Oil vs. elec. vs. gas??

ipri

Hi..can someone place these in order of expense? Our 60yr old ( much loved), Rayburn heats water and warms downstairs....may have to go as part of a new kitchen extension....and gas central heating put in. We also have a coal / log burner in living room plus storage heater ( ec 7)... We have tried to work things out to keep the Rayburn....but ,It seems the best thing would be to get Gas cen. heating throughout!!

huwwatkins

Cheapest - Gas
Most Expensive - Elec
Oil - Somewhere in between

Ectophile

This http://www.nottenergy.com/energy_cost_comparison/ is a very useful site. They update it every few months. The "Pence per kWh" column is the most informative.

grahamc2003

ipri wrote: »

Hi..can someone place these in order of expense? Our 60yr old ( much loved), Rayburn heats water and warms downstairs....may have to go as part of a new kitchen extension....and gas central heating put in. We also have a coal / log burner in living room plus storage heater ( ec 7)... We have tried to work things out to keep the Rayburn....but ,It seems the best thing would be to get Gas cen. heating throughout!!

These days, you have to take into account any grants you may get for various systems to work out the overall cheapest for your particular circumstances.

If you are currently off the gas grid, you could probably qualify for the renewable heat incentive, which will distort the actually costs to a massive extent - even to the point of the incentive covering bioth the installation and running costs for many years, and probably a profit on top - yes, it's that mad.

Keep off gas, and you could install a qualifying pellet boiler, stove or heat pump and get back more than your total costs over seven years. If you install now, before the details have been finalised in March, then you'd get a premium payment towards the installation costs, usually around a grand depending on ther technology you go for.

If you don't have the four or five grand cash to pay for it, then the 'green deal' will lend you the money at a low interest rate. The RHI for such systems disappear if you are on gas, so i'd think carefully before going down that route.

malc_b

huwwatkins wrote: »

Cheapest - Gas
Most Expensive - Elec
Oil - Somewhere in between

Full price elec yes but E7 night rate and oil are on a par. In fact E7 is cheaper than oil in winter. Per kwh that is. E7 is less controllable than oil. So it should be

Cheapest - gas
E7 / Oil
Full rate Electric

Cardew

malc_b wrote: »

Full price elec yes but E7 night rate and oil are on a par. In fact E7 is cheaper than oil in winter. Per kwh that is. E7 is less controllable than oil. So it should be

Cheapest - gas
E7 / Oil
Full rate Electric

Agree in principle, however the 'premium' you pay for the other 17 hours 'daytime' electricity supply can make E7 less attractive.

macman

If you have mains gas available (not LPG), then it's a no-brainer.

malc_b

Cardew wrote: »

Agree in principle, however the 'premium' you pay for the other 17 hours 'daytime' electricity supply can make E7 less attractive.

Fridges etc. run in the night so you get saving on those and if you run the dishwasher, washing machine, tumbler dryer in the night hours you save on those too. Having an electric shower in the morning is also often in night hours (up to 7.30am winter, 8.30am summer). It is easily possible to more than break even on the extra cost of daytime electric by just putting the above on timers (not including fridges of course). So really the daytime premium doesn't affect the comparison.

HappyMJ

malc_b wrote: »

Fridges etc. run in the night so you get saving on those and if you run the dishwasher, washing machine, tumbler dryer in the night hours you save on those too. Having an electric shower in the morning is also often in night hours (up to 7.30am winter, 8.30am summer). It is easily possible to more than break even on the extra cost of daytime electric by just putting the above on timers. So really the daytime premium doesn't affect the comparison.

Fridges run 24 hours a day. When you average out the day and night rates then the resulting rate should (in theory) be equal to the standard rate. I would not suggest a fridge be placed on a timer. Maybe you just picked a bad example as your first choice the others there are savings that can be made.

malc_b

HappyMJ wrote: »

Fridges run 24 hours a day. When you average out the day and night rates then the resulting rate should (in theory) be equal to the standard rate. I would not suggest a fridge be placed on a timer. Maybe you just picked a bad example as your first choice the others there are savings that can be made.

I didn't mean fridges on a timer, just the others. Thanks for pointing out that. I've corrected the text to make sure no one thought I meant that which if course runs the risk of food going off. Almost certainly going off if you only run the fridge at night.

Alycidon

Ectophile wrote: »

This http://www.nottenergy.com/energy_cost_comparison/ is a very useful site. They update it every few months. The "Pence per kWh" column is the most informative.

Agreed, excellent site.

A