Electric Only House

mummygems

We have the opportunity to move into a property in the next month and its an electric only house so I have some questions if you dont mind as I am totally new to non-gas usage lol. (We are trying to figure out the finances of moving and running costs of the other house).

We have storage heaters - I am assuming its economy 7 heating or something very similar - do they require a lot more electricity usage (especially considering the colder months whereby I might need them on all day but not at all at night?).

Hot water - immersion heater. Is it the same as the old gas hot water where you have to set the timer and wait for the hot water? Does this cost more to run vs the gas version?

Electric cooking hob and oven vs gas oven? I dont know if there is a big difference. The things we cook in the over most are short time stuff (30 mins) but I do also make cakes (3-4 times a month) and the occasional casserole (2hrs max).

We are currently in a 2 bed house with gas central heating and gas cooking. We have the newer boiler so we dont need to heat the hot water we have it instantly (if that makes sense). The house on offer is a 3 bed house with absolutely no gas. We currently have the heating set to 16-18oc which is fine for us. The hot water is set to a low temperature as we have young children who use the taps themselves and didnt want any burns.

We dont want to take on a house thats going to cost us loads more on the heating/hot water front and the landlords isnt being helpful in answering these questions.

Any help/advice would be greatly received thank you.

Gemma

HappyMJ

Each average sized storage heater costs on average £1 per night to load with heat. If you keep the output set to minimum as much as possible then it will still have some heat the next night and therefore cost less. Always remember to turn it to minimum when you go to bed.

What costs much more is using peak rate electric heating so try and use the convector heater as little as possible...but do use them in the bedroom as a half hour using a convector heater is much cheaper than any storage heater.

Hot water consumes about 1,000kWh per year in standing losses plus about 1,000kWh per year per person for average hot water usage. If you have an electric shower and a cold feed washing machine/dishwasher then less hot water will be used. The cost difference to gas isn't much....unless you run out of hot water and need to press the boost button.

mummygems

thank you

macman

All electric heating will always cost more than gas CH and DHW, even on an E7 tariff.
On the peak rate (daytime use), it will cost you about 300% more than gas per kWh.

mummygems

yikes! This is my worry. There are 5 of us and I do a load of washing once a day sometimes 2-3 loads a day which is not something I will be able to do at night (maybe one load a night).

The rent is already a lot more than we pay now which is why I wanted to know about the electrical cost side of things so we dont walk in there blindly if we do decide to accept it. I dont want to get 3-6 months down the line and find we are constantly in debt because its all a lot more money than we expected.

Thank you.

HappyMJ

mummygems wrote: »

yikes! This is my worry. There are 5 of us and I do a load of washing once a day sometimes 2-3 loads a day which is not something I will be able to do at night (maybe one load a night).

The rent is already a lot more than we pay now which is why I wanted to know about the electrical cost side of things so we dont walk in there blindly if we do decide to accept it. I dont want to get 3-6 months down the line and find we are constantly in debt because its all a lot more money than we expected.

Thank you.

The cost isn't that much difference. Dual fuel bills average about £1,300 per year. Electric only bills are also about £1,300 per year. The 300% more that macman quotes is for the day unit rate as opposed to the gas unit rate. You don't usually wash clothes with gas heated hot water as most washing machines are cold fill. The unit rate difference from standard electricity to day rate E7 electricity is about 20% more...which is not very much and when offset with a 50% discount on the night rate it doesn't make much difference overall..... Most people also tend to use less heating when in an electric only property.

mummygems

Ok so if I wanted to use my washing machine in the day the cost to do so is roughly the same as using it at the moment but would be cheaper at night?

The storage heaters do they come on at night or only "charge" over night ready to heat for 7hrs during the day?

So sorry for all the questions I am new to this!

HappyMJ

mummygems wrote: »

Ok so if I wanted to use my washing machine in the day the cost to do so is roughly the same as using it at the moment but would be cheaper at night?

The storage heaters do they come on at night or only "charge" over night ready to heat for 7hrs during the day?

So sorry for all the questions I am new to this!

Pretty much the same...a little more but not much...probably about 1 or 2 pennies per washing cycle more. Use at night and it'll cost half or less.

You must always turn the output of storage heaters down when you don't want heat to be output. If you do that every night before you go to bed then they will not output very much heat at all but they will leak some heat. Any heat leaked will be enough to prevent the house being very cold in the morning so you shouldn't need to turn the output up until later in the morning/day/evening. If you keep the output down as much as possible then you should still have heat late into the evening. You don't want to run out so turn the input up all the way and they'll fully charge with heat hopefully you won't need to use a convector heater.

Use electric blankets in the bedrooms and they won't need too much extra heating. Use a convector in the bedroom for up to half an hour in the morning and up to half an hour in the evening and it won't cost much and it should be enough to take the chill off the air.

mummygems

HappyMJ thank you so much its such a big decision this move and a fair bit more cost wise so I was worried about storage heaters/immersion boiler and my kids being cold etc! We dont know anyone who uses electric only and therefore noone we can talk costs with! I had images of me getting up in the night for the washing machine lol.

Putting it into perspective for us makes me feel better thanks.

gc_bus

mummygems wrote: »

HappyMJ thank you so much its such a big decision this move and a fair bit more cost wise so I was worried about storage heaters/immersion boiler and my kids being cold etc! We dont know anyone who uses electric only and therefore noone we can talk costs with! I had images of me getting up in the night for the washing machine lol.

Putting it into perspective for us makes me feel better thanks.

We've a three-bed (well insulated) electric only house and it costs less than £1200 for all of our electricity (including standing charge) per year. Also, with no gas we've no standing charge to pay nor any gas heating servicing costs :j

macman

You may be able to run the w/m on a timer or delay.
Yes, things like an electric hob will cost roughly 3 times as much to run as a gas hob, but the bulk of your energy consumption is heating and hot water, which can mainly be on E7 night rate.