could this be cheaper than using oil now?

18051805

Hi, oil central heating - have enough until the summer (I hope) - thanks to wife's canny purchasing (boiler juice) when they had offers.
We are always needing to be careful and only put the heating on when we really need it (with a max temperature of 16C), staying in kitchen if something in oven, two fleeces, blanket handy - it would make me laugh when the government or energy bosses say turn down the thermostat by a degree if it were funny.
The heating is only on when the house gets a bit chilly (below 15C ) and the maximum we have had it on this year has been an hour at a time - perhaps a total of 2 hours in a day.
In the evenings I might light a fire and stay in the living room - the fire is open - but a Baxi Burnall so it is adjustable and the room door has to be closed for it to be efficient (air drawn in via pipes under the floor so no draughts).
My question is: as it is generally getting warmer would it actually be cheaper to put an electric fire on for a short time rather than the central heating or  lighting a wood/smokeless fire for an evening?

lohr500

It is an interesting question. With today's oil pricing, a kWh of heat from oil will be cheaper than a kWh from electricity.

But if all you want to do is to heat one room then running the oil boiler is probably not going to be an efficient way to go about it. Even if you close the radiator valves in the other rooms there must surely be an element of heat loss in the central heating pipework around the house.

And the single radiator that is being used probably can't dissipate heat quickly enough to get the boiler return water temperature 15 to 20C lower than the flow temperature. Assuming your oil boiler is relatively new and is a condensing boiler, it needs a return water temperature of less than 55C to condense effectively, with a flow of 15 to 20C higher. A lower return temperature, with a similar 15 to 20C differential is even better. I suspect that with just one radiator dissipating heat, the return water temperature will not have a great differential, so the boiler will keep firing up for short periods to bring the flow temperature back up to the boiler thermostat setting without operating in condensing mode. But this will depend on your flow temperature setting as determined by the boiler thermostat control. I am no expert on this however, so don't take my thoughts as gospel.

You would also need to consider the location and setting of the central heating thermostat. 

What electricity tariff are you on and do you know what it will be from 1st April onwards?
How do you heat your hot water?
Do you have access to free firewood. If not, what do you estimate the fuel costs are for an evening's burn in your Baxi?

FreeBear

Last few days have been very mild round here (East of England), and my heating hasn't kicked in at all. Been lighting the fire the last couple of days and just burning some scrappy dog ends from the back of the wood store. Combined with solar gains during the daytime, much of the house has been 18-19°C in the evenings. As long as we don't have any late frosts or a repeat of the Beast from the East, I don't envisage having the heating back on til next winter.

markin

Heating 1 room with a 2kwh heater for 1 hr will be cheaper than heating the entire house at £1 a Litre vs 60p in electric.. But do you know how many litre do you use in 1 hr? People say they use 2L a day for hot water in the summer, discounting that what is your daily usage? what did you pay for the oil and what is your electric rate?

dunstonh

much of the house has been 18-19°C in the evenings.

There is no way I would get away with 18-19 degrees.   As said before on another thread, the heating bill is cheaper than divorce.

I have sneaked it down to 20c and had a few moans but had two of the three woodburners going to help compensate.    The oil monitor bars haven't dropped in the last 3 weeks which is highly unusual for late Feb/early March.   Normally, it would drop a bar a week during that period. I even tested it with the stick at the weekend to make sure the monitor wasn't faulty.    The mild weather and a bit of turning down has worked.   

lohr500

Agree dunstonh.

It is definitely getting warmer outside. And I have also lowered  the thermostat setting inside by 1.5C on the daytime and evening settings.

Our average daily oil use from the beginning of December to 5th March was 15.4 litres per day. Over the past 10 days this has fallen to 10.9 litres