Gas fire or fan heater..

stingray_316

Gas and Electric has increased so much and l don't know which is better for heating our living room , the gas fire or a fan heater..
I bought a 2kw heater at the weekend which has two settings , on 1kw or max at 2kw.
It does seem to take quite a bit of electric but so does the gas fire , so which one would l be better off using ..
I'm On my way! Eon for gas and electric ,, gas is 4.15p kWh and for the electric I'm on a key meter..
Would help if someone could help me work out which one is better to use per hour .. Thanks

stator

It would depend on the efficiency of the gas fire. Is it an enclosed/sealed gas fire, or is it an open design? Do you have the manual for the gas fire? It might give you some figures in there.
kwh for kwh gas is always cheaper, but electric heaters are very efficient.

stingray_316

stator wrote: »

It would depend on the efficiency of the gas fire. Is it an enclosed/sealed gas fire, or is it an open design? Do you have the manual for the gas fire? It might give you some figures in there.
kwh for kwh gas is always cheaper, but electric heaters are very efficient.

its a open fire but does not seem to heat the room at all, my old fire was a closed glass fire which l think gave out a lot more heat.
This one is a wall mounted quarter glass open fire..
The room is 13ft x 11ft, l get more warmth out the fan heater which is instant...

keicar

I'm assuming you know how much you are paying for electric, so for every hour you run the electric heater on its lowest setting (1 kw) it will cost you that amount, an average today is approx 13p.

Gas is a little more difficult, best way is to turn all your gas appliances off, take a meter reading, then run the gas fire for an hour and then re-read the meter. Deduct that from the original reading and assuming you have a standard type gas meter multiply the difference by 11, that will tell you how many gas kw/h's you've used, multiply that by 4.15p, that will be its cost per hour.

Of course that doesn't take efficiency into account, it may take the gas fire 2 hours to heat the room in the same way the electric heater will in one hour.

Cardew

bsod wrote: »

gas is a third of the price of electricity, so gas heating is cheaper, approx 7 to 15pence per hour depending on setting and tarrif

You missed out the important issue for a gas fire; as mentioned above - namely efficiency.


With some designs much of the heat from a gas fire was vented outside!

Cardew

bsod wrote: »

It would have to be bordering on useless to be more expensive than electricity.

That is not in dispute.

However it is difficult to measure the amount of heat that goes up the flue or is vented outside. Thus comparisons are not simple.

OPEN FLAME GAS FIRES [Approx 50%]
These have an efficiency of around 50% and use an existing chimney pre cast flue or a flue liner. These gas fires are open flamed and no air vent is required in the room as long as the power rating is below 7kw.

Owain_Moneysaver

bsod wrote: »

It would have to be bordering on useless to be more expensive than electricity.

Some decorative fuel effect gas fires are useless, from a heating perspective. They may be as low as 20% efficient (and are assumed to be that under the SAP rating schemes) as so much heat disappears up the chimney.

Moneymaker

I got a £500 "Airforce" air conditioning unit from B&Q. A friend installed it for me. For every 1kW that goes in, it gives 3kW of heat energy out!

lstar337

Moneymaker wrote: »

I got a £500 "Airforce" air conditioning unit from B&Q. A friend installed it for me. For every 1kW that goes in, it gives 3kW of heat energy out!

In ideal conditions, no doubt.

sheffield_lad

gas fire for me every time, efficiency wise,

open to chimney (IE you can look on your hands and knees up the chimney), 45% efficient ish

inset fire living flame (metal reflector plate so you can't see chimney), or fire with bricklets 65% ish


even losing 55% is still cheaper than electric.