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Moving to all Electric

Making your money go further
taken2often
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Moving to all Electric

#383899

Postby taken2often » February 5th, 2021, 4:54 pm

I live in Scotland and the SNP are going to do away with gas boilers over time. The Condensation boilers are supposed to havea a limited life span 10/12 years. I am told a lot of the components are plastic. Last summer I had a breakdown, I had the part and it cost about £80 for call out and labour, without the part it would have been £180. My boiler is about 23 years old, still with pilot light but repairable at reasonable cost. Decided to make a change that would reduce the strain on the gas boiler.

A friend who had the old electric storage heaters, changed to the new high tech electric heaters Rointe delighted with the change started to use her lounge which was easier to heat at reasonable cost. So I decided time to change the consumer unit and have these heaters installed. Still had the boiler for hot water but burning a lot of gas. Decided to replace it with a 80 litre electric tank around £300. To big for one person, you live and learn it runs constantly at 55 degrees. stacks of hot water. Decided to change the Oven/Grill and Hob to electric. Then had the gas meter disconnected.

I also ended up changing the supplier. Found out you do not get a decent deal from your existing supplier you must move probably every year. Always go for the KWH rate and standing charge. I moved from Scottish Power to EON 0.1529 pence per KWH a good reduction Standing Charge down from 0.23 per day to 0.1570 per day. Who knew that you could pay up to 0.30 per day. Started end of October so still early days but what I was paying before was £125 gas £42 electric = £167.00 per month. So far my dearest day, when really cold was £2.24 if I multiplied this by 365 days it would work out at £817.60 the alternative was £2,004. Probably not as bad as that. But then again I did not take into account summer reductions..

Benefits. No Service charges ??. No under floor hot water piping. Complete control of each room. My apartment never goes below 15 degrees. Bedroom minimum 16 max for 2 hours in the morning 21. Hall, which keeps the bathroom reasonable 21 from 6am to 11pm then 18 The lounge 12 (but always seems to be 15+) until needed then 21/22. Office 16 from 11.30pm to 7.00am then 21 if office is in use. Lounge and Office manual adjustment to suit needs. Electronic hand held unit to adjust, saves ware by not pressing buttons, on heaters. Great comfort level so very pleased

There are now quite a number of Electric radiator suppliers. I like Rointe as they are oil filled and do make claims of substantial savings. Not the cheapest but you have to shop round. Remember on all the time adjust the temps to suit your needs

The down side nothing on the heaters, but there could be a problem with the Water tank and this depends on where you live. In Scotland we do not get Lime Scale. I understand that between the Lime and the oxygen the Anode in the tank gets eaten away. The Heating elements get coated and reduces efficiency and there is two of them a 700w and a 1300w this is what makes it efficient. So A service recommended every two years. Parts and labour may be around £200 plus. Because of my water I am not going to have it serviced , If it breaks I will just replace it. This may give me 5,10 or 15 years luck of the game./

I do not believe in time clocks. The simplistic believe that heating switched off is the best, ignores the heat retention in the fabric of the building,
carpets and furnishings. Easier and cheaper to get to comfort level using the heat you have already paid for.

It looks like the savings will make it worthwhile. By the way the 2.24 per day is reduced by not having the gas standing charge. A saving of about £60.00 per year.

swill453
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Re: Moving to all Electric

#383903

Postby swill453 » February 5th, 2021, 5:03 pm

All I can say is that your old gas boiler must have been hugely inefficient. We have a 2 year old condensing combi boiler in our 3 bedroom semi in central Scotland and pay £57 per month for gas and electricity combined.

(And we tend to be in the house all day).

Scott.

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Re: Moving to all Electric

#383967

Postby jackdaww » February 5th, 2021, 9:00 pm

i am a fan of electricity for top up heat and cooking and water .

avoiding the gas standing charge is a benefit .

but there is no magic in "high tech" heaters .

heat requires hard kilowatts .

:idea:

AsleepInYorkshire
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Re: Moving to all Electric

#383969

Postby AsleepInYorkshire » February 5th, 2021, 9:09 pm

swill453 wrote:All I can say is that your old gas boiler must have been hugely inefficient. We have a 2 year old condensing combi boiler in our 3 bedroom semi in central Scotland and pay £57 per month for gas and electricity combined.

