Alternatives to electric heating

[Jess825]

I've recently bought a property that is electric only. The street I'm on has no gas but the bottom of the road does.

I've spoken to the gas board who quoted me £1k to connect me to the gas (this would involve digging the path to lay the pipes). They they came back and said they made a mistake, the quote was for 20m or less away from the mains, and as I am 100m away the cost will be £75k!

I'm not sure how they worked that out... Anyway, if that is accurate then there is no way I can afford to have that done. Does anyone have any suggestions for alternative heating? The house used to have storage heaters but the last owner put in electric radiators.

Gas tank or gas bottles feeding a gas boiler. Oil tank feeding a boiler. Aga/Rayburn/multi fuel stove with rads/back boiler option. Heat source pump system.
lots of options, all with varying prices depending on house size/layout etc. Probably best getting professionals in to quote/discuss practicalities of each option then go from there.

Underfloor heating with a ground or air source heat pump and/or solar panels?

Or you could go for oil or a wood pellet boiler.

How extensive a set of renovations are you planning to do? It's all very well saying underfloor heating, but it means pulling up all your floors and re-pouring them.

I'm in a similar situation, they had a ground source heat pump which is a goner, so thinking about alternatives.

Veering towards a boiler stove with a heat storage tank that also has solar panels feeding into it. Pricey to put in place though, and could still have an issue if we are away and the weather is bad. Have also looked at infrared underfloor heating which would be much less to put in, but in the end is just electric.

Not keen on heat pumps based on my experience. Noisy buggers and incredibly expensive to repair if they go wrong (which they do).

I've done so much research but it's a bit overwhelming!

I looked a ground source heat pump but they seem very expensive to install.

I also looked at oil but couldn't work out whether that would be more expensive than electric radiators or not 🥴

I'm also going to ask the gas board how they've now quoted me £75k for 100m when 20m was £1k!

Every system has its pros and cons. You will simply have to look at this from the point of view of what is best or available to you. Plus, are you staying their long term? Is it worth it to change the heat source - if you are only planning on staying a year or two, then perhaps stick with what you have and bank the money for your next home for example.
some of the options presented may not even be available to you due to property layout/size of plot/distance from neighbours and boundaries/accessibility/ by laws etc.
You really need to get some providers in and discuss practicalities and costs and go from there.
As for the gas quote you have - it’s a quite a difference in works between 100m connection and a 20m connection, which would account for some of the differential in price. Having said that, they may also have got the initial quote incorrect!! But for context we were quoted £30k plus for a similar connection nearly 35 years ago, it was suggested that the cost was spilt between us and any other properties that also may wish to connect to the mains gas system. So to quote £75k today seems reasonable. We didn’t go ahead and stuck with gas bottles for heating.

I’ve got ashp and log burners and it’s not horrifically expensive. It has taken a whole year to learn the basics of the ashp so it does t guzzle electricity. I get logs free. Logs are more expensive now but solid fuel is still the cheapest fuel source
Oil is good but if you go for oil you need a big tank as then it’s cheaper. Heating oil costs fluctuates a lot so if you can buy at the cheaper times it’s better.
LPG is generally more expensive than oil. LPG heating using bottles is really expensive, it’s a bit cheaper if you have a bill tank.

Might be worth considering solar panels so you have virtually zero energy costs in summer and but use more in winter. Some people have a couple of batteries and then charge them on the cheap rate electricity to use at other times of day.

We're installing an air source heat pump and solar panels, along with UFH. Just had the gas disconnected.

But that's only practical because we're doing a total house renovation as means altering all the floors.

I've done some research on heat pumps but I can't work out whether oil, electric heating or air source pump would be cheaper.

You need to get some one out to quote. Every single home/property will be different and result in different quotes and possibilities. Until you done that, you will not be able to work out which is best suited to your circumstances or which will be cheaper to install and run.

With ufh and an ASHP there is not the ability to adjust the heating quickly like you can with gas/oil, for example if you come in and it’s cold and you want it a bit warmer and the opposite is true if you feel it’s too hot. We use the ASHP to provide a low level of constant heat and the log burners for additional heat.

@Orangesare Do you mind me asking if ASHP are expensive to run?

With heating the heat you get out is basically the amount of energy that you put in. Gas is about a third of the price of electricity and so any electric form of heating will be three times more expensive to run. Not sure how solid fuel fits into that calc but I would guess that it's cheaper than electricity too. We have a 6kw log burner and we use about 6 big logs to keep it burning from 7 till 10pm and the logs are about £100 for a square meter which is probably 100 logs? (Not sure that estimate is totally accurate but a bag lasts 1-2 months in winter).

The only way to reduce the price more is to insulate your home so that the heat stays in.

I suspect the price difference for the gas installation is because they will have to dig the whole road up and that will be disruptive. Are there any neighbours who might want to share half of the cost?

That good thing about electric and having a secondary system is that you have choices if the prices fluctuate or there is a power cut.

I would suggest asking your neighbours and see what solutions they have come up with and how much they cost.

The other possibility is to bring in an energy consultant to see what they recommend.

