Costs moving from gas to electric boiler (home move)

Victorwelldue

I currently live in an old one bedroom top floor flat, granite construction with no insulation. Approx. 44M2 with 2.8M high ceilings. Gas central heating (combi boiler). Currently pay £200 per month for gas & electricity which seems pretty high to me as I'd say my usage is average for a single person who works from home 2 days per week.

Considering moving to a modern 2 Bedroom top floor flat with good wall & loft insulation. Approx. 62M2 with ceilings just over 2M high. Its an old building that has just been modernised and turned into fancy flats. 

According to the EPC the new place is rated D (score is 60) which I think is mainly down to the fact it has an electric boiler for some reason. The EPC estimates the monthly energy bills over next 3 years will be around £150 per month, which is a saving I'd actually be delighted with!

So my questions:

1. How accurate is the energy spend figures given by EPCs? Obviously certain assumptions are made but are they usually fairly close or not? Based on info above above am I likely to see energy bills that are lower, same or higher? (hoping that the additional electricity cost is offset by the lower ceilings & the insulation, albeit larger floor area)

2. Assuming the building can get gas, can an electric boiler be swapped for a gas boiler or does the whole heating system need changing? Also approx. cost to change from electric to gas?

Waiting to find out if building can get gas, its in a city centre so would hope so but seems odd it doesn't have gas to start with, or is that the way it is with new developments these days due to environmental considerations?


  

bob2302

Perhaps you should get a prediction for your current flat and see how it matches reality. 

Spoonie_Turtle

Electric heating is the most expensive form.  Per kWh it's about 3-4x more expensive depending on the efficiency of the existing gas boiler.  I am no expert but I would not at all expect the new flat to be cheaper to heat unless you did get gas.  EPC predictions are … not reliable.  They're not always even based in reality, often there'll be parts that have been assumed.

(And an example I often trot out - at various points our house and the adjoining mirror image house, with identical work done by the Housing Association, have had either different numbers of rooms according to the EPC, been a different size, and had different ratings for the same characteristics.  At the moment we apparently have a rating of C while theirs is D - despite having exactly the same things under every category [the disparity between size in older EPCs has been corrected].  Oh wait, the loft insulation is different … theirs is assumed to be 300mm and ours is 150mm.  Yet theirs has a lower rating.  Even though theirs should apparently cost less to heat/light/provide hot water according to the EPCs.  Absolutely bonkers.)

FreeBear

Spoonie_Turtle said: Electric heating is the most expensive form.  Per kWh it's about 3-4x more expensive depending on the efficiency of the existing gas boiler.

Correction - Electric heating using a wet boiler & radiators is the most expensive. Using panel/fan/convector, a little cheaper. Night storage heating can work out cheaper to run than other forms of electric heating if on the right tariff.

Electric heating using a heat pump can be as cheap as gas, and if tweaked for maximum efficiency, could be even cheaper. However, installing a heat pump in a flat comes with a whole bunch of problems (planning being one) that may make it impossible. If you can get round the planning issues, it might be worth looking at an air to air system.

If there isn't currently a gas supply to the flat, you may find the connection charges excessive.

Spoonie_Turtle

FreeBear said:

Spoonie_Turtle said: Electric heating is the most expensive form.  Per kWh it's about 3-4x more expensive depending on the efficiency of the existing gas boiler.

Correction - Electric heating using a wet boiler & radiators is the most expensive. Using panel/fan/convector, a little cheaper. Night storage heating can work out cheaper to run than other forms of electric heating if on the right tariff.

Electric heating using a heat pump can be as cheap as gas, and if tweaked for maximum efficiency, could be even cheaper. However, installing a heat pump in a flat comes with a whole bunch of problems (planning being one) that may make it impossible. If you can get round the planning issues, it might be worth looking at an air to air system.

If there isn't currently a gas supply to the flat, you may find the connection charges excessive.

(Sorry, yes, in my head I meant straightforward heating on single rate, but that got completely lost between brain and the words that actually came out.  Thanks for adding in the accuracy!)

matelodave

As said above, an electric boiler with wet is probably the most expensive way to heat anywhere short of actually burning money in a grate.

Newbie_John

£200 a month is actually a lot for 1 bed flat. £150, so £1800 a year for two bed sounds reasonable. 

So all down to insulation really, but we also don't know anything about your habits - is it £200 now because you like 25°C in winter?

Victorwelldue

Newbie_John said:

£200 a month is actually a lot for 1 bed flat. £150, so £1800 a year for two bed sounds reasonable. 

So all down to insulation really, but we also don't know anything about your habits - is it £200 now because you like 25°C in winter?

I like around 22C and try to limit to even just the bedroom in winter BUT my current living room is north facing and gets pretty chilly even in summer, so I probably use more energy in that sense as heating sometimes on in summer to take the chill off. Other than that I'd say fairly normal usage and I wouldn't expect heating to be needed as much in new place due to installation, lower ceilings and fact it will get more natural; heat during summer. If I could even keep at £200 per month in new place I'd be happy. Does £200 seem reasonable given conditions of new place above? Or does anyone know of any good calculators where you can enter floor space, ceiling height, heating method etc to get a feel for how much energy may be used?

FreeBear

Victorwelldue said: Or does anyone know of any good calculators where you can enter floor space, ceiling height, heating method etc to get a feel for how much energy may be used?

There are heat loss calculators that you can punch in a few basic dimensions and get an answer out. But most of the online ones make a lot of assumptions and the results are far from accurate.

Probably the easiest thing to do is pop over to one of the energy comparison sites (e.g. USwitch) - Some of them auto-fill the boxes with current supplier and actual usage - That will give you an indicator of how much you'll be paying. Alternatively, you could ask the previous occupants.

Spoonie_Turtle

Victorwelldue said:

Newbie_John said:

£200 a month is actually a lot for 1 bed flat. £150, so £1800 a year for two bed sounds reasonable. 

So all down to insulation really, but we also don't know anything about your habits - is it £200 now because you like 25°C in winter?

I like around 22C and try to limit to even just the bedroom in winter BUT my current living room is north facing and gets pretty chilly even in summer, so I probably use more energy in that sense as heating sometimes on in summer to take the chill off. Other than that I'd say fairly normal usage and I wouldn't expect heating to be needed as much in new place due to installation, lower ceilings and fact it will get more natural; heat during summer. If I could even keep at £200 per month in new place I'd be happy. Does £200 seem reasonable given conditions of new place above?

Are you expecting it to need just a quarter of the heating of your current flat (to stay at a similar price)?

cannugec5

Victorwelldue said:

I like around 22C and try to limit to even just the bedroom in winter BUT my current living room is north facing and gets pretty chilly even in summer, so I probably use more energy in that sense as heating sometimes on in summer to take the chill off. 

We usually have our house temperature set at 18-20 during the day. 

Cooler at night. 

The bedrooms are set cooler - not warmer than the rest of the house. 

I don’t think there’s any ‘normal’ . 

Clearly what is comfortable for you would not suit me.