Gas or electric

alfy

Hi,

I am new to this forum; I have searched a lot of threads and posts lookingfor some information regarding central heating.

To cut a long story short, I have just purchased a flat. It has possibly 15year old electric storage heaters, that need replaced. I am also going to raiseand insulate the floors, insulate the outer walls and roof for heat andsoundproofing.

When in the process of raising the floor and insulating I thought maybe Ishould stick in some gas heated radiators while we have access to run the pipesetc.

The property has no mains gas supplied. I have spoken to several gassuppliers and believe the price to be around £2500 to fit the main gas line,gas combi boiler and radiators.

The other option is to replace the storage heaters with more modern energy efficientstorage heather.

As I have just purchased the property i do not know any energy usage fromthe previous owner or how much they paid per year for electricity. I do knowthat the storage heathers are very expensive to run.

Any advice or recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

HappyMJ

Storage heaters are actually quite cheap to run (around 5p/kWh) and the running costs are quite similar to gas central heating (about 4.5p/kWh of heat output). They have a major disadvantage in that the heat has to be stored the previous night and if they run out of heat in th evening then expensive daytime electric heating will be used to add extra heat to the room.

If it's a small flat then I'd go storage heating as the overall costs including the cost of maintenance and replacement will be cheaper but if it's a large 3 bedroom or more flat then I'd consider gas central heating.

alfy

Hi Thanks for the reply, It is a two bedroom flat; I will pricesome new electric storage heaters and see what the difference in actual installationcost are. I had electric storage heaters in my old flat and they were veryexpensive to run, but they were also very old. I need to fit a new kitchen, bathroomand heating system so thought it might be an ideal time to upgrade to gas but Iwill price the electric heaters and see what is the outcome.

HappyMJ

alfy wrote: »

Hi Thanks for the reply, It is a two bedroom flat; I will pricesome new electric storage heaters and see what the difference in actual installationcost are. I had electric storage heaters in my old flat and they were veryexpensive to run, but they were also very old. I need to fit a new kitchen, bathroomand heating system so thought it might be an ideal time to upgrade to gas but Iwill price the electric heaters and see what is the outcome.

What's wrong with the old ones? They are all 100% efficient no matter how old they are. The old ones are manual and the newer ones are usually automatic and can save 10% off your heating bill...but that isn't that much so isn't usually worth replacing. Check Ebay. Storage heaters are very cheap there.

lithopsian

It will cost you noticeably more to heat with electric storage heaters, quite a lot more if you can't arrange 99% of your use within the night rate, but I doubt it would be worth the cost of installing gas heating in a small flat.

If you needed to do other work, for example to switch water heating to a combi boiler, then it might be worth it.

HappyMJ

lithopsian wrote: »

It will cost you noticeably more to heat with electric storage heaters, quite a lot more if you can't arrange 99% of your use within the night rate, but I doubt it would be worth the cost of installing gas heating in a small flat.

If you needed to do other work, for example to switch water heating to a combi boiler, then it might be worth it.

You lost me at 99%...The costs between gas and electric are similar when on the correct tariff for the usage concerned. As I said earlier night rate electric is 5p/kWh and gas heating costs about 4.5p/kWh for every kWh output. i.e A gas boiler requires about 10kWh of gas to be input to get 8kWh of useful heat output (the rest goes out the flue) so although the rate on the bill is 3.6p because of the losses then it really costs 4.5p. It's only 10% more expensive using night rate storage heating. As for the higher day rate that is offset by 7 hours being at the lower rate so it costs exactly the same to run the fridge for instance over the 24 hours.

alfy

Thanks for all your information, The cost of purchasing all the new storage heathers is not actualy that for off the same price as buying a new combi boiler and all the radiators, I will continue my quest to find the best prices for both and then make up my mind.

HappyMJ

alfy wrote: »

Thanks for all your information, The cost of purchasing all the new storage heathers is not actualy that for off the same price as buying a new combi boiler and all the radiators, I will continue my quest to find the best prices for both and then make up my mind.

Did you look at Ebay? They can be picked up for next to nothing and anyway what is wrong with the old ones? A storage heater is a very simple device it's just an element surrounded by bricks, insulation and a damper. The technology has not changed at all but the controls have changed to close the damper automatically at night and open it in the morning saving you 10% on your energy bills but if you open and close the damper yourself then you won't save much.

alfy

Hi, I did have a look on ebay, I am needing five heaters for the flat, most new ones were around the £200 - £350 price mark and I could pick up a combi boiler and five radiators with all the pipe work for around £1000, I am still searching around the net looking for some good prices for the stoarge heaters before I make up my mind. The old storage heaters look as if they have been through the war, they are all bashed, one does not work and there was a water leek trough a window which penetrated the other heater and now it is all rusty. The biggest decision is wheter to just go for the gas now or the storage heaters, before I do all the decorating and fitting new kitchen and bathroom, I do not want to do all that work and then think "I should have just put in the gas":) In my old flat we had the same storage heaters on a card meter and it was an absolute fortune to run, but we did not have a night tariff set up with the electricity company, I will only make that mistake once:)