Does anyone have an electric boiler?

Haveyougotenoughtime

Hi - I'm finding it hard to get concrete answers on what's the best choice for our 2up, 2down renovation - hot water and heating.

I'd like to use clean energy from renewables, but not sure how great electric boilers are - conflicting opinions - does anyone have one?
I know that electricity's x3 the price of gas, but electric boilers seem to be more efficient, so in the long run bills are only slightly higher - could someone confirm?
Any other insights would be great - enought hot water on demand? Toasty toes in the winter etc?

Thanks

Gerry1

Don't even think of an electric boiler unless you want to go bankrupt.

Electricity is probably five times the cost of gas, perhaps 15p/kWh compared to 3p.  Electric boilers are 100% efficient in converting energy into heat, gas up to about 90% so you will still lose massively.  Do the sums.

Gas is far cheaper.  Going green may be laudable but will be expensive.  Even if a heat pump installation  magically materialised overnight you would be paying about twice as much to run it compared to gas.

Nothing is more expensive than using daytime electricity for resistive heating.

Haveyougotenoughtime

Thanks Gerry1 - do you have an electric boiler then?

Robin9

Haveyougotenoughtime said:

.......... - conflicting opinions - ...........

I don't think there are any conflicting opinions on this forum.  Various posters have had them - generally in rented property - and find horrendous running costs.

Gerry1

Haveyougotenoughtime said:

Thanks Gerry1 - do you have an electric boiler then?

No, gas boiler.  I want to stay solvent !

matelodave

You really do need to think long and hard about getting an electric boiler.  There really is a no more expensive way of heating your house or hot water unless you actually burn £20 notes in the fireplace.

As Gerry syas they cost around five times to run than an equivalent gas boiler. TBH you would be better off getting individual heaters (with their own thermostats and timers) - cheaper to install as there's no pipework and you can control each room individually rather than centrally.

The only way to use clean energy from renewable is with a heatpump which can have an"efficiency" of between 2.5-4  (ie you get between 2.5-4 times more heat energy out than the electricity input)

niktheguru

@Haveyougotenoughtime, don't do it!!! Unless you want to change your username to @haveyougotenoughmoney!!

Haveyougotenoughtime

Hmmm - so @matelodave - how about an electric boiler for the water and individual heaters?
Are the individual heaters efficient?

Thanks

QrizB

Haveyougotenoughtime said:

Hi - I'm finding it hard to get concrete answers on what's the best choice for our 2up, 2down renovation - hot water and heating.

@Haveyougotenoughtime take a look at this thread for someone asking a similar question:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6275952/what-sort-of-heating

The recommendations were:

• The safe cheap option is gas CH and HW, however it doesn't help your desire to use renewable energy
• The new and Government-endorsed option is an air-water ASHP which could be almost as cheap to run as gas and will let you use green(er) electricity. This works best with wet underfloor heating (exactly how thorough a renovation are you doing?) but is still fairly competitive when used with conventional radiators. You can apply for RHI payments to offset the cost of installation.
  
• The slighly risky option with a lot of promise is air-air heat pumps for heating and an immersion hearer for HW, plus a time-of-use tariff. All the MSE'ers with AAHPs love them and claim they're cheaper to run than anything else, but that's a relatively small and self-selecting group. Yuo also get the option of air conditioning in the summer.
  

Haveyougotenoughtime

Thanks QrizB - that's a great thread you've directed me to 

Reed_Richards

Every few weeks someone starts a thread here because they find themself in a dwelling with an electric boiler and are horrified at how much it is costing them.