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Original poster

Gas Central Heating - Is it really worth getting installed?

77 replies

MmeLindor · 17/09/2012 11:58

We have moved into a house which needs LOTS of work.

New windows, bathroom, kitchen, flooring.. the works.

We have electric storage heaters at present and I have just had the first bill. For the 6 weeks we have owned the house (although we didn't move into the house for 2 weeks so it is actually usage for 4 weeks) - £120

Now, when we were staying with my parents I paid their electric/gas bills and they came to £130, which was always a little over-payment but not loads. They have gas central heating and almost identical house.

I know that we will use more electricity in the winter, but don't yet know how much but even if we were to go up to £150 it would still not be much more than my parents are paying.

Installing GCH is going to cost about £3 - 4k.

if we 'save' £20 a month for a year, that is £240. The investment doesn't make sense, does it?

I am assuming that gas prices have risen so much, and that is why my parents pay so much. Is this going to be about gambling on the rise in energy prices?

We are also considering installing a wood burning oven in the living room / dining room, where we spend most of our time.

OP posts:

Beamur · 17/09/2012 12:26

My friend is very no-nonsense! I think they have electric showers and a dishwasher, so make do with those.

stealthsquiggle · 17/09/2012 12:28

If oil/gas prices continue to rise, so will electricity and wood costs...

fourwalls · 17/09/2012 12:30

If your house was for sale and you didn't have Gas CH and I was still interested enough to make you an offer - I would definitely deduct the full cost of installing heating from my offer and a substantial extra amount for all the hassle and trouble installing and redecorating would cause me.

At that point you would probably tell me to take a running jump - but as far as I would be concerned - your house is defintely worth much less without GCH and in reality I probably wouldn't make an offer precisely because of the lack of GCH.

Get it in while you can!

QuickLookBusy · 17/09/2012 12:31

We had electic heating a long time ago. It was fine in the autumn and spring but awful on the winter. By the time evening came they weren't giving out any heat. We were freezing.

We've had central heating ever since and also now have a wood burner. Like Hully if we have the wood burner on all day we don't put the heating on.

You could of course just wait and see. Have a winter with the electic heating and see how it goes.

Original poster

MmeLindor · 17/09/2012 12:32

will look into the pellets thing, then Bloated.

I keep coming back to the fact that my parents pay almost the same as I am estimating we will pay and have an almost identical house, same area, same facing etc.

Even if our costs were to go up to £180 a month, we would still be about £50 a month more --- £600ish pounds - that is 5 years. Assuming gas prices stay stable, which they are not likely to.

Once we have the house as we want it, I don't see us moving any time soon.

OP posts:

MrsPear · 17/09/2012 12:32

Gas! Not electric! I have never owned but i have rented a flat with electric strorage heaters and they were the biggest PITA! The temperture was never right - either bloody cold or a furnance. The heat was also there at the wrong time of the day - i.e daytime not night time! And the air was just stuffy - we had permenant blocked noses. And the bills for winter (which we are not in yet!) were terrible. Both DH and i are agreed never again. Oh and as a final thought you can't panic dry clothes on the heaters!

Original poster

MmeLindor · 17/09/2012 12:33

Quick
we won't have the money to do the big renovation jobs till March anyway - no point in doing anything else till we do the CH.

OP posts:

Indith · 17/09/2012 12:33

AS an aside, I know you said you don't want teh stove to do the heating because you don't want to get up early to light the fire but you don't have to. The fire stays in all night. With a good stove you can turn it down so it stays in but hardly burns anything at all. When you get up you just open the air vents and woosh away the fire goes. We have more hot water than we know what to do with over winter and a lovely toasty house. Ok so the heating isn't on when you get up but it is still lovely downstairs because of the heat from the stove and because it has been heating water slowly all night the heating comes on right away as soon as the fire gets going again.

Original poster

MmeLindor · 17/09/2012 12:34

lol at panic drying clothes - I have a tumble dryer for that.

OP posts:

Original poster

MmeLindor · 17/09/2012 12:37

That is interesting, Indith.

Will consider that as an alternative.

No one has suggested solar panels yet. I think they are incredibly expensive here though.

OP posts:

fourwalls · 17/09/2012 12:39

There's a reason why estate agents always put Gas Central Heating in the bullet points when selling houses.

People like it.

It sells houses.

Many people consider it a basic essential. It is without question better, cheaper, more efficient than electric heating.

Ignore at your peril

purpleflower123 · 17/09/2012 12:45

I've just moved from a Bungalow with storage heaters into a house with GCH. Even though this house is bigger and poorly insulated its cheaper.

Storage heaters are a faff. We had to close the vents on them before bed so they only let a little heat out and slowly open them over the day. If we didn't do this I was roasting in the morning opening windows and freezing at night. We had to have a fan heater to boost in the evenings too. I also had to watch the weather forecast all the time, it stores the heat at night so you need to know what the next day will be like. In spring and autumn you can have 1 day hot and the next cold.

