storage heaters/electric central heating or gas?

Captain_Mainwaring_2

paceinternet wrote: »

Also consider electrically driven heat pumps in your plans, but Capital cost is very high at the moment for a complete solution. You may find starting with an air to air single room unit for < £500 ish could help in some rooms.
Or even something like this for 3 rooms for £1200 ish: http://www.orionairsales.co.uk/multi-wall-mounted-air-conditioning-kms-9918x1c-2-x-26-kw--1-x-5-kw-810-p.asp
See some of the other discussions on where the technology is working for some people.

A heat pump is only worthwhile if you have a large quality of low quality heat available - I recently advised a custome on the use of waste heat from chillers to pre-heat hot water that he uses in his process , in this case there were savings, but unless you actually need to move heat then you will wait ages for a payback.

Captain_Mainwaring_2

york wrote: »

I am in the process of buying two, 2 beded houses and there is no gas supply to either. The gas pipeline is about 12 metres away. There is electric supply already in the two houses. Which would be the best economical option gas or electric taking into consideration the extra expense of digging the road up to supply the gas. If it is electric which is the most economical boiler.

Gas every time.

Cardew

Captain_Mainwaring wrote: »

A heat pump is only worthwhile if you have a large quality of low quality heat available - I recently advised a custome on the use of waste heat from chillers to pre-heat hot water that he uses in his process , in this case there were savings, but unless you actually need to move heat then you will wait ages for a payback.

What do you mean by a large quality(presumably quantity?) of low quality heat?

peat

Waynes World - if you are putting in a woodburner anyway why not a woodfuel boiler linked to a thermal store (accumulator) and then utilise your existing radiators

bevc_2

OK - I've read most of this thread and am none the wiser!

I have just bought a 2-bed 1950's ex-LA semi, pretty well insulated in the loft, double glazed apart from the doors (1 front, 1 back). the heating/hot water system in this house comprises some really ancient NSHs - 2 in the lounge-diner, 1 in the hall, 1 in each bedroom - with a wall mounted fan heater in bathroom, a HYOOOOGE immersion tank in a cupboard in bedroom 2, and a coal-effect fan heater fire-thing in the living room (which is awful and chucks out hardly any heat).

I do not have a gas supply here, and don't really want to get one installed (even though I do prefer it, just too much hassle and expense).
I'm on a standard E7 tariff and my electricity costs have skyrocketed! :eek: My previous house was a 3-bed terrace, full GCH (fed from a combi) with gas cooker, and my combined bills were £57 monthly (budget plan fixed payments), which was more than adequate to cover the bills. In this new place, I'm paying £80 monthly - my energy supplier wants to bump me up to £120/mth (which is way over the odds for a 2-bed semi IMHO) but I've only been here since October and I haven't had my summer quarter bills yet, so they can just hang on a bit...:mad:

My NSH system (when I dare use it) is crap - I am baking hot all night and freezing my bits off during the day.

I don't want to keep the indirect/stored hot water system as I really don't have the room for the tank - I want to get rid of the one I have so I can reclaim the cupboard!

I'm at work all day, so the heating is really only needed evenings / weekends. My washing machine is cold fill only, so doesn't need a hot water supply.

My daughter and grandson might be coming to live with me for a while, so I might find that I need daytime heating as well for the little one, but we aren't heat freaks like that - 18-20 deg is fine for main lounge-diner, 16-18 deg for hallway and bedrooms.

To replace the heating I was considering getting EWCH installed. I've looked at either an Electromax Combi boiler or a Thermaflow combi, but they are both pretty big and I have little enough storage space as it is. Plus I don't know how expensive they are likely to be to run.

I'm now thinking about using an Aztec electric boiler or similar (nice compact little units, I must say) for the heating and undersink instant hot water (2 units, one in the kitchen and one in the bathroom). I have an electric overbath shower which is what I use mostly, but I do like the odd soak in the tub to unwind now and then, so the HW unit in the bathroom would have to be up to the job of filling the occasional bath.

Can anyone see the obvious flaws in the plan? Is this going to be an expensive way of doing things? I'd much rather heat the hot water as I need it (a sink/bathful at a time) than heat a huge tank of water over and over every night, and have the heating on only when I need it (i.e. in the evenings, not roasting me in my bed all night).

I appreciate the present water tank is heavily insulated, but the whole tank still gets heated up at least a little every night, even if I've only drawn off one or two sinkfuls of hot water during the day. True, I won't get the benefit of E7 off-peak electricity, but I think my consumption will drop to the point that it'll still be cheaper even if all my electricity is charged at peak rate when used.

