Electric Heating/Water Only - Running Costs Please

[imdad]

Hi all,

We have received some excellent guidance on here this past few days regarding heating and hot water.

Currently, we have old gas system in place. We are in the process of getting quotes for various upgrades.

Just so we can completely discount the move to electric only, please, if possible, would you mind sharing your monthly/yearly running costs for electric only.

Hypothetically, we would have some sort of cylinder for hot water and then individual electric heaters/radiators in each room.

The idea is future proofing now I suppose, in the hope that Solar will become much cheaper and more reliable in the near future and battery packs will also follow shortly.

My friend has a house (5 years old in Bristol) that is electric only. He has solar panels and a Tesla 12kw battery installed. His running costs are just a few hundred for the year BUT it cost him £10k for the battery pack. Fortunately, the solar panels were included as the developer sold them with the house.

I can’t afford this at the moment. I suppose I just wondered if it was worth paying a few years of higher running costs to benefit in the long run. One plumber friend said within 5 years, he will struggle for business (apart from maintenance and repairs) as gas is being phased out.

Thanks to anyone willing to share....

Nothing to add I’m afraid but following with interest. We’re just about to complete on a house that’s on storage heaters. When getting quotes, two different heating engineers told us not to waste our money installing pipe work etc for gas, but to get modern electric radiators and wait a few years for solar panels to come down in price.

These are both ex fire brigade buddies of my DP, so we’re inclined to trust them, but haven’t yet managed to work out actual running costs to make a decision...

My mum got rid of her gas boiler and had an electric boiler installed instead. She kept her radiators. Although the cost of electricity is much higher, electric boilers use much less power than gas, are more efficient, and there's very little to go wrong inside them. She paid about £2 - £300 more a year in fuel costs, but saved on annual services etc.

Might it be worth looking at that option? Apologies if that's been mentioned elsewhere, I didn't see your other thread.

The natural gas will just be slowly converted to hydrogen, but it’s a way off yet and mains gas is still the cheapest way to heat.
If your house is super insulated then it might not cost as much with electric. While the price of natural gas is cheaper than electric most people will stick with that.

I think you’re probably right. A few on here have stated the obvious fact that electric is 3 x as much as gas. I just wanted to learn from some actual homeowners about what the real costs are, if that makes sense?

Thanks

We have central heating from a single source for the whole apartment block so I can’t answer that.
But we have hot water from a very simple Ariston electric immersion heater. We switch it on when we want a shower and then SWITCH IT OFF. The residual warm water does for face washing and kitchen needs (we have a dishwasher).

There’s an age-old debate as to whether you should keep it ticking over at a fixed temperature or switch it on as needed. The previous tenants (DS and 3 fellow students) did it with only occasional showers and very little cooking. We have 10/12 showers a week and cook more on induction but we pay the same or slightly lower electricity bill.

I’m convinced it’s the immersion heater that makes the difference. But it does require a bit more forethought

The previous tenants did the “ticking over” method.

Cheap to install, expensive to run

I can’t even get my head round the gas v electricity. Never mind putting hydrogen into the mix 😂

dust off your GCSE maths and there's a way to work out how much energy is required to heat up a tank of hot water.

if you know the kw rating of your electric radiators, the hourly cost to run them is roughly that multiplied by your unit price, the latter probably about 17p.

electric prices are rocketing and will continue to do so, especially as electric cars come in and the lost fuel duty has to be recouped.

the gas boiler ban from 2025 is for newbuild homes only from that date. Removal of all gas (and oil boilers) won't be an issue for me or for anyone else aged over 40. There are NO plans for that (impossible anyway) so your gasman is talking out of the wrong orifice.

Unfortunately you cant really guess an amount from other peoples usage. A good estimate would be to just look at your gas usage and work out how much that would cost based on your electricity costs.

If you have an EPC for the house (check online if you don't have it personally) then that gives you an estimate of the heating demand for the house, space heating + hot water. You can then multiply that by your unit rate to get an idea of annual cost.

Though it may be more accurate to figure out what kw the new radiators will require (sizing them specifically for each room) and then multiplying by unit rate to give an hourly cost (as pp suggested).

Can you tell I love a spreadsheet?

I posted on your other thread.

We measure energy in KWH - one KWH is how much energy would be needed to keep a 1000 watt appliance running for an hour.

At current prices, 1 KHW of energy costs approx the following (I can share a SpreadSheet if you need more info):-

Electricity: 14p
Oil: 4.5p
Gas 3.9p

If you install electric you will be paying 3-4 times more for a KWH of energy.

It doesn't matter what source of fuel you use, be it oil, gas, electric, cow farts or whatever else you think of. A KWH output of one type of fuel is the same as a KWH of another!

With electricity, it is possible with a (very) sizeable investment in equipment (Solar Panels + Battery storage etc) to get 'free' energy. But what most people seem to miss on their calculations is this expensive equipment to generate free electricity wears outand will need replacing!

Cheapest is Gas, Next oil, News LPG and then way out in front is electricity.

What @tobyhouseman said!!!

Isn't there a bit missing in the calculation though? The efficiency of a boiler needs to be taken into account surely. Gas boilers aren't 100% efficient so the energy input required isn't the same as the heat output.

We had our oil tank pipe fail last year, and its a major job to fix as need new tank in new place/conservation area so need planning/not sure want new oil system anway etc. so we've been running electric immersion/electric plug in column heaters this last winter (already had the heaters from our last rental place ).

I've been really pleased. House has never been warmer. Upstairs always used to be freezing. Radiator system took hours to warm the house up and gurgled and clicked noisily plus boiler noise so couldn't have on while asleep.

Using thermostat and smart plugs control when and where the heating is on. Routines via Alexa to automatically turn everything off when we go out. Heating is targeted e.g. we don't use the lounge till the evening so now that heater only goes on at 5.pm

So electric is costing more but efficiency gains mean it isn't as black and white as above. Can't give you exact figures as with everyone here 24/7 its not comparable to the winter before (I realise you can do the same thing with TRVs/Nest learning etc.)

Pre-covid oil was signficantly more than gas I think about 6p. And we've saved the boiler service and ordering of oil.

@OooMrRigsby

Isn't there a bit missing in the calculation though? The efficiency of a boiler needs to be taken into account surely. Gas boilers aren't 100% efficient so the energy input required isn't the same as the heat output.

You are correct. Efficiency does come into play and these figures have already accounted for it.

EG
A litre of oil contains 10.35 KWH of energy. (Source: www.monikie.org.uk/fuel-calorific-values.htm ) At a current price of 42p per litre that would give a gross value of 4.06p per KWH. If we assume a 90% efficiency then the price goes up to 4.5p

For Electric we assume 100% Efficiency so a KWH is Approx 14p

So Electric is approx 3.1 times more expensive than oil.