(And we tend to be in the house all day).

Scott.

We're moving in on Monday. We can sleep on the floors :lol:

AiY

taken2often
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Re: Moving to all Electric

#383976

Postby taken2often » February 5th, 2021, 10:12 pm

Hi Scott
That is amazing deal, so you are on the ball price wise. Do you have your heating on 24/7 during winter. My new charge is around £42 a month for all my electricity. It also appears that different areas have different charges, just confuse the issue.

Bob

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Re: Moving to all Electric

#384014

Postby richlist » February 6th, 2021, 8:14 am

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned heat pumps and solar panels in the context of all electric.
I guess solar panels in Scotland are probably a non starter.

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Re: Moving to all Electric

#384017

Postby Mike4 » February 6th, 2021, 8:26 am

richlist wrote:I'm surprised nobody has mentioned heat pumps and solar panels in the context of all electric.
I guess solar panels in Scotland are probably a non starter.


Both fraught with difficulties given the OP lives in a flat.

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Re: Moving to all Electric

#384020

Postby swill453 » February 6th, 2021, 8:38 am

richlist wrote:I'm surprised nobody has mentioned heat pumps and solar panels in the context of all electric.
I guess solar panels in Scotland are probably a non starter.

Nope, I see solar panels everywhere here in Scotland. Not sure about (air source) heat pumps though - I don't think the temperature here has been above 5 degrees here since early December.

Scott.

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Re: Moving to all Electric

#384022

Postby Mike4 » February 6th, 2021, 8:46 am

swill453 wrote:
richlist wrote:I'm surprised nobody has mentioned heat pumps and solar panels in the context of all electric.
I guess solar panels in Scotland are probably a non starter.

Nope, I see solar panels everywhere here in Scotland. Not sure about (air source) heat pumps though - I don't think the temperature here has been above 5 degrees here since early December.

Scott.


What? You see solar panels retro-fitted to flats?

(The OP said he lives in an apartment.)

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Re: Moving to all Electric

#384023

Postby swill453 » February 6th, 2021, 8:48 am

Mike4 wrote:What? You see solar panels retro-fitted to flats?

(The OP said he lives in an apartment.)

I know, but I was responding to richlist's specific comment about solar panels in Scotland.

Scott.

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Re: Moving to all Electric

#384030

Postby richlist » February 6th, 2021, 8:57 am

I missed the fact that the op is in a flat.

I am surprised that there are lots of solar panels in Scotland.
Air sourced heat pumps will work ok at those temperatures.

All electric (& or hydrogen) is the future......getting it for free or in the most cost efficient way is the tough part.

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Re: Moving to all Electric

#384031

Postby Mike4 » February 6th, 2021, 9:00 am

swill453 wrote:All I can say is that your old gas boiler must have been hugely inefficient.


I second this, given the price of a kWhr of energy purchased in the form of gas is typically about 1/3 of the price of the same kWhr of energy purchased as electricity. Dumping gas for electricity is never going to work financially until the govt makes gas and leccy prices converge.

And all the stuff about modern electric heaters being super-efficient is tosh. Technobabble spouted by salesmen and marketing people with no technical grasp of the product they are promoting.

All electric heaters are 100% efficient (except perhaps for a microscopic amount of energy wasted as noise), even 30 year old heaters. There is no other way for the energy used to be dissipated other than as heat.

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Re: Moving to all Electric

#384046

Postby JohnB » February 6th, 2021, 9:47 am

Certainly servicing costs and standing charges make the raw gas/electric cost per therm difference much less clear cut, especially for low usage. A lot depends on your building (many more options for a house than a flat), but also a lot depends on future prices of gas and electricity. Will electric supply from renewables grow faster than demand from electric cars. Will reduced demand for gas mean the price will fall. Will the government be interventionist and put differential taxes on gas and electricity.

Any change is likely to be disruptive. Air Source Heat Pumps need different plumbing from gas boilers, storage radiators need wallspace, never mind underfloor heating.

