Immersion for hot water vs heating oil boiler

Rachel_D09

Hi! Looking for some opinions here please.... With the price of heating oil having risen exponentially, we are considering buying an immersion timer and using that to heat our hot water twice daily. This would be instead of using the oil based boiler to heat the water.
We wouldn't have considered this previously due to the price per KWH being much higher for electricity but am I right in thinking that per per kwh could be better currently for electricity, due to the price cap being in place? 
Opinions would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

Ectophile

Even with prices of oil going up, it's probably a lot cheaper than electricity.  And electricity is about to go up too.

If you assume oil is about 10kWh per litre*, you should be able to work out how much you're paying per kWh of oil.

*https://nottenergy.com/resources/energy-cost-comparison/

dunstonh

 With the price of heating oil having risen exponentially,

It has gone up around 50% (from approx 60ppl to 90ppl) but despite that, its still cheaper than electricity.

You will probably know from your own summer use when its only hot water that is being heated that the oil use is pretty minuscule.   Heating water forms a very small part of your oil use.  So, the outlay to install it and the fact electricity costs more means you wouldn't save money.   However, having an immersion heater can be useful when the boiler fails or you are turning off overnight for a service and need a quick boost for the water

jammy_dodger

very  useful  post  i  had  been  considering  this  option  

Rachel_D09

Thank you for the advice all! 👍🏻

lohr500

As Ectophile mentioned a litre of kerosene heating has 10.35kWh calorific value, assuming 100% conversion.

If your boiler is reasonably modern and is of a condensing design you should get around 90% efficiency.
So 1 litre of oil equates to around 9.3kWh.

With oil at £1 a litre, that works out at £0.11 per kWh.

Compare that to your electricity cost per kWh and I bet that unless you have a longer term fixed Economy 7 or electric vehicle tariff, it would cost you an awful lot more to heat the water with an immersion heater. (Assuming you heated the same volume of water).

My gut feel is that oil prices will drop further in the next few weeks and months as the market recalibrates following the recent spikes. It also sounds like there is pressure building on Saudi and other Arabic countries to ramp up oil production in an attempt to mitigate any sanctions on Russian oil.  I cant see the October electricity price cap being lower than the April, so if anything, the gap between electricity and oil heating costs will widen. At least that's what I hope!!!