Electric Radiators vs Gas Central Heating?

gazfocus

I’m in the process of buying a renovation project and the house currently doesn’t have central heating or even gas to the property. The house is currently heated by open fires in each room (the original 1930’s fireplaces) and the water is heated via an oil fed Aga. 

I’ve looked into getting gas to the house and we are looking at approx £1,000 for the connection plus the cost of the boiler/radiators/etc, so likely around £5-6,000. 

I was wondering if anyone here has gone down the route of electric radiators instead of gas central heating and how have you found them in terms of running costs/efficiency? How do you heat your water? 

I can’t justify the cost of an air source heat pump so that’s not on the cards. 

flashg67

We are electric only with modern electric heaters - one word - expensive!. They're very controllable (wifi) so we can easily turn off rooms we're not using but they are still expensive (50% + over gas as a rough guess for us). We have a battery based water heater - expensive to install but you only pay for what you use rather than heating a full cylinder full - https://fischerfutureheat.com/product/aquafficient/

gazfocus

I used to work for a company that makes electric radiators so while I can get the radiators at reasonable prices, I’ve no idea really on the running costs. I do know in our current home, we are spending about £115 per month for electricity even with gas heating, so it does worry me adding to the electricity consumption.

The house we are buying will be a holiday home once renovated so won’t need heating as often as a typical house, but last thing I want is to be enjoying the house and fretting over the electricity bill haha. 

ThisIsWeird

Hi GFocus.

I don't think the situation has changed - electric heating is far more expensive than gas. And the only remotely affordable form of electric heating would be storage heaters that would take advantage of low cost electricity, so would charge up overnight (and  with some providers, possibly for a while in the afternoons) - the options for this would need checking in advance. You'd heat your water the same way - charge up a hot cylinder of water overnight.

Apart from the much lower running costs, a gas-powered 'wet' system would also have the advantage of being future-proofed, as the radiator system could ultimately be powered from other sources, such as the ASHP you mentioned, or possibly even a change to H2 gas.

Using conventional electric heaters to heat your rooms in real time as required - IE at peak rates - would be very costly.

If you do decide that a wet rad system is the way to go, then take into account the lower water temps used for max efficiency from boilers, and especially from Heat Pumps, and size the rads accordingly - which will mean larger than expected!

And, since it's a renovation project, insulate insulate and insulate. Ideally line the insides of the external walls, and draughtproof the floors.

FreeBear

ThisIsWeird said: Apart from the much lower running costs, a gas-powered 'wet' system would also have the advantage of being future-proofed, as the radiator system could ultimately be powered from other sources, such as the ASHP you mentioned, or possibly even a change to H2 gas.


If you do decide that a wet rad system is the way to go, then take into account the lower water temps used for max efficiency from boilers, and especially from Heat Pumps, and size the rads accordingly - which will mean larger than expected!

Just bunging in bigger radiators with the thought that they would be OK with heat pumps isn't that simple. Yes, the radiators need to be a lot larger (maybe as much as twice as large), but the plumbing also needs to be bigger. 22mm at a minimum for ypur main feed & return, preferably 28mm. Drops to the radiators can still be 15mm, but no smaller (so no micro-bore stuff), and should be kept as short as possible.

The logic behind this - Heat pumps operate at a lower temperature, and the water is circulated at a correspondingly lower rate. As a result, you need a bigger volume of water to transfer the heat and allow more time for it to radiate heat out of the radiators.

Undervalued

gazfocus said:

I used to work for a company that makes electric radiators so while I can get the radiators at reasonable prices, I’ve no idea really on the running costs. I do know in our current home, we are spending about £115 per month for electricity even with gas heating, so it does worry me adding to the electricity consumption.

The house we are buying will be a holiday home once renovated so won’t need heating as often as a typical house, but last thing I want is to be enjoying the house and fretting over the electricity bill haha. 

That surely is the crucial bit.

If you are only using the place for limited amount of time, particularly if that is mainly in the summer months, it may take many years to save the extra capital costs of installing a gas central heating system. Remember too that gas boilers need servicing plus there is the concern of possible freezing and water leaks if the boiler were to fail when you are not there.

