Gas heating or electric heaters cheaper to run?

dr78

Hope not a stupid question but the increase of costs is giving me sleepless nights already as worried about my kids going without enough warmth. What works out cheaper? Electric heaters or gas heating ? X 

Mstty

Gas central heating wins everytime for whole house heating.

Turn the temp down, get temperature control valves on all radiators so you can reduce the heat in rooms you don't use.

With gas central heating being very good at quickly heating a house get used to trunking it off overnight and on 30 mins before the household rises. Extra duvets, warm bed clothes.

Plenty of energy saving tips to try if that is what interests you.

pochase

One KWh of gas generates nearly (96% efficiency with a modern boiler) 1KWh heat.

One KWh of electricity generates 1 KWh of heat using oil radiators. storage heaters, fan heaters or panel heaters. 

One KWh of gas costs 15p from October, one KWh of electricity will cost 52p, so electricity is 3.5 times more expensive than gas for heating your home.

It looks a bit better for storage heaters on E7, and ASHP, but you won't have them if you have gas CH, and they are still slightly more expensive for an ASHP to much more expensive for storage heaters.

TheBanker

Having spent a few years living in a house with no gas supply (so all electric heating), I think gas is more cost effective. My new house is bigger but my total energy bills were lower (until the price rises kicked in). I know this isn't scientific because there are other variables e.g. level of insulation and the tariff. But I think electric is a very expensive way to heat a home and I would not go back to it. I also find it easier to control the temperature with gas heating, and there's less risk of me accidentally leaving a heater on when I go out. 

PNELancs

There are times when electric heaters might be needed for an individual room - in my case, a conservatory. We’ve always used a convection heater in there when we’ve needed to use it in winter but I did a little research at weekend in light of the prices this winter and found halogen or quartz is generally the cheapest. This is especially the case if you’re just looking to heat the person rather than the whole room - it’s more focussed heat. 

I did buy a very cheap quartz heater from Screwfix and tested it against my old convection heater and it was much cheaper per hour.

gazapc

PNELancs said:

There are times when electric heaters might be needed for an individual room - in my case, a conservatory. We’ve always used a convection heater in there when we’ve needed to use it in winter but I did a little research at weekend in light of the prices this winter and found halogen or quartz is generally the cheapest. This is especially the case if you’re just looking to heat the person rather than the whole room - it’s more focussed heat. 

I did buy a very cheap quartz heater from Screwfix and tested it against my old convection heater and it was much cheaper per hour.

Yes, I use a small electric heater under my desk as an example of this. It is cheaper to run than firing up the central heating.


Radiant heaters and convection heaters produce the same amount of heat per unit used, but it may feel warmer as radiant directly heats you, where as convection heats the air around you.

Reed_Richards

pochase said:

One KWh of gas generates nearly (96% efficiency with a modern boiler) 1KWh heat.

Whilst it's true that a modern gas boiler can achieve 96% efficiency, yours will not. The best you can hope for might be 90%.  To achieve 96% you would need the output water temperature to be 50 C or less and you can only do that with a purpose designed heating system.  So unless you have had an entire heating system installed recently by a forward-looking heating engineer you'll do well to get 900 W of heat for every 1 kW of gas consumed.   Still not bad, though.  

Alnat1

Layer the kids up in clothes, same as adults. Long sleeved t-shirts, sweat tops, fleeces etc. Make sure they wear something on their feet, thick socks and slippers, they'll be plenty warm enough. 

People survived mostly without any central heating at all until the 70s. A couple of degrees cooler on the thermostat won't do the kids any harm this winter.

pochase

PNELancs said:

There are times when electric heaters might be needed for an individual room - in my case, a conservatory. We’ve always used a convection heater in there when we’ve needed to use it in winter but I did a little research at weekend in light of the prices this winter and found halogen or quartz is generally the cheapest. This is especially the case if you’re just looking to heat the person rather than the whole room - it’s more focussed heat. 

I did buy a very cheap quartz heater from Screwfix and tested it against my old convection heater and it was much cheaper per hour.

If both are 1000w they will cost exactly the same to run, if one is 1000w and the other one is 2000w it will cost half to run, but you also get only half the heat generated.

It is possible that the 1000w might feel the same as the 2000w, the heat from the quartz heater is felt more direct if you are sitting in front of it.

macman

It's depressing that this question is still being asked, but, given the gov't insists on patronising us by presenting the price cap as a '£3549 maximum', rather than quoting the kWh rates, then no doubt it will continue to be asked.
Everyone understands petrol being quoted as pence per litre, so why do our gov't think people can't grasp units of energy too?

[Deleted User]

Maybe because most seem not to understand that.  Also because for E7, the unit prices aren't directly capped (and actually they aren't for standard either, but that's just OFGEM maths).

There are also different caps for different regions.

The media "price cap" is just an average of averages, and doesn't actually mean that much - but trying to explain tables full of numbers and individual circumstances doesn't make good press.