If my gas boiler needed replacement today, you could be confident about a cost path, not sure you could in 3 years time.

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Re: Moving to all Electric

#384074

Postby Mike4 » February 6th, 2021, 10:27 am

ReallyVeryFoolish wrote:
Mike4 wrote:
swill453 wrote:All I can say is that your old gas boiler must have been hugely inefficient.


I second this, given the price of a kWhr of energy purchased in the form of gas is typically about 1/3 of the price of the same kWhr of energy purchased as electricity. Dumping gas for electricity is never going to work financially until the govt makes gas and leccy prices converge.

And all the stuff about modern electric heaters being super-efficient is tosh. Technobabble spouted by salesmen and marketing people with no technical grasp of the product they are promoting.

All electric heaters are 100% efficient (except perhaps for a microscopic amount of energy wasted as noise), even 30 year old heaters. There is no other way for the energy used to be dissipated other than as heat.

Correct, however, the ability to control the heaters has come on leaps and bounds. Even things like external temperature compensation etc... are now fairly easily do able. We no longer have to open a window in the winter when your house is too warm! Good, modern control room by room can enable significant savings compared to ancient on or off only heating.

RVF


True, but this is tinkering with the engineering detail in an effort to overcome the massive millstone of switching to a fuel three times the price.

Puts me in mind of the would-be designers of perpetual motion machines "if only we could reduce the friction in the bearings still further, we would almost have perpetual motion"...

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Re: Moving to all Electric

#384126

Postby Mike4 » February 6th, 2021, 11:44 am

ReallyVeryFoolish wrote:
True, but this is tinkering with the engineering detail in an effort to overcome the massive millstone of switching to a fuel three times the price.

Puts me in mind of the would-be designers of perpetual motion machines "if only we could reduce the friction in the bearings still further, we would almost have perpetual motion"...

Indeed you are absolutely correct. For many though, both my grown kids in city centre apartments, gas is simply not an option. Hence optimising what we can have is the only solution we have. That has become a lot easier with modern technology.

RVF[/quote]

Yes definitely a case of "I wouldn't start from here". With big new build city apartments heat pumps for district heating, solar and high levels of insulation can all be incorporated into the building design. Retro-fitting such things would be technically possible but commercially unviable, and an utter field day for the lawyers with permissions etc.

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Re: Moving to all Electric

#384150

Postby James » February 6th, 2021, 12:41 pm

ReallyVeryFoolish wrote:
It's very, very sad the industry in the UK has never been encouraged enough to incorporate things like combined heat and power, district heating etc..... into new developments. Not far from me, there's an absolutely huge new development of mostly detached houses and literally across the street there's a gas turbine combined heat and power plant that would be perfect to power a district heating network. It's very sad that the local authorities who were very quick to declare a climate emergency were simply not interested in making a dustruct heating scheme a mandatory part of the planning permission.

RVF


A friend of mine has a district power system in her rented flat, which is in the old Olympic Village. She uses an electric heater most of the time as it cheaper and more reliable. The community facebook pages are filled with complaints about the supplier and the lack of proper heating.
I wouldn't touch a centralised system. If I have a problem with my heating in my house I can get an engineer around to fix it. If there's a problem with a district heating system, good luck with that.

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Re: Moving to all Electric

#384167

Postby JohnB » February 6th, 2021, 1:28 pm

Many blocks of flats were built with communal heating systems in the 1960s. By the 1990s they'd all been ripped out and replaced with individual systems. I guess it was because of the tragedy of the commons without individual billing (remember the old joke about New York heating systems, just let the shower run with the free hot water), and arguments about maintenance and repairs which made them unpopular with purchasers.

Communal heating systems need really cheap heat, from hydrothermal or power stations, and tenancies to a central authority. I guess modern metering might handle flow*temperature to assess your therm input, but I'd still be wary.

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Re: Moving to all Electric

#384326

Postby taken2often » February 6th, 2021, 10:52 pm

Thanks for responding, interesting views. Mike 4. The big reduction in KWH rate for gas is due to the loss of heat whilst burning the fuel. This is better than my old boiler which was far less efficient. My wastage is at the power station, so you still pay.