Yes, for like for like amounts of heat gas is very substantially cheaper but there are other factors.

shinytop

FreeBear said:

ThisIsWeird said: Apart from the much lower running costs, a gas-powered 'wet' system would also have the advantage of being future-proofed, as the radiator system could ultimately be powered from other sources, such as the ASHP you mentioned, or possibly even a change to H2 gas.


If you do decide that a wet rad system is the way to go, then take into account the lower water temps used for max efficiency from boilers, and especially from Heat Pumps, and size the rads accordingly - which will mean larger than expected!

Just bunging in bigger radiators with the thought that they would be OK with heat pumps isn't that simple. Yes, the radiators need to be a lot larger (maybe as much as twice as large), but the plumbing also needs to be bigger. 22mm at a minimum for ypur main feed & return, preferably 28mm. Drops to the radiators can still be 15mm, but no smaller (so no micro-bore stuff), and should be kept as short as possible.

The logic behind this - Heat pumps operate at a lower temperature, and the water is circulated at a correspondingly lower rate. As a result, you need a bigger volume of water to transfer the heat and allow more time for it to radiate heat out of the radiators.

I'm maybe being pedantic but an ASHP circulates water at a much higher rate in terms of flow rate than a gas boiler; 20-30 litres per minute or more as opposed to 10-15 or so for fossil fuel boilers. Good point about the main feed and return and hopefully no sensible heating engineer would use microbore these days. 

@gazfocus have you considered A2A unit(s)?  That is, an AC that can heat?  These will be cheaper to run than electric heaters.  Even a combination of one of them and electric heaters might work. Like this:

https://www.airconcentre.co.uk/products/panasonic-nanoe-3-5kw-r32-floor-console-inverter-kit-z35-ufe?variant=39779759554693&om=13062&gclid=Cj0KCQjwj_ajBhCqARIsAA37s0y8XLw4hsTnh9zcLlbvBQ0PnV4opG56ca5eTi-VekY1N7MOxQjN6Z4aAuluEALw_wcB

subjecttocontract

The cost of 1 Kwh of Electricity is X4 the price of 1Kwh of Gas. So unless you have solar energy &/or a heat pump electricity is always going to be more expensive.

BUFF

Another option to consider - you already have an oil-fired AGA sp presumably have a tank etc., what about an oil-fired condensing boiler (+ rads and/or underfloor depending upon construction of the house)?

danrv

shinytop said: 

@gazfocus have you considered A2A unit(s)?  That is, an AC that can heat?  These will be cheaper to run than electric heaters.  Even a combination of one of them and electric heaters might work. Like this:

https://www.airconcentre.co.uk/products/panasonic-nanoe-3-5kw-r32-floor-console-inverter-kit-z35-ufe?variant=39779759554693&om=13062&gclid=Cj0KCQjwj_ajBhCqARIsAA37s0y8XLw4hsTnh9zcLlbvBQ0PnV4opG56ca5eTi-VekY1N7MOxQjN6Z4aAuluEALw_wcB

My property is electric only and I have A2A multisplit for downstairs heating and electric radiators for upstairs. My three air handlers are mounted higher on the wall but the floor console idea looks good. 
Bills in the colder months are similar to what three modern storage heaters would cost to run. The electric rads aren’t used that often so it works fine for me.

It’s a compromise as a full ASHP wet system, while a good investment would have been too expensive at £15-£20k.
A2A has the added benefit of cooling, low maintenance plus it’s a greener option.

gazfocus

BUFF said:

Another option to consider - you already have an oil-fired AGA sp presumably have a tank etc., what about an oil-fired condensing boiler (+ rads and/or underfloor depending upon construction of the house)?

I'd not actually thought of that to be honest, but a definite option. 

My main concern with this option is that I've just moved out of a rental that had an Oil fired condensing boiler. Firstly, the boiler was somewhat large (about the size of a washing machine) and despite it being a brand new boiler, it was a very expensive system to run. Between November and March we spent about £1,500 on oil. Now, I do have my suspicions that there was a fault somewhere as you could smell the oil in the room where the boiler was, though no visible signs of a leak. I've nothing to compare it to though so unsure if this kind of usage is 'the norm'.