Gas heating vs Electric heating

Ignite

Hi,

We all know that the traditional wisdom is that gas is cheaper than electricity for heating.  I'm on an amazing (at todays prices) long term fixed rate deal for my electricity but on a SVT for gas.  If the cost per unit for the gas goes above that of what I'm paying for electricity, should I start turning off the gas and using electric heating?  Would I be saving money by doing this?

Thanks

Phlik

What unit rate are you fixed at for electricity and how long?

Ignite

19.1p until Nov next year

BUFF

Ignite said:

Hi,

 If the cost per unit for the gas goes above that of what I'm paying for electricity, should I start turning off the gas and using electric heating?  Would I be saving money by doing this?

Do you already have the electric heaters (enough to heat everywhere that you want)?
How do you heat your hot water?

markin

If gas hits 18p a kwh then it would probably match, What efficiency is your boiler rated at?

Phlik

Ignite said:

19.1p until Nov next year

So you're only really looking at one winter. Unless the gas unit rate matches or exceeds your electricity unit rate in October and you already have the electric heaters then no I doubt it would be worth it.

Ignite

markin said:

If gas hits 18p a kwh then it would probably match, What efficiency is your boiler rated at?

It's a G rated boiler.  Until now it's not been worth changing as the cost of a new boiler would be far higher than the savings that it would have made.  Not quite that way now though.

BUFF

So under 70% even when new. How many kWhs of gas do you use per year & what controls do you have?
When I went from a G-rated boiler to an A with improved controls (& some behavioural changes that the new controls allowed me to make) I more than halved my usage, now ~7000kWh p.a.. Over it's 14 year life it has broken even already & that is with historic energy prices not the 15p that we are looking at for SVT this winter.

Ignite

We use about 9500 kWhs and have a Hive controller.  Moving from the old timer and thermostat saved about 2000 kWhs a year!

BUFF

I can believe it, I attribute ~1/2 of my saving to improved controls ( I didn't have a room 'stat, just programmer & TRVs) & the changes that allowed.

If we assume that your G-rated boiler is running at ~60% efficiency these days & that you could run a new condensing boiler at ~90% you could potentially knock another ~3000kWh off your 9500 figure. At 15p/kWh that would be a £450 per year saving (hopefully we won't be paying those figures ad infinitum though & it will fall back at some point).

Ignite

So the big question is at what point would it work out cheaper to use electric heaters over the gas boiler.