With GCH I can put it on for an hour in the evenings to take the chill off. I have almost instant heat without having to use expensive fan heaters. I can also control the heat a lot easier.

I'd chose GCH over storage heaters everytime. The convenience of it is brilliant.

ivykaty44 · 17/09/2012 12:46

do you get sun in Scotland to be able to use solar panels

nextphase · 17/09/2012 12:47

Having lived in a house with storage heaters, the thing that really got me was the lack of control. If you didn't think it was going to be cold, you didn't "load" them up over night, and then the weather changes, and you come home to a freezing house which you can't do much about. The instant control with central heating is amazing in contrast. we also had issues with the positioning of the heaters, and one door opened onto the heater, and if it was left open, it scorched...

If you are doing the work, and can afford it, I'd put in the central heating - it would be horrible to get the house how you want it, and then decide you want central heating.

On a hijack - how many people have their heating on? Ours hasn't been on for months, and I'm sitting here in a teeshirt??

ivykaty44 · 17/09/2012 12:50

Is there any reason you can't have both wood burning stove and GCH - then you can turn one down and keep the other one burning f gas is going up in price. You can buy wood in summer if you have storage and buying in bulk in summer will be cheaper.

Original poster

MmeLindor · 17/09/2012 12:57

Ok, the responsive thing is certainly going to be something to watch over the winter.

We had oil heating in our house in Switzerland and it was incredibly expensive so I guess that is why this seems a bargain in comparison.

Gas heating and stove would be the ideal solution, Ivy but we have to watch our budget - we can only spend about £20k on the house because after that we will have invested more than it will be worth. I am guessing £25k is absolutely top of the budget range.

And we need bathroom, kitchen, windows, wc, flooring throughout the house, possibly rewiring (but likely just new sockets and switches)

And completely re-decorating. We have done upstairs already.

OP posts:

prettybird · 17/09/2012 13:07

I find my gas usage/bill more than doubles in winter once we put the heating on. But then, we live in half a Victorian stone villa with 13 foot high celings and drafty windows.

HaplessHousewife · 17/09/2012 13:10

I would definitely see how you get on over the winter before making a decision. We have GCH but it's some weird system without a thermostat so our heating is either on or off and that was irritating enough last winter.

By the time you realise you're hot and turn it off it takes ages to cool down and then you forget to put it back on until it's freezing again. And the timer on it can only be programmed to come on twice but just having heating in the morning and evening isn't enough when we're in all day. We're having some work done so that we can have a thermostat before the winter!

prettybird · 17/09/2012 13:12

Meant also to say it depends on how long you plan on being in the house, as you would probably recoup it on selling - people tend not to like houses with central heating (unless they're planning on doing them up ).

Obviously depends on your cash flow at the moment - but if you're going to end up putting it in anyway, then wouldn't it be better to get the benefit from it sooner rather than later and get the disruption over with before you've done "good" decorating?

LadyWellian · 17/09/2012 13:12

MmeL, how are you heating your water at present? Another GCH benefit is that if you have a combi boiler you have instant hot water that never runs out, and you are only heating as much as you need.

MorallyBankrupt · 17/09/2012 13:19

Ooh does this mean you bought one of the houses you were looking at ages ago.... One with a big tiger on the wall?!

DottyandSpottyWot · 17/09/2012 13:20

We moved from a house with storage heating to a house with gas central heating, we got a replacement boiler (not new pipes or radiators) and we pay a lot less now over the winter months, and the heating is so easy to control. Also on the east coast of scotland and can recommend a local company if you want! Do not go with Scottish/British Gas they charge way over!

shrinkingnora · 17/09/2012 13:21

Thing is, I pay £70 a month for a three bed house for both gas and electricity. I would be horrified at a bill of £150 for four weeks. And our usage is in January is nearly double July's.

MousyMouse · 17/09/2012 13:26

wrt solar panels, we are having to do some roof repairs and the solar panel issue came up.
the conventional panels (that just heat up water) are only usefull if you have a huge insulated watertank to store the hot water and the photovoltaic ones are (atm) too expensive. they apparently only give an return after about 10 years, which is incidentially the time when expensive repairs/maintainance starts...

MrsMiniversCharlady · 17/09/2012 14:09

Was the bill you got from actual meter readings or was it an estimate?

I've had night storage heaters, oil and gas heating, and gas was definitely cheaper. Night storage heaters are a pain in the backside because it takes so long to adjust - ie if you get a sudden cold snap then you have to wait until the next night to charge the heaters up more. We also used to find that in winter the storage heaters would be 'empty' my late afternoon and we would spend the evenings freezing our arses off.

Maybe I had crap storage heaters, but I'd never want to live with them again and if I bought a house with them I wouldn't pay as much as if they had GCH.

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