Electric boiler

Lomast

We are hoping to complete on our first house later this month. The house has no central heating installed only a hot water tank with immersion heater.
 There is gas in the road but not to the property so I have been looking at a 12-14kw electric boiler with 180l indirect tank. On paper this looks like a reasonable solution but I have not managed to speak to anyone that has electric heated central heating.

Has anyone on here any experience with this type of system that could give me any insight? Thanks in advance 

Swipe

Do NOT even consider an electric boiler. You may as well burn £50 notes to keep warm

Robin9

Don't  -   get costs for the gas network , boiler , rads   .  May be expensive but much cheaper to run and increase the value of the property.

QrizB

Lomast said:

There is gas in the road but not to the property so I have been looking at a 12-14kw electric boiler with 180l indirect tank. On paper this looks like a reasonable solution but I have not managed to speak to anyone that has electric heated central heating. Has anyone on here any experience with this type of system that could give me any insight? Thanks in advance 

Mains electricity is currently 5x the price of gas.

Put another way, if your property would need the average 12000kWh of gas to heat it, it would cost £480/yr. If instead you heat it with full-price electricity it will cost £2500/yr.

£2000/yr will quickly pay for the cost of a gas connection.

If you really don't want gas, a heat pump will provide the same amount of heat for under £1000/yr but the installation cost is likely to be significantly higher than a gas supply & boiler.

Lomast

Thanks all sounds like it's a non starter, I will see what a gas connection will cost

jamei305

Imagine filling all your radiators by repeatedly boiling your kettle, because that's what it would be like.

doodling

Hi,

In general the running cost of heating systems is as follows (cheapest to most expensive):

Mains gas
Oil
Electric heat pump (*)
LPG
Electric storage heaters on E7 or similar tariff.
Direct electric heating (e.g. panel heaters / oil filled radiators / fan heaters)
Electric boiler

(*) This may move up or down one row depending on how the price of electricity varies with other fuels. A year ago it might have been cheaper than oil but now it might be more expensive than LPG - that is because the price of electricity is high at the moment. It is impossible to say how long the current situation will persist for.

I'll let others comment on where wood and coal fit in, if you want to go for something requiring more effort...

Obviously capital cost is a different question and there may be factors making some of the options impossible.

Gerry1

Suggest updating to

Mains gas (wet radiators)
Mains gas (gas fire)
Oil
Electric Ground Source heat pump (*)
Electric Air Source heat pump (*)
LPG
Electric storage heaters (High Heat Retention, fan assisted) on E7(†)
Electric storage heaters (old style without fan) on E7(†)
Direct electric heating on single rate (e.g. panel heaters / oil filled radiators / fan heaters) (‡)
Electric boiler on single rate (‡)

(†) I've deleted the 'similar tariffs' bit because the legacy tariffs with daytime or evening boosts (THTC and suchlike) are being phased out and now tend to be significantly more expensive than E7.
(‡) The p/kWh cost will be the same, but it's often easier to restrict usage in bedrooms etc by using plug-in devices for spot heating, especially if TRVs are not fitted.

jimrobbo2

@QrizB @Gerry1

I have been looking for months indirectly at electric boilers but only recently considered them more but since looking over the past few days, reviews are impossible or horrendous. Clearly, people are using electric boilers and they have their place, but it is hard to find a good one or any advice, or good reviews. I don't need telling about how much they cost to run this isn't an issue at the moment as the pros outweigh the cons for what I need it for... I just need a good one. Ideally a compact combi boiler but it is looking like a tank is the way to go...

matelodave

TBH most people who know what they are doing would avoid buying or renting a place with an electric boiler as the the cost of using them is only outweighed by actually burning £50 notes in a fireplace.

The only reason that they have their place as you put it, is because landlords and some developers love them.

They are cheap to buy and install, especially in a tiny flat conversion as they dont take up much space and they dont need a flue.  In general landlords or developers dont have to pay the heating bills for the places where they've installed them. so the running costs are irrelevant.

By the time someone has bought or rented a place with one and got their first ginormous leccy bill it's too late to back out.

My heatpump gets through about 4500kwh of leccy a year, last year it cost around £550 (an electric boiler would have been arounf £1650 gas would have been £400), this year with the increases its gone up to £950 (£2850 with an electric boiler, gas around £675) ) and I dread to think what it will be next year.

Reed_Richards

jimrobbo2 said:
I don't need telling about how much they cost to run this isn't an issue at the moment as the pros outweigh the cons for what I need it for... I just need a good one. ..

Because you are a landlord and will not have to pay the running costs?