storage heaters/electric central heating or gas?

Arthriticdigit

A perpetual thread, LOL. Sorry for not having an opinon on Jerry electric rads. Have some question though ? (I'm sure the answers are buried 20 pages back and sorry for such a long posting or should I be starting a new posting?)

I (and three ladies) live in a 1990's 4 bed detached. (for just over 3yrs).
connected to Eon's E10 Energy Plan (10hrs of off-peak)
I inherited
5 storage heater downstairs. (2 off are Dimplex xlsn's)
4 convection heaters upstairs.
2 Electric towel rails
2 Electric under floor heated bathrooms
Electric oven (lpg gas hob)

Since moving in the price of electricity has increase by a whopping 43 - 45% for peak and off peak!
I've replaced rotten old wooden windows for upvc double glazing
Increased the loft insulation by 10-12 inches (from virtually nothing)
Insulted the garage ceiling (double integral) where there was nothing before.
Never switch the towel rails on. Never run the under floor heating
Bought a small wood burning stove for the lounge.
Monthly outgoing for all this electricity is £180, (just before the last increase of nearly 16% :O(
So my best estimate is £1560 per annum on stored heat/water alone.

On-line the Eon energy tracker shows I've used 30% less power on heating the place over the last year alone. (all that insulation and miserly usage) The property is a bit cool on the coldest of winter nights and I work from home 3 days a week.

I had oil fired heating in my last house so know how eye watering the increases have been.
I've researched Air Source Heat Pumps for 2yrs and it looks like they're not all what they're cracked up to be (for the moment anyway)

Questions:
Changing to oil, would this be cheaper in the long run, because it's more controllable?
Would it be an idea to keep the electric immersion on the E10 tarrif and just heat with oil?
(I worked out it only cost 50p/day to heat the water but there is a 30p/day std charge for E10)
If I had a Condensing boiler fitted.......
How much would you think it might cost (ball park) for the whole shebang, rads (13 off), boiler, oil tank ?
I'm a very confident DIY'er, should I fit the rads myself ?
The problem I find is that plumbers won't work with you but want the whole job or nothing.

I'm a bit of a perfectionist and would make a far better job of fitting the rads than any tradesman working against the clock.
Is there a link to a site that explains the flow/pipes required ? (I can work out the BTU)

Do I need to wait for the plumber to give his estimate first to find out if it's a pressurised system or whatever I need ?

Idealy I would like advice for a DIY and then the Corgi registered plumber to connect up and sign off.
Should I really steer clear of oil all together ? (no gas in village) It only takes one of these Arab Spring events to turn sour and then oil will be (don't go there)
Or by choosing the oil solution will mean I get a radiator system installed and then maybe sometime in the near future some bright spark will improve or design an alternative to air source heat pumps. (hey presto, swap out the oil burner for new technology)

btw in ten years when the kids have left school/home I will hopefully move into a new Eco home (or died of frostbite before then)
The oil to wet rad system should make the house more saleable than storage heaters ?

Thought?

Pincher

Arthriticdigit wrote: »

I'm a bit of a perfectionist and would make a far better job of fitting the rads than any tradesman working against the clock.
Is there a link to a site that explains the flow/pipes required ? (I can work out the BTU)

Do I need to wait for the plumber to give his estimate first to find out if it's a pressurised system or whatever I need ?

Thought?

I'm a perfectionist too.

That's why I end up doing the same job three times, because I didn't know what I was doing the first two times!

1st time: Don't know what part I'm supposed to use, so use the wrong type and size.
2nd time: Read up on it, found the part three weeks later.
3rd time: Tidy up the mess, reposition, fill in the holes.

It can easily get up to five times.

Now I let the plumber get on with it.

HappyMJ

Arthriticdigit wrote: »

I'm a very confident DIY'er, should I fit the rads myself ? I would say yes you would save a lot.
The problem I find is that plumbers won't work with you but want the whole job or nothing. Then get another quote.

I'm a bit of a perfectionist and would make a far better job of fitting the rads than any tradesman working against the clock.
Is there a link to a site that explains the flow/pipes required ? (I can work out the BTU)

Do I need to wait for the plumber to give his estimate first to find out if it's a pressurised system or whatever I need ? Not really you could buy the rads and install them yourself then the plumber simply has to install the boiler and do the gas work.

Idealy I would like advice for a DIY and then the Corgi registered plumber to connect up and sign off.

I'd say your plan would work. You might be best posting a new thread for better responses then come back here and remove your post refering everyone to the new thread.

Arthriticdigit

Thanks, I'll probably end up taking Pincher's advice and apply my efforts at the making good stage. I'm just waiting for my first quote to come in. Here we go again, trying to find a tradesman who will deliver quality without trying to take the shirt off my back in the process. ho hum.

petgarn

I'm thinking of changing to electric central heating because i live out in the country with no mains gas supply and have to rely on a bulk LPG tank supplied by calor which is costing me a crippling £130 per month. Can anyone give me a ball park figure as to how much converting is going to cost

Arthriticdigit

Hello Petgarn,

I've just changed from Electric to oil.
I will give you the figures and stats for my electricity consumption in a mo.
For anyone interested I paid a heating engineer £8,500 for a 13 rad system with a Grant Vortex Pro System Boiler (condensing), 1300 ltr bunded Titan tank and wireless room stat. The job took approx 2.5 blokes 5 days, + sparky and Oftec commissioning
I will have to wait until the end of the winter to see how much cheaper to run than electric heating this should be.
The heating engineer and his boys did an excellent job although I had to put up with sarcastic egotist who drank us dry of Tea! (he was ok really)
October/Nov has been relatively mild during the days but I would still have had all 5 storage heaters on constantly compared with a 15 minute blast am/pm of the oil burner. Probably saved £200 already!

