What is the point of heating oil?

Cardew

INSPIRED wrote: »

Does anyone else have experience of these fan heaters? Lots of 5* reviews but are they anymore efficient than, say, a Delhongi 2kw oil filled heater? If so, this may be the soution to a problem we have. I have always thought that fan heaters were the most expensive form of portable heating.

Many thanks.

The most important point for you to appreciate is that ALL electrical heating from a £10 fan heater, or a £20 oil filled radiator to a much hyped heater at £1,500 produce EXACTLY the same amount of heat for the same amount of electricity consumed and hence cost. Put another way they are all 100% efficient.

How they produce that heat varies from virtually 'instant' like a fan heater but has no residual heat, to, say, an oil filled radiator that has residual heat, but takes longer to produce that heat. The bottom line is that for the same amount of money spent on electricity - they both produce exactly the same amount of heat.

Fan heaters - even cheap £10 fan heaters - can have a high output; 2kW or 3kW is commonplace.

That £42 fan heater is no exception to the above comments. It is no more, or less, efficient than a Delhongi 2kw oil filled heater.

P.S.
Just to pre-empt any comment about heat pumps, they are not strictly speaking electrical heaters. They are appliances to extract and transfer warmth from outside the property to inside the property, and 1 unit of electricity can provide, say, 3 units of heat.

INSPIRED

Cardew wrote: »

The most important point for you to appreciate is that ALL electrical heating from a £10 fan heater, or a £20 oil filled radiator to a much hyped heater at £1,500 produce EXACTLY the same amount of heat for the same amount of electricity consumed and hence cost. Put another way they are all 100% efficient.

How they produce that heat varies from virtually 'instant' like a fan heater but has no residual heat, to, say, an oil filled radiator that has residual heat, but takes longer to produce that heat. The bottom line is that for the same amount of money spent on electricity - they both produce exactly the same amount of heat.

Fan heaters - even cheap £10 fan heaters - can have a high output; 2kW or 3kW is commonplace.

That £42 fan heater is no exception to the above comments. It is no more, or less, efficient than a Delhongi 2kw oil filled heater.

I should have known this as I have seen you explain it on many posts! Problem is, I had it driven into me from an early age that fan heaters are bad.

Cardew

INSPIRED wrote: »

I should have known this as I have seen you explain it on many posts! Problem is, I had it driven into me from an early age that fan heaters are bad.

They are 'bad' in the sense that they can have high consumption, but of course high heat output.

However virtually all fan heaters and oil filled radiators have built in thermostats, so when the room is up to your required temperature they stop drawing power - until the room cools.

Jamie_Carter

tberry6686 wrote: »

Add in installation costs, likely boiler replacement costs etc and you will see what I mean. The energy savings trust numbers for E7 electricity are just wrong. E7 for me currently is around 5 p, and daytime rate about 12p.

I think the e7 rate was the average over a 24 hour period.

Jamie_Carter

Andy_WSM wrote: »

I for one am with you.

I decided a few month ago not to replace my broken gas boiler due to cost and get the electric underfloor heating working and use that as my main heat source. So far so good. It's working lovely and the daily electricity costs have not gone through the roof as many would have you believe.

Today was our first air frost of this Winter, so it will be interesting to see how much power I have used today compared to yesterday, but I also have a 4kW solar PV system and yesterday and today (so far) are sunny and the system is currently providing my electricity needs and sending surplus to the grid. Yesterday the heating came on during the day and was run entirely from the solar PV system.

I get that this won't always be the case, but I feel the cost of replacing the gas boiler would take far too long to recoup given my seemingly low all electricity costs.

But you have solar energy, so it would never be worth buying a new gas boiler. But we aren't talking about people with solar panels.

intex

Cardew wrote: »

Something is wrong with your billing. It is absolutely impossible to heat a flat all winter, have hot water and other electrical consumption on £17 a month; and that £17 to remain static whilst prices have risen a great deal.

Which company are you with?

Have you checked your meter readings on the bill against your meter?

Are you sure that the meter is connected to your flat?

I am with EON. I provide a meter reading every quarter. They sometimes come to check my meter too. The meter increases between readings, so it must be connected. The last statement I received from them said I needed to pay an extra £20 for the last 6 months worth of usage, so I guess that is the result of the prices going up.

I turn off all appliances at the wall when I am not using them. I go to work all day, but am at home in the evenings and weekends, so I would say my actual usage is pretty normal.

thenudeone

fishybusiness wrote: »

Makes little difference, if the electricity goes off, so does the oil

Not on an oil-fired aga. Just switch the oil control box to "override" and the aga will stay nice and toasty without any electricity.

Cardew

intex wrote: »

I am with EON. I provide a meter reading every quarter. They sometimes come to check my meter too. The meter increases between readings, so it must be connected. The last statement I received from them said I needed to pay an extra £20 for the last 6 months worth of usage, so I guess that is the result of the prices going up.

I turn off all appliances at the wall when I am not using them. I go to work all day, but am at home in the evenings and weekends, so I would say my actual usage is pretty normal.

Normal?

The average bill in UK even if you have gas is approx. £1,400pa - and electricity is more expensive.

£17 monthly is £204 pa, most of that will be for electricity at Tier 1 rates(or a Daily Service charge) so I suspect that your consumption is around 1,000kWh to 1,200kWh a year.

The average property, that doesn't use electricity for heating and hot water, uses 3,300kWh pa electricity.

Can you post tariff, company and usage according to your bills.

malc_b

thenudeone wrote: »

Not on an oil-fired aga. Just switch the oil control box to "override" and the aga will stay nice and toasty without any electricity.

At the cost of something which has very low efficiency and so costs a packet. Modern oil boilers (by when I mean the last decade or so) spray the oil and blow air through the spray to burn all the oil fully and get as much heat out of it as possible. That takes electric for pump/fan. Anything running with out electric must use a wick and pilot light with real bad efficiency.

G_M

intex wrote: »

I am with EON. I provide a meter reading every quarter. They sometimes come to check my meter too. The meter increases between readings, so it must be connected. The last statement I received from them said I needed to pay an extra £20 for the last 6 months worth of usage, so I guess that is the result of the prices going up.

I turn off all appliances at the wall when I am not using them. I go to work all day, but am at home in the evenings and weekends, so I would say my actual usage is pretty normal.

My brother had a similar bill.

Turned out the meters were mixed up in the flats. He was being billed for the neighbours electric (they were only there alternate weekends!), and they had been paying for his - for years!

Like you, he read the meter regularly, not realising he was reading the wrong one, as they were wrongly labelled.