Is it a good idea to buy a house with no gas connected?

shegar

GCH for me everytime, lived with storage heaters for too many years and I detest them.......Warm during the day , cold of a evening when you want the heat, plus if you like me want your bedroom windows open for fresh air , then you cant with storage as the heat goes quickly..........And dam expensive , but thats my opinion..........

Phil3822

I live in a 3 bed semi with electric only. There are 4 of us in the house. 2 adults and 2 children. We pay around £130 a month electric which covers us for the year. We have storage heaters and to be honest they are ok. Ours are rather old and don't offer much flexibility but provide a good level of background heat. We then use an occasional electric heater to top up when needed.


I certainly would not rubbish the idea of electric heating. I have had the wet electric heating system and of course its more expensive as on the whole its using daytime rates.


We now have gas in the village and when I can I will change over although the cost no doubt will take an age to recoup if at all. The flexibility however will be worth it.

lstar337

HappyMJ wrote: »

That's very expensive. Thye run on peak rate electric. If you get a property with electric heating then try and choose night storage heaters which are the cheapest to run but not very manageable but you'll soon learn to read the weather forecast and set them appropriately. Then a heat pump is next cheapest to run but quite expensive to install and they are noisy then just a basic convector heater or a single standalone radiator pointing directy at you is the next cheapest. Heating something like water then pumping it the place around isn't very efficient as the heat isn't where you need it for exactly the same running cost a simple convector heater will be fine. An oil filled radiator gives a nice background heat.

As HappyMJ says, electric underfloor heating is not very cost effective. A GSHP/ASHP is the only way to do it sensibly.

Prothet_of_Doom

My parents have an LPG tank in the Garden. None of thier village is on mains gas.

lstar337

shegar wrote: »

GCH for me everytime, lived with storage heaters for too many years and I detest them.......Warm during the day , cold of a evening when you want the heat

Only if they are incorrectly sized and/or set up.

shegar wrote: »

plus if you like me want your bedroom windows open for fresh air , then you cant with storage as the heat goes quickly.

If you open a window, the heat will escape at the same rate if you have GSH or NSH.

shegar wrote: »

And dam expensive

Should only be a little more than gas when you factor in gas servicing, safety checks, standard charges, and lifespan.

shegar

With the flexibility of GCH , I dont have the heating going and windows open at the same time , , thats the flexibility of gas , you have no choice once you put the storage heating on when the heat goes you have to wait until the next night to re heat them ..................Boiler service cost me £60 per year..........
When I had the storage heaters put in , they were sized according to room size , but they do not retain the heat in the evenings ........As most people say that about electric storage heaters , its one of the worst things about them.......

macman

Without mains gas, your only 'economic' heating and hot water options will be E7 with an immersion heater and NSH's. That may or may not work with your lifestyle.
Single rate electricity is 12p per kWh, gas is 4p per kWh. So your heating and hot water will cost 300% more unless you use E7.
Many buyers will not consider a property without gas CH and DHW, if mains gas is available in the area, so property prices will reflect that.

PasturesNew

HappyMJ wrote: »

...it's not that much more especially when you take into account the standing charges on the gas supply, the annual servicing of the boiler and the regular replacement of the boiler.

This is what I'd say. It depends on the property/size.

Electricity doesn't have such huge ongoing costs.

When I had a gas boiler I was paying £12/month for the boiler cover, then there was the standing charge. Boilers last a varying number of years, but if you say it's £1000/10 years that's another £100/year.

lstar337

shegar wrote: »

With the flexibility of GCH , I dont have the heating going and windows open at the same time , , thats the flexibility of gas,

Doesn't matter if you have heating on/off at the same time as opening a window. Open a window, and the heat goes out. Heat doesn't wait at the threshold thinking 'hang on lads, the heatings off, we better stay here in the house until its turned back on'.

The heat is lost, and more gas is burned to replenish that lost heat when you turn your heating on.

shegar wrote: »

Boiler service cost me £60 per year.

Good. £60/year for the life of the boiler, which will need to be replaced at some point. Service cost of storage heater = virtually nil.

What about:
Repairs?
Gas standing charges?
Safety checks?

I'm not saying you are wrong to have, and enjoy, gas central heating, but some of your claims are a little off. AFAIK, gas still remains the cheapest way to heat your home, and of course it offers the most flexibility, but flexibility costs you in the long run. An inappropriately used GCH system could cost more than a correctly used NSH system. It is not as cut and dry as some people make out.

shegar wrote: »

When I had the storage heaters put in , they were sized according to room size , but they do not retain the heat in the evenings.

Then they were sized incorrectly, or operated incorrectly, your choice.

I have storage heaters, and they are still pretty hot at about 11:30. During early evening 19:00 - 21:00, they are still too hot to hold my hand on.

shegar wrote: »

As most people say that about electric storage heaters , its one of the worst things about them.

Just because 'most' people say something, doesn't make it true.

NSH's clearly didn't work well for you. For whatever reason, they didn't meet your needs. But NSH shouldn't be written off over a few bad user experiences. I cursed mine when I first started using them, but I have learnt to get the most out of them and use them to my advantage.

In fact, I would say I definitely save money with them because they are inflexible. If I had GCH, I know for a fact that the moment I step out the door for work, my OH would be turning it up! But because she doesn't know how the NSH's work, she leaves them well alone.

undaunted

I'd expect electric, LPG, oil etc all to be more expensive and / or less convenient than mains gas. Surely you therefore need to establish what the gas position is.

If there is gas a main in the street & all you need to do is get the property connected to it which could cost you say £500 or £600. If there's no main nearby however you could be talking thousands. If you ideally want gas it's therefore likely to make a big difference to your decision I would have thought.