanks everyone, for trying to save me from myself.
I've seen quotes of running costs of 150 GBP per year for a typical NEW BUILD semi
(ie version "L" of the building regulations) and that is for under floor (just warm to touch) heating.

Meanwhile over on this thread I have found a happy customer in a flat conversion - the very worst sort of retro fit situation for achieving good insulation and warm to the touch heating and so low running costs.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=287944&page=3&highlight=GSHP

Lucky Tigerlily has been given this expensive kit, because the providers of social housing are being forced by Government regulation to avoid the possibility of fuel-poverty. No longer can they offer some cheap naff heating, like night storage heaters, leaving the tenant to pick up the bill.

Once we have got over the end of tax year situation, I will make time to write up everything I know about GSHP and see if we can get an informed debate going.

Regards,

Harry.

frankie

Back to the lpg costs debate:

In response to other posts, I contacted flogas and they have offered to switch me from Calor, no new tank installation charge and lpg @ 25.7 ppl on 2 year contract.

Had a go at Calor telling them IMHO they are overpriced, the came back with an offer to reduce lpg from 33.7 to 29.15 ppl fixed for 12 months with incremental increases after that to bring the price back up to 'standard domestic tariff'.

Calor also informed me should I decide to switch I'd need to give 3 months notice and pay a further £120 +VAT for them to remove their tank!!

So Calor have really shown their true colours as a rip-off company.

Incidentally Flogas informed me that the CC remedies will probably be in place Dec 07.

I have decided now to hold on until next Spring (I'm away for the main part of winter) until I try switching again.

Hope this is of some use.

What is clear though is that it is worth haggling with these different suppliers in order to obtain a better deal.

Gez_W

Hi Frankie,

Apologies for not replying to your post sooner - I haven't been on the forum for some time.

I believe the best options in your area would be Shell Gas on 0845 076 5544, BP on 0845 3000038

Regards


Gez

tigerlily

harryhound wrote: »

Meanwhile over on this thread I have found a happy customer in a flat conversion - the very worst sort of retro fit situation for achieving good insulation and warm to the touch heating and so low running costs.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=287944&page=3&highlight=GSHP

Lucky Tigerlily has been given this expensive kit, because the providers of social housing are being forced by Government regulation to avoid the possibility of fuel-poverty. No longer can they offer some cheap naff heating, like night storage heaters, leaving the tenant to pick up the bill.


Harry.

Having only just discovered this thread when looking back at the one you had posted on in the green forum I felt the need to add some info here and put some balance into the equation!!

1; Surely the fundamental design/insulation/upkeep of a property is more relevant than whether it is a bungalow, house or indeed flat.

2; I am not entirely sure what you mean by warm to touch heating, if it is meant literally you are not entirely correct........my rad's are far too hot to hold a hand on them when the system is running.

3; I have not been "given" the heating system. It has been installed into the flat in which I live.

4; You make the eradication of fuel poverty sound like a negative move!! Can't quite get my head around this one!! Surely in this day and age EVERYONE should be able to live in a warm house no matter what their income or housing situation.

5; As I have explained in a previous post in another thread, there were several reasons why this system was chosen by the landlord (the local council) A; This is a village location with no mains gas supply. B; Oil fired central heating was considered but the fuelling (for tennants) and maintanance (for the council) was off putting. C; The environmental issues connected to different forms of heating. D; The reliability of different forms of heating.

If I have got the wrong end of the stick of anything you have posted please do let me know.

harryhound

Hi Tigerlilly,

Many thanks for offering to answer my questions:T. For the benefit of all the members of the forum, this is how I see the situation:

I'm all in favour of the Government forcing landlords to install efficient heating, and subsidising owner occupiers to save energy; As a country, we all benefit from not being held to ransom by dodgy parts of the world, that just happen to have oil and gas under their soil. I think home buyers are starting to VALUE homes with good insulation:j. So spending weekends up in the loft with the dust, spiders and itching fibre is no longer a labour of love.:D
Unfortunately there seems to be an industry of "giving advice" and loads of cowboys out there, only too ready to take our money.

Your point 5 says it all, for those of us that are out of reach of a gas main.

I have managed to establish that GSHP's work best in new build, high insulation homes. They trickle heat into the concrete of a floor slab, that has lots of insulation under it. This works out the cheapest solution as the GSHP only has to pump up the water temperature to (say) 30 degrees, rather than (say) 55 degrees for radiators. It pumps hardest during the night when the external air temperature is the lowest and the electricity is the cheapest. The GSHP is then using the concrete of the house as a night storage heater. But, as anyone with conventional night storage heaters knows, it is difficult to keep the internal temperature constant, so the better the insulation the cheaper the heating bill and the more equable the internal temperature.

For existing homes, a bungalow is probably the easiest to insulate. If it has cavity walls, these can be pumped full of insulation, just like a house. However the cavity is only 2 inches wide so the improvement is limited. However the largest "outside" surfaces in a bungalow are the floor, where the ground is warm relative to the air temperature, and the huge loft. The loft can be piled up with up to 12 inches of insulation (once the junk up there has been dumped )

Here is a half hour program, exploring "geothermal" heating - don't get confused by the mixture of heating from the molten core of the globe, leaking up to the surface as a result of plate tectonics, which just might be an option in Bath;) This is often called hot rock technology. In this country we are talking about most of the heat going into the ground in the summer and during the day on mild days and them being pumped out again. Nearly all of that heat comes from the sun, not the earth's molten core. Interestingly, the man in W.London says the water could come out of his bore holes at 12 degrees.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/one_planet.shtml

Harry