Oil to gas switching help needed

skint_chick

I need some advice on whether to switch to gas heating or stick with oil. I live in a 3 bedroom 3 storey mid terrace house - 2 spare bedrooms that have the radiators turned off 50 weeks of the year. At the moment we get 900 litres of oil a year and use about £30 of electricity a month - to heat the water I tend to use the immersion heater for baths and the 20mins of heating in the morning is enough for our showers. It's only from Nov-Feb that the heating is really used for a hour or two in the evening. The rest of the year it's 20 mins in the morning 20 mins at night and the house stays warm - we have good loft insulation and I'm always too hot!

The reason I'd like gas is to get rid of the oil tank and burner so that I could get my kitchen extended at some point (can't re-site them as I have a small back yard) and so I could get a decent shower. Our water pressure is really low and my only other alternative is a 10.5kw 'power' electric shower because the water tank isn't directly over the bathroom and would require tricky pipework. It would be nice to have a constant low temp in the house and great to have a shower/bath without having to wait for the water to heat.

From the gas tariff it seems as though the equivalent 11,000 kWh of gas (worked out from 900 litres of oil) would cost around £500 when I'm only spending £450 on oil and maybe an extra £50/60 a year on electricity to heat water. So I wouldn't be any better off but everyone says gas is cheaper??

Also the installation would be about £2000-2400 for just a straightforward switch - no gas cooking just a new boiler, thermostat and cleaning out the radiators - does that sound reasonable? Am I working something out wrong because I was hoping to be able to save the installation costs with lower bills each month. This is a long term home so that would work ok.

captainhindsight_2

What kind of gas are you talking about mains gas or LPG??

macman

If you already have a mains gas supply to the property, it's a no brainer. Mains gas 4p per kWh, oil 6p per kWh.
With your relatively low consumption, it'll take some years to recover the cost, but you'll of course instantly increase the property value by more than the install cost.
NB: your gas usage will be more than 11,000kWh pa, because you will then heat all your hot water by gas rather than electricity, since it's third of the price of using an immersion heater.