Bungalow with Oil Central heating/Hot water - electric better?

bikerchris

Hi everyone,

I've been in an oil fuel place for a year now and I'm wondering if it'll be cheaper to heat the place with electric radiators and use the immersion for hot water.

I don't want to do the calculations and don't want anyone else doing them, but I just wondered if it sounded plausible?

Had 3 quotes:

27/02/2012 - 500L (All + VAT)
Goff: 62.95
Total Butler: 61.98
Boiler Juice: 59.46

So £312.17 in total. During the winter, the 1000 Litres I bought lasted 4.5 months and cost around £600. So that's just over £130 per month, that is ridiculous. The boiler is very old (over 20 may be 30 years) and inefficient, but I'm in the awkward situation where I pay a lot less rent than normal, but the landlord is almost doing me a favour by letting me live here. If the boiler went bang, he'd probably say it's not worth him fixing. He luckily serviced it before I moved in though, the engineer said he'd fixed this a few years ago and said it was on borrowed time then.

The irony is there is mains gas coming in, and it only serves the cooker! It would be great to have gas central heating, but the property is likely to be demolished in a few years so it's not worth it.

Anyway, sorry for the moan, and comments appreciated!

Cheers,
Chris

PS Goff rang back (they are competitive) and offered £311.85 to beat Boiler Juice.

Cardew

Oil works out at approx 6p/kWh. With a very low efficiency boiler, the cost might well be comparable to electricity at 10p to 12p/kWh

Is there no way the gas can be used in the house for a gas fire?

bikerchris

Thanks Cardew, much appreciated. Looks like it might be best to stick with electricity.

There is the chance of a gas fire - do you think that'll be quite expensive though? I'd say £500-750 per fire?

amtrakuk

bikerchris wrote: »

Hi everyone,

I've been in an oil fuel place for a year now and I'm wondering if it'll be cheaper to heat the place with electric radiators and use the immersion for hot water.

I don't want to do the calculations and don't want anyone else doing them, but I just wondered if it sounded plausible?

Had 3 quotes:

27/02/2012 - 500L (All + VAT)
Goff: 62.95
Total Butler: 61.98
Boiler Juice: 59.46

So £312.17 in total. During the winter, the 1000 Litres I bought lasted 4.5 months and cost around £600. So that's just over £130 per month, that is ridiculous. The boiler is very old (over 20 may be 30 years) and inefficient, but I'm in the awkward situation where I pay a lot less rent than normal, but the landlord is almost doing me a favour by letting me live here. If the boiler went bang, he'd probably say it's not worth him fixing. He luckily serviced it before I moved in though, the engineer said he'd fixed this a few years ago and said it was on borrowed time then.

The irony is there is mains gas coming in, and it only serves the cooker! It would be great to have gas central heating, but the property is likely to be demolished in a few years so it's not worth it.

Anyway, sorry for the moan, and comments appreciated!

Cheers,
Chris

PS Goff rang back (they are competitive) and offered £311.85 to beat Boiler Juice.

If your going to be there for a long time it might be worth seeing if you can get a survey to see if the gas main is large enough to supply enough gas to a modern boiler and the cooker. My mother had a quote for a complete central heating system (rads, combi boiler etc) installed which ran into the thousands. As you mentioned the property is liable to be demolished in the next few years it maybe worth looking into get a few oil filled radiators. I use a few 1.2Kw oil filed radiators keeping them running on thermostat through the cold period. They do take a few hours to get a cold room warm so turn them down (not off) when away and putting them up high during the evenings.

As many other members have said all electric heaters produce the same amount of heat per Kw, be it a cheap heater or a trendy £300 designer heater.

bikerchris

amtrakuk wrote: »

If your going to be there for a long time it might be worth seeing if you can get a survey to see if the gas main is large enough to supply enough gas to a modern boiler and the cooker. My mother had a quote for a complete central heating system (rads, combi boiler etc) installed which ran into the thousands. As you mentioned the property is liable to be demolished in the next few years it maybe worth looking into get a few oil filled radiators. I use a few 1.2Kw oil filed radiators keeping them running on thermostat through the cold period. They do take a few hours to get a cold room warm so turn them down (not off) when away and putting them up high during the evenings.