Hi Petgarn sorry about the pre-amble. This was my heating system pre-oil.
I have a 4 bed house.
5 storage heaters downstairs (3 Dimplex xl18n's 1 Dimplex xls18n and 1 Dimplex xls24n)
4 convection heaters (each bedroom)
Under floor heating in bathroom and ensuite
2 electric towel rails.
Water heater.
Eon Economy 10 tariff
(wood burning stove in living room)

I was paying Eon £180 a month direct debit.
3 years ago when I moved in I payed approx £900 for each winter quarter.
I put in new double glazing and got the loft (extra) insulated with a gov grant,
stopped using the under floor heating and towel rails. The house wasn't exactly comfortably warm either.
My energy consumption went down by 30% (using Eon's online energy tracker)
Good old Eon the has put the electric up 45% over the last three years so all my efforts have been thwarted.

So I've binned the electric heaters.
I’m still heating the water electrically none the less.
On checking out energy prices I realised Eon were ripping me off.
I'm switching to OvoEnergy and changing Eon's Eco 10 meter for an Eco 7 one.
Eon are charging £100 standing charge for this and have a totally unrealistic threshold to cross before I received the lower tariff.
With just the immersion heater going on E10 there was no way I would reach cheap rate.
I've now gone from about 10p to 5p per unit with no threshold
So my remaining electricity usage should come down even further.

Wouldn't you be better off changing to oil?
You'll be better off with a Economy 10 tariff and might need a dedicated meter with wiring to boot.
I hope my experience; facts and figures help you in your decisions.
Good luck with the change to electric. Shop around for the cheapest deal (of which eon aint)

imot

In your current special situation (in case you don't want to invest into the property) the best solution is an efficient electric heater with thermostat feature. That wouldn't be that expensive to run (it turns itself off periodically when target temperature is reached). However if you need heating output then electric heaters wont deliver above 5000 BTUs, since 1,500 Watts is as high as they can go, gas heaters should be deployed, they kick any electric heater rectum. BTU-wise like this Mr Heater ( hxxp://electric-heaters-review.com/mr-heater-mh18b-portable-big-buddy-heater-review ) delivers 15,000 BTUs (but never in unattended rooms or while sleeping) stick with oil-filled radiators if you want to sleep with space heater in the room.

HappyMJ

imot wrote: »

In your current special situation (in case you don't want to invest into the property) the best solution is an efficient electric heater with thermostat feature. That wouldn't be that expensive to run (it turns itself off periodically when target temperature is reached). However if you need heating output then electric heaters wont deliver above 5000 BTUs, since 1,500 Watts is as high as they can go, gas heaters should be deployed, they kick any electric heater rectum. BTU-wise like this Mr Heater ( hxxp://electric-heaters-review.com/mr-heater-mh18b-portable-big-buddy-heater-review ) delivers 15,000 BTUs (but never in unattended rooms or while sleeping) stick with oil-filled radiators if you want to sleep with space heater in the room.

Electric heaters in the UK can go up to 3,000 Watts.

davidparkes6

Hi, this is my first post. I've read the majority of threads here, but still need some help. Any professional advice would be much appreciated:

I'm moving house this week into a 3 bed (70's build property), with new double glazing, insulated loft and cavity Walls. Wife, 2 kids and a baby boy on the way 7th january!

No gas at present, only electric. Water immersion heater needs replacing asap (as recommended by building surveyor) Only form of heating is a couple of delonghi 'plug in' heaters.

Gas board have quoted £3.5k to get gas to the property. Having researched prices a bit, it looks like £3k for gas combi boiler and central heating. So a grand total circa £7.5k for gas.

Electric option would involve a heatrae sadia megaflo (170L) hot water cylinder with 2 x 3kw heating elements. The heating would either be:

A. 4 x Farho 'efficient' radiators with timers (recommended to me by an electrician)

B. 4 x modern night storage heaters (would be used in conjunction with an Economy 7 tariff, which would also be used off-peak to heat water cylinder for early morning showers etc)

The total cost of the electric system would be around £3500

I currently have a gas combi boiler combined with central heating, so I know my energy bills would be in the region of £65 per month at the new property.

I'm guessing an 'all electric' system would be at least £100 per month to run. Therefore, I would be saving around £35 per month with gas, so around £400 per year.

The gas system will cost an extra £4k. Circa £400 running costs per year saved versus electric, would mean (as I understand) it would take 10 years to make savings, compared to an electric system.

Do I bite the bullet and go for the big Initial outlay for gas, or go for the electric option??

Any suggestions welcome and appreciated!

Kernel_Sanders

Cardew wrote: »

I have an electrically heated place mat for keeping coffee warm. It is 100% efficient and only draws 5 watts - so is very cheap to run; approx 2 hours for a penny.

If you are paying a penny for just 10 watt hours of electricity then somebody should take you aside and explain that this equates to £1 per Kwh. I suggest you get onto Uswitch!