With regards to what seems a high maintenance cost of the Water Tank. I paid £300 others may have paid 6/700, and as always it tends to be the labour charge. A maintenance monthly charge for the gas boiler might work out similar over two years.. In Scotland if you have attic space a copper boiler with heating elements would last for years and the elements are easy to replace, and no fancy electrics.

34 years ago I was thinking of going into business. The Design Council had given an award to a new Vacuum Solar Tube which was highly efficient and I think is the most popular today. The problem then was the only people who were buying were the wealthy middle and old age. Those who in fact did not need it as their water usage would be tiny. I phoned an Architect who was building a hotel in Spain for Rio Stakis (a blast from the past). Who told me that the Spanish engineers had told him it was a waste of time, no benefit to be had. Gave up and moved on to something much better.

Heat Pumps. My friend in the mid Highlands who had oil central heating, who worked only on time clocks much to his wife's discomfort. He was ok as he had an electric heater in his office. So he comes across this big discount/grant for a Air sourced heat pump. Still cost about 8/9k because of the size he needed. I visit. I know nothing about them so I ask for the technical information. This says the the performance will start to fall below 15 degrees. I have been there at minus 12. Not to pleased when I pointed this out. I suggested that he would have to keep the system running 24hrs to even give it a chance. Since then I have wondered if in fact they have built in heating elements to compensate for the cold air. Any way his electric bills were horrendous, so within a year and a half he bought a new oil boiler and sold the Heat Pump. An expensive exercise.

Just to cheer you up I think that by law all roofs will have to have photoelectric cells, perhaps producing Hydrogen to run fuel cells. I also think you will need a license to own a car.Big Brother may decide that you do not need one.Not in the Public Interest. The electric car will kill the secondhand car market any way. It will be all for our own good you know.

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Re: Moving to all Electric

#384332

Postby Mike4 » February 6th, 2021, 11:08 pm

JohnB wrote:Many blocks of flats were built with communal heating systems in the 1960s. By the 1990s they'd all been ripped out and replaced with individual systems. I guess it was because of the tragedy of the commons without individual billing (remember the old joke about New York heating systems, just let the shower run with the free hot water), and arguments about maintenance and repairs which made them unpopular with purchasers.

Communal heating systems need really cheap heat, from hydrothermal or power stations, and tenancies to a central authority. I guess modern metering might handle flow*temperature to assess your therm input, but I'd still be wary.


You're right about the district heating. Three problems.

1) When it packs up, 100 flats all lose their heating at once. Big drama.
2) Accurate metering of individual flats' energy consumption is damned near impossible so billing disputes are interminable.
3) There is a 3, I just cant remember it, honest! I blame the Viognier.

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Re: Moving to all Electric

#384418

Postby dspp » February 7th, 2021, 12:27 pm

Mike4 wrote:
ReallyVeryFoolish wrote:
Mike4 wrote:
I second this, given the price of a kWhr of energy purchased in the form of gas is typically about 1/3 of the price of the same kWhr of energy purchased as electricity. Dumping gas for electricity is never going to work financially until the govt makes gas and leccy prices converge.

And all the stuff about modern electric heaters being super-efficient is tosh. Technobabble spouted by salesmen and marketing people with no technical grasp of the product they are promoting.

All electric heaters are 100% efficient (except perhaps for a microscopic amount of energy wasted as noise), even 30 year old heaters. There is no other way for the energy used to be dissipated other than as heat.

Correct, however, the ability to control the heaters has come on leaps and bounds. Even things like external temperature compensation etc... are now fairly easily do able. We no longer have to open a window in the winter when your house is too warm! Good, modern control room by room can enable significant savings compared to ancient on or off only heating.

RVF


True, but this is tinkering with the engineering detail in an effort to overcome the massive millstone of switching to a fuel three times the price.

Puts me in mind of the would-be designers of perpetual motion machines "if only we could reduce the friction in the bearings still further, we would almost have perpetual motion"...


Elec @ 3x the efficiency of delivered heat, vs Gas/Oil at 1x the efficiency of delivered heat and 3x the cost.

A very crude simplification I am the first to admit.

regards, dspp


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