As many other members have said all electric heaters produce the same amount of heat per Kw, be it a cheap heater or a trendy £300 designer heater.

Thanks Amtrack. I will be going the oil filled radiator way, don't worry - I've never been trendy so today I'm going to Argos to pick up 2 different oil filled radiators!

I have actually done a little calculation based on my existing electric tariff and I've worked out that using electric should cost around £40-70 per month to heat the place, when the oil heating system was costing £130-150. I'm happy with that! Only downside is the kitchen/bathroom are pretty cold, but I'll sort that out somehow!

Thanks to everyone!

LittleVermin

bikerchris wrote: »

<snip>

I don't want to do the calculations and don't want anyone else doing them

<snip>

The basic calculations have been done for you - by Nottingham Energy Partnership:

http://www.nottenergy.com/energy_cost_comparison/

You just need to adjust for the unit prices you are being charged. And estimate your boiler's (in)efficiency!

And, of course, Cardew has posted figures for oil and electricity, the fuels which interest you.

PS I think it's useful for someone to post this link every so often as the question about relative costs comes up regularly on MSE. NEP updates their figures monthly.

Lotus-eater

I would keep a very close eye on your electricity usage while you are using the oil filled electric heaters, they can be very expensive to run.
Like noting down the usage everyday on the meter.

bikerchris

LittleVermin wrote: »

The basic calculations have been done for you - by Nottingham Energy Partnership:

A very useful link there, thank you very much.

Lotus-eater wrote: »

I would keep a very close eye on your electricity usage while you are using the oil filled electric heaters, they can be very expensive to run.
Like noting down the usage everyday on the meter.

Luckily I'm on Southern Electric's i-Plan, so right by my PC monitor I can see the money disappearing before my very eyes! My normal usage is around 15-20 kWh's and with electric radiators (with thermostats) it's around 50 kWh's per day. I currently have a 1kw in the living room, 1kw rad's in each of the two occupied bedrooms and a 750w slimline in the hall way. I have timers set on each one (mornings and evenings) apart from the living room which is where I work from home for most/all of the day. I have to admit, I've had the 750w running on a low'ish thermostat setting all day, and might not have it on tomorrow.

Lotus-eater

Well you're in a great place to see exactly what is what then. I'm not doing the sums for you

All you need to do now is to work in the outside temps into your calculations, by the day, per year and you can work out the best way to heat your house..... yes it's really that easy

Don't forget that last year was a very cold winter and this year, is the warmest in my memory, at least.

Although you get the same heat per KW from any electric heater, they work in different ways. With a halogen heater, you get almost instant heat, great for lounges etc, where you may not be there that long, with an oil filled heater, it first has to heat up the oil, then the heat lasts longer.

Many old CH oil burning boilers work still quite well, but it does depend how you use them. Are you looking at the same temps, are the radiators turned off or down you don't need?

bikerchris

hehe, sadly I am in a great place

Umm, I'm not too prepared to work out the outside temps...although I do have an external temp monitor - I'll just keep an eye on how much electric it costs to keep me from freezing! I have to say though, the rad in my (small) bedroom was on for 3 hours this morning and it only got it up to 15C

You're right though, this year has been relatively warm.

I might get a Halogen heater just to boost the heating, cheers.

When the CH Oil burner was last checked, the chap said it was no more than 50% efficient I believe, because of it's age. None of the rads have working valves to adjust the heat output, it's a massively old heating system!

I guess I'll see how it goes!

bikerchris

Just for the marginally interested, here's a few things:

Oil vs Electric calculations:


An example of the online Southern Electric usage monitor (Monthly):


An example of the online Southern Electric usage monitor (Day):


An example of the online Southern Electric usage monitor (Compare days):