Opinions? Advice? Horror stories? Any/All are welcome!

wymondham

In my experience with a fair few houses in the past, electric has always been hopeless as a heater - expensive and unresponsive. Gas or Oil fired heating knocks spots off electric, and now with oil prices so high, Gas seems to have come up trumps...

worrying about oil/gas running out are a bit premature i think....

Andy_Tucker

We are considering gas or electric central heating and hot water in our old 3 bed listed mid terrace in Somerset (only an old immersion and a single old storage heater currently in place). Finding it very difficult to find any impartial advice on the pros and cons of electric, particularly in terms of running costs.

Installation
- Gas combi quote around £4.5K + £600 gas connection + elec. work
- Electric wet combi system likely to be (perhaps) a little more expensive
[individual electric storage or direct radiators unlikely to be suited to what is a practically uninsulated house.....(?)]

Running costs
Given rapidly changing fuel prices (are gas prices increasing faster than electricity?), we would be verygrateful for informed advice as to likely running and maintenance costs..........please

Cardew

Andy_Tucker wrote: »

We are considering gas or electric central heating and hot water in our old 3 bed listed mid terrace in Somerset (only an old immersion and a single old storage heater currently in place). Finding it very difficult to find any impartial advice on the pros and cons of electric, particularly in terms of running costs.

Installation
- Gas combi quote around £4.5K + £600 gas connection + elec. work
- Electric wet combi system likely to be (perhaps) a little more expensive
[individual electric storage or direct radiators unlikely to be suited to what is a practically uninsulated house.....(?)]

Running costs
Given rapidly changing fuel prices (are gas prices increasing faster than electricity?), we would be verygrateful for informed advice as to likely running and maintenance costs..........please

Even with the latest rises(gas more than electricity) with a new condensing gas boiler it is a no contest - gas is way way cheaper than electric wet CH.

Look at the prices. Say gas will cost after the new rises 4p for a kWh. A new combi will be at least 90% efficient. So you will not pay more than 4.5p/kWh and probably less. Then add in, say, £100pa for gas boiler servicing.

How much gas you will use in a 3 bed house with poor insulation is not known.
However the average consumption is 20,500kWh per year, which assuming 90% efficiency will give you 18,450kWh useful heat.

So 20,500kWh @ 4p = £818 + £100 = £918

To get the same heat you will need 18,450kWh of electricity(electric boilers are 100% efficient)

Electricity costs, say, 12p/kWh after the rises.

So 18,450kWh @ 12p will cost £2,214

Obviously you will need to use the prices for which you can obtain gas and electricity, and also predict future trends in both gas and electricity prices.

Also if you use less energy, the differential will be less; use more energy and the differential will be higher.

However I cannot envisage any scenario where electricity will come close to matching gas.

Taking this statement:

[individual electric storage or direct radiators unlikely to be suited to what is a practically uninsulated house.....(?)]

I don't know if that is a statement or a question.
If the former, I can't agree with your logic - heat is heat! Why would an uninsulated house lose heat from a direct radiator(heater?) any more quickly than any other form of heating?

Storage heaters on E7(for all their disadvantages) would be cheaper than electric wet CH. and on E7 you get to heat your water at E7 rates.

If you are determined to go down the electric heating route, individual panel/oil filled/convector heaters will produce exactly the same heat as Electric wet CH at a small fraction of the installation costs.

paceinternet

If you have mains gas and can accept the capital cost of the installation, then as Cardew says, it will have the lowest running costs (unless the price of gas gets dramatically increased compared with electricity).

The problem with electrical storage heaters, unless someone knows of better versions, is that, depending on your lifestyle, they run out of heat by late afternoon, so you most lilely need to factor in some premium rate electricity cost for the evening.

Whilst electrical convector heaters may be low cost to install, you have to deal with the runnings costs: example 3kw x 12p per hour to run = 36p per hour per room. Work that out for your hours per day and number of rooms and it may be quite painful compared with gas at around one third the cost.

If you didn't have mains gas, and/or thought gas prices may get closer to electricity prices, you could also consider an air source heat pump solution.

I would get a few more quotes for the wet gas system and see what they tell you.

Cardew

paceinternet wrote: »

The problem with electrical storage heaters, unless someone knows of better versions, is that, depending on your lifestyle, they run out of heat by late afternoon, so you most lilely need to factor in some premium rate electricity cost for the evening.

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I have read, and people have also posted on here, that the new storage heaters don't 'leak' heat in the same way as the older huge boxes that rightfully have a poor reputation.

Not used the new ones myself though and it is difficult to find objective reports of their effectiveness.