Central heating alternatives - All electric system

Lilliput100

Sooo I've found the perfect not so perfect house. Ticks all boxes except it doesn't have central heating. There is mains gas but current owners  have opted to  have an electric immersion heating instead and use plug in heaters !!!??  Two of the receptions have gas heaters. Its all nicely decorated so seems pointless to pull up the flooring to install central heating plus its  at the top of my budget if and estimate that installing  heating will cost about £10k plus all the redecorating costs which quite frankly I wont have. Trying to find cost effective  ways to install a heating system that wont cost the earth to install or to run. Electric boiler and electric radiators would be cheaper but I'm scared about running costs. Any suggestions.

RedFraggle

Only viable option imo is E7 and night storage heaters. Won't be as cheap as gas though

Robin9

Lilliput100 said:

Lilliput100 said:................ Two of the receptions have gas heaters. ...............

Do you mean permanently fitted gas fires ?

matt_drummer

Looking at it realistically, if you haven't got £10k to install a cost efficient heating system then you 'll very quickly have even less towards it.

The running costs of anything electric will cripple you.

The owners of the house will probably know this and so will most buyers.

Try and negotiate enough of the buying price to allow you to fit a decent heating system.

Gas if you have to.

ASHP if you could make it work with radiators.

Or air to air, but with that you'll have `heaters' on the wall which may not fit with the style of the house.

Also look at how well insulated the house is, you may need to factor in some costs here as well.

Scot_39

Suggest you need to start looking into the options - e.g.

 https://energysavingtrust.org.uk/energy-at-home/heating-your-home/

There are sections there on different forms of heating - from conventional gas, through NSH and panel heaters and then the varying Heat Pump options. It might give you some clues - as to when you start thinking about asking for quotes.

As far as pricing "currently" / "historically" Gas has been cheaper than electric - and so definite first choice of many if available - especially for larger properties.

(What the drive to net zero will do to historic ratios - is less clear - but I suspect they could tighten.)

Then for electric the most expensive form of heating is live fed conventional plug in (fan / convection) or convection / radiator panels etc.

NSH reduce the cost - in tandem with a tariff like E7 - depending on day/night rate split - to store energy at the cheaper rate - for use during the day.

Modern high end HHR storage heaters (likes of Dimplex or Elnur etc ) - are miles ahead of those fitted decades ago - in terms of controllability - e.g. have programmable thermostats etc.

Heat pumps get around the cost penalty of electric - by being super efficient - they have a COP rating range - so a COP of 3 means it provides 3kWh of useful heat for 1kWh input - i.e. on your bill / meter.

So with gas c10.3p (but predicted to fall further than electric in coming quarters) SR Electric c 33p

Nominally SR electric would cost around 3x as much to heat (most modern gas heating is fairly efficient - maybe 90%)

An E7 tariff might look something like 15p / 45p with a "good for heating" supplier. So using NSH and Immersion off-peak - maybe gets you to only being 50% more expensive for heat (ignoring the 12p penalty on day rate use for other devices).

Come July - difficult to predict - the day / night split is less tightly regulated by Ofgem.

An air source heat pump - might have a COP of 2+-3+ - a ground source (normally far more expensive - maybe 4+) depending on design and operation.

A COP of 3 currently makes it roughly the same as gas - 2 more akin to NSH at above E7 rates - and 4 obviously cheaper right now.

But the CI forecasts are more like 7-7.5p gas vs 29-30p electric - thats a shift from electric 3x gas to electric 4x gas. Whether that ratio persists ?

2+ years ago - the disparity was far higher - in the 5-6x range electric vs gas at one stage iirc.

The future markets and impact of new green levies - on either fuel - who knows.

JohnPo

I'd actually ask to see the last couple of years utility bills, if the owners are not forthcoming assume the worst.

The EPC should give a clue as to what you are letting yourselves in for based on the current setup, but possibly the property is marketed  with 'EPC to follow' - in which case investigate further.

Just a suggestion.

markin

6 to 7 night storage heaters won't be cheap either, At the very least you will need a £6K loan no matter what option you go with.

macman

£10K to install CH? Get another quote. How big is the property, how many rads?
But that investment, however much it is, will be money well spent. It'll increase the value of the property by more than that overnight. No one in future is going to want to buy an all-electric property, unless it's running NSH's and on E7.
You will recoup the investment in running costs over the current install within 3 or 4 years. Single rate electricity is 350% more than mains gas.

Lilliput100

Thanks for all of your answers