Gas Central Heating Costs

bengasman

LisaW123 wrote: »

We've often thought of replacing the boiler but have heard mixed reports about the reliability of condensors

A good quality modern boiler that is installed and maintained as per instructions, is perfectly reliable.
Unless you have an extremely inefficient boiler i.e. open flue, at the moment, it will be a very long time before you recoup the cost of replacing.

Norman_Castle

My 20 year old Baxi was replaced with a condensing baxi just before last winters bad weather. In 20 years it had the pump replaced once, otherwise 100% reliable. All radiators and pipework was also replaced and two extra radiators were added. One in the bathroom and one in the bedroom. Dispite the bad winter, apparently gas usage was 24% above normal, my bills were near identical to previous years. As mentioned above, insulation including stopping all draughts, today is the ideal day for finding them, can be very cost effective and will help whatever heating you have. In my experience the worst have been in the kitchen and bathroom hidden behind cabinets or the bath panel and caused by pipework entering through walls or floors. Can the radiators in the rarely used rooms be fitted with trv's?

Cardew

Norman_Castle wrote: »

Can the radiators in the rarely used rooms be fitted with trv's?

Most certainly!

New installations have to have one rad without a TRV(normally in the room with the wall thermostat)

Some installations(mine for example) have TRVs on all radiators.

jimjames

Working out the annual usage based on an hour's reading is not a very good way to estimate. Far better to use last years readings and then compare each month. There are so many factors that could affect a one hour measurement and as mentioned above the numbers don't tie up at all.

Our annual usage has dropped from 30000 to around 20000 kWh by more careful use of the time and temperature settings.

LisaW123

Before going further may I apologise in advance if I've managed to put this post in the wrong place. I'm new to MSE and, although I'm finding it really useful, I am having problems navigating the site, particularly in regard to posting. There were some very helpful replies to a previous post about gas heating costs so here's hoping.

To get to the point, i'm looking for opinions/advice as to whether it would be more cost effective to replace an old boiler/radiators etc or to upgrade double glazing? (We can't afford to do both at the minute). I was shocked to receive a quote from a local dg firm yesterday that was in the region of £6,000 for four replacement a rated dg windows. Two of these are large five frame rectangular bays but even so the cost seems excessive. The other two windows are much smaller with only a couple of frames in each. Looking at info on MSE and other sites, it would appear possible to get a complete new heating system (boiler, new rads etc) for under £5k. To clarify, we have a 20 year old open flue boiler without a thermostat which is probably very inefficient but is reliable.

Does anyone have any ideas as to which measure, ie replace windows or new boiler etc, is most likely to help us save on our heating costs?

I also wondered if anyone knew if upvc dg costs had shot up over the past couple of years? We received a quote from the same company that quoted yesterday almost two years ago to the day. In two years their price has increased by over 50%.

Cardew

LisaW123 wrote: »

Before going further may I apologise in advance if I've managed to put this post in the wrong place. I'm new to MSE and, although I'm finding it really useful, I am having problems navigating the site, particularly in regard to posting. There were some very helpful replies to a previous post about gas heating costs so here's hoping.

To get to the point, i'm looking for opinions/advice as to whether it would be more cost effective to replace an old boiler/radiators etc or to upgrade double glazing? (We can't afford to do both at the minute). I was shocked to receive a quote from a local dg firm yesterday that was in the region of £6,000 for four replacement a rated dg windows. Two of these are large five frame rectangular bays but even so the cost seems excessive. The other two windows are much smaller with only a couple of frames in each. Looking at info on MSE and other sites, it would appear possible to get a complete new heating system (boiler, new rads etc) for under £5k. To clarify, we have a 20 year old open flue boiler without a thermostat which is probably very inefficient but is reliable.

Does anyone have any ideas as to which measure, ie replace windows or new boiler etc, is most likely to help us save on our heating costs?

I also wondered if anyone knew if upvc dg costs had shot up over the past couple of years? We received a quote from the same company that quoted yesterday almost two years ago to the day. In two years their price has increased by over 50%.

You would be far better simply starting a new thread with this title.

The new boiler is by far and away the most sensible money saving measure.

macman

Why not fit a room 'stat or digital programmer to the existing boiler and TRV's to the rads to give the existing system some proper control? A fraction of the cost of a new boiler.
If you want to improve the insulation, I'd start with the loft.

LisaW123

Thanks. We have had the loft re-insulated recently. We wont touch cavity wall insulation, however, as we personally know a couple of people who have suffered damp in their homes after installation. I think cavities are there for a reason. I've been trying to start a new thread but after a couple of hours yesterday then more time this morning, I'm having no success. Can anyone tell me how to do this? Thanks.

macman

Log in, go to 1st page on board, click on 'New Thread' at top left.