Wet electric heating system experience?

d123456_2

Hi, does anyone have any experience of this type of system please and the best way to use and set it up please?

We are in the process of extending and renovating our house, when finished it will be 3/4 bed detached with 155mm of celotex in most of the roof, 100mm of celotex/rockwool in most walls and new double glazing & doors. I expect it to be quite efficient but I could be wrong.

We currently use an old immersion and tank for hot water and convector heaters in the rooms we use for heating. We obviously want to upgrade this and have decided against LPG but are not convinced by oil either simply due to the price fluctuations that can be triggered by all sorts of things. The electrician got us thinking about electric, he's worked on a few houses with electric boilers that supply wet rads and they seem to be quite efficient, in his opinion. Appreciate the price of electric can fluctuate too but at least we generate some of that in the UK, whereas the other two we are a bit more reliant on other countries for.

I know some will laugh at the idea of electric but from the snippets I've read here and there I believe it has moved on somewhat in recent years so I'm interested to hear from anyone that has real life experience please.

Many thanks!

Cardew

d123456 wrote: »

I know some will laugh at the idea of electric but from the snippets I've read here and there I believe it has moved on somewhat in recent years so I'm interested to hear from anyone that has real life experience please.

Many thanks!

Why does anyone need 'real life experience' of such a system to comment?

How do you think wet electric heating 'has moved on somewhat it recent years'? Electrical heating has always been 100% efficient, and still is 100%. That said electrical heating is still by far the most expensive method of heating a home, and wet CH installed from scratch has the disadvantage of high installation costs for radiators etc.

d123456_2

You have it in your own home do you Cardew?

victor2

Have you considered air conditioning or ASHP?
We extended our house and seriously considered A/C for that area, as it is so much more efficient than gas fired central heating, even though the fuel costs about 3 times as much. In the end we didn't go for it, as our (old inefficient) gas boiler could just cope with the extra radiators required.
I also figured that while it might cost no more to run, we would be tempted to use it in the summer to cool the rooms, where there isn't that temptation/possibility with gas fired heating!

Richie-from-the-Boro

d123456 wrote: »

You have it in your own home do you Cardew?

He's far too sensible to do anything so silly as wet electric.

TRB

A friend of mine has it and is very happy but we live in Guernsey and for us it is the second cheapest form of heating as gas is very expensive. First thing to find out is if your main supply to your house can take the extra load because this can be costly to upgrade. The main thing though is to find out what tariff you can get , over here you can get an 18hr central heating rate at 8.8 per kw.

d123456_2

Thanks victor2 & TRB, appreciate your responses - this is the sort of discussion/information I was hoping for. Not sure why others comment when they have nothing useful to contribute.

Just checked Scottish Power, they have a tariff that charges 6.71p per kwh for 8 hours per night. If you can store this effectively then it becomes a viable option.

rtho782

Direct heating can only ever be 100% efficient, and converting electricity to heat is very close to 100%, no matter if a fan heater or your "electric boiler". Electricity is ~4x the price of gas so will still be expensive.

For electric only go with an air source heat pump, given the ~400% efficiency ratio (as you're not creating heat, you're moving it) it will be as cheap to heat as gas.

If you go for Air to Water with underfloor heating or large radiators, you will find that RHI subsidy payments cover the cost too over time.

TRB

I have not looked at the electric boilers for some time, But I think you will find that the more expensive ones have a small thermal store built in. Enough for here in Guernsey where you only have three two hour peak periods but would not last for sixteen hours. I am sure you could put in a bigger thermal store but that means extra cost and the room to put it.

TRB

I like the idea of ASHP's but there are threads in this forum about them please read before considering .

jayII

We had it in a house we bought. The heating worked well--it was reliable, quick and quiet. The hot water tank used off-peak electricity and provided enough hot water for 2-3 showers and all our dishwashing. There was a small additional water heater, if that ran out. Servicing needs are minimal and you don't have the risks of CO or gas explosions.

However, the boiler/emersion heater was huge and took all the space in our large hall cupboard, it was very expensive to run--the electric cost over twice as much as the usual gas & electricity costs for a house that size. Also, we do get occasional power cuts in the UK, which would have left us totally without heat or hot water for however long the blackout lasted.

I wouldn't have electric heating again, unless there was no other fuel available.