Electricity v Gas

Bill....

I am buying a 2 bed flat that doesn't have gas supply. There is a hot water cylinder for hot water but no heating rads. I'm thinking about getting gas supplied and a combi with central heating on the basis this is better (more flexible) than electric hot water and heating. Am I being biased or is electric a good option nowadays? Thanks

Ebe_Scrooge

Electric heating is quite a bit more expensive than gas - unless you use storage heaters and can make use of cheaper off-peak electricity. But storage heating doesn't suit everyone, it depends on your usage patterns.


On a like-for-like basis, gas will be far cheaper to run. However, check how much it will cost ( and whether it's even possible ) to get gas installed. You may find that the cost of installing a supply could well outweigh any ongoing running costs. It should be fairly easy to find who supplies gas in your local area and give them a call, at least then you can do the sums and come up with a decent estimate of the pros and cons.

Owain_Moneysaver

Check the energy saving trust website - sometimes there are grants available towards getting a gas supply installed.

casper_g

The like-for-like cost of electric heating is significantly more than for gas. However, it could easily be cheaper to heat a well-insulated modern flat electrically than a draughty poorly-insulated flat using gas, so you need to look at the whole picture.

Beware that the flat is presumably leasehold and for health and safety and/or insurance reasons the terms of the lease may prohibit installing a gas supply (or require the consent of the freeholder, which might come to the same thing!).

27col

^^^^^ What Ebe says.

Electricity is never a good choice from a running cost point of view. Though it may have some merit from a usage point of view. Depending on your life style.

marleyboy

OP Can you get a gas supply? I only ask because my Brother owns a flat where they had the gas supplies removed from the whole block, due to some health n safety measure.

He has been told that no gas supply can be provided, ironically they still try to bill him for the hire of his unusable gas meter.

Ben84

27col wrote: »

^^^^^ What Ebe says.

Electricity is never a good choice from a running cost point of view. Though it may have some merit from a usage point of view. Depending on your life style.

Unit for unit, gas costs less, but there's a bigger picture. Having a gas supply means another standing charge, and ongoing maintenance costs and safety checks. Between the two, it costs me around £200 a year in standing charges and annual safety check and cleaning of the back boiler, all before I've even produced a single unit of heat. In contrast, using electric for heating comes with no extra standing charges (you were going to have an electric supply anyway I'm sure?), and the electric heating appliances are typically maintenance free. In a small, well insulated place, the extra electric used for heating may not exceed these other gas related costs, making gas a more expensive option.

As for flexibility, electric heaters can heat up quite fast and each one can be used independently of any other in regard to timings and temperature settings. This can bring some savings too.

Anyway, considering just costs, for low heating needs I'd be more interested in electric. For bigger ones, I'd be more interested in gas. I still tend to want gas anyway, simply because I greatly prefer cooking with it, and some gas cooking/heating appliances can work during power cuts (we get lots of those), but some people aren't too worried about these things. It's not all about the cheapest option though, you have to consider a few things.

MisterBaxter

As the others have said gas is generally a cheaper way to heat your home. There are electric boilers that work with a traditional wet radiator heating system; they are supposedly very energy efficient but the unit price for electricity is still higher so it works out more expensive.

If you are buying a flat it is presumably leasehold so you will need to see if the terms of the lease allows for gas to be installed or if the Freeholder will allow you have a gas supply and that assumes that there is even gas in the street. The utility company may want a Wayleave agreement to be in place with the Freeholder.

If you have a balcony you could even look at renewables such as air source heat pumps.

Ben84

MisterBaxter wrote: »

There are electric boilers that work with a traditional wet radiator heating system; they are supposedly very energy efficient

They're exactly the same efficiency as any other electric heater, but they do bring all the problems water systems have to electric. More difficult and expensive to install, possible leaks, lime scale, and pumps that can break. Also less control over individual heater's timings and temperature settings. Most of us accept the downsides of water systems as they deliver cheaper heat from gas and oil boilers around the house, and generally they behave themselves ok. However, when you can just run a cable to each heater and get a more reliable, lower maintenance and more flexible heating system, why bother with all the pipes and water?

MisterBaxter

@Ben84 - never actually tried an electric boiler so just offering alternatives to a gas system. They claim to be 95%-99.8% (if you believe manufacturers) energy efficient and are controllable in the same way that a gas wet system with room stat and TRV.

I know from years of experience in social housing that people complain about the very high cost of electric panel heaters and the general ineffectiveness of storage heaters. The only type of electric heating I've come across that didn't draw those sorts of complaints was underfloor but that was in a new build, energy efficient property which may have been more to do with it than the heating itself.

The only other issue I can see with electric is in an existing installation there could be a relatively high cost to upgrade the wiring if the circuits aren't able to cope with the power demand.