For example, you might find that if you spend money on insulating the house well and replacing the storage heaters with an overnight tariff, plus maybe solar to balance the heavier side of the tariff in the summer then that is the most cost effective.

It depends on so many factors.

One thing I would say is often you find that making some small, relatively low cost changes to the insulation can make a big difference to the amount of energy required to heat. So for example if your loft is poorly insulated, then putting in extra insulation will cost relatively little but may improve the thermal performance by quite a lot. It's these "quick wins" you need to target first.

Have a look at infrared heating - still electric but more efficient apparently. We're considering this with solar instead of ashp + underfloor heating in a new build which doesn't have gas. Herschel and jigsaw are 2 companies. Fully charged plus on youtube has some reviews.

I thought that govt. policy was to phase out gas heating? This won't happen all at once, but from 2025 gas boilers can't be fitted in new-built homes.

This article, from British Gas, might be helpful www.britishgas.co.uk/the-source/greener-living/gas-boilers-ban-2025.html

As othrs have said, look at insulation and ventilation/air-flow first and foremost, and have a good think - with a consultant to help, perhaps, or an eco-charity - about your individual actual heating/hot water neeeds.

Aftaer that, also as others have said, the answer to your question will depend on local circumstances. If for eg you live somewhere with abundant and fairly cheap wood, then I'd think of investing in a really good modern 'clean' wood-burner with a back boiler for hot water, plus perhaps solar panels.

If you really want gas, no need to be on the mains. We live in a remote area where many, perhaps most, homes have LPG tanks. (Bulk tank was at the house when be bought it.) We buy bulk 'bio-gas' - LPG mixed with (we hope) an ever-increasing proportion of gas recycled from waste. If you buy large amounts in summer or other low-use periods, you can usually get a better deal.

Don't think its an issue. Gas will be used for decades to come.

The stages for replacement will first be gas-h2 blend, then probably full h2.

I think all boilers, whether old or new can cope with 20% blend. Eventually I think the government will make it so that the only new boilers that can be sold as replacements are full H2 ready.

I think they will start adding H2 into the grid pretty soon, maybe next 5-10 years. But it will be decades before they have the capacity to add more than 20% across the whole network and people need to have special boilers.

I definitely need to look at insulation in the house. In this current weather the house seems to sit naturally anywhere between 9 and 12 degrees. The house I just came from was around 15 so must have been better insulated.

I've looked into cavity insulation but that's a no go as the house is timber framed.

The windows seem to be reasonable, not sure how old but definitely at least 10 years. Some of them have a slight draft however.

The attic seems to be insulated fairly well.

I just can't work out why it's so cold all the time!

@Jess825 We are in the same position, trying to work out if it'd be better to go for electric radiators and a super hot water heater tank thing or the air source heat pump.

I've heard mixed reviews about the heat pumps but electric radiators don't seem cost efficient either.

We think it'll be around £4K for electric radiators and another £2k for the water heater system.

Air source heat pump will be around £15k with £5k back from the government grant.

Just don't know what will be best long term 😱

An air source heat pump is roughly 3x the efficiency of straight electric heating. So 1/3 the cost.

@GasPanic it very very unlikely that any more than 20% H2 will ever be mixed with mains gas, the volumetric energy density is too low, hydrogen embrittlement is a serious issue, the infrastructure is too leaky and it makes little sense to use electricity to convert water to hydrogen at 70-80% efficiency when an electric ASHP runs at 300% efficiency.

Suggest that you tell all the manufacturers that currently developing boilers that run on 100% hydrogen as well as gas then.

Also National Grid and the government too who are at the moment funding projects and evaluating converting the gas grid.

It simply won't be possible to transition everyone on gas boilers to ASHP because the extra electricity demand would be immense (not to mention some of the other increased demands there will be to achieve net zero such as cars).

Hydrogen offers a way of mitigating the electricity demand/production by highly variable production sources such as wind and solar. Without it net zero isn't going to be possible.

All this stuff about hydrogen may or may not be correct, but the OP does not have a connection to the gas mains.

I was saying that, without a mains connection if she still wanted gas, she could, if she wished, consider a bulk LPG-type tank and use biogas mix (as we do). The UK National Grid seems quite keen on it: www.nationalgrid.com/stories/energy-explained/what-is-biogas

At the moment, domestic gas suppliers mix LPG with biogas, but the hope is that as more biogas becomes available, the proportion of LPG will decrease.

@GasPanic Hydrogen will be an important fuel of the future but only in niche domestic heating applications. The competition for transport fuels - aviation, shipping, off highway and HGV, along with industrial processes such as fertiliser production and industrial furnaces means competition for supply will be incredibly competitive.

Hydrogen combustion as a means of mitigating variable renewable electricity generation only applies when used as a replacement for natural gas in a power station (unless domestic heat is via both ASHP and H2 fuel cell).

There's an in-depth discussion here

Interestingly DNV predict just 3% of H2 will find it's way into domestic heating applications.

@GasPanic It simply won't be possible to transition everyone on gas boilers to ASHP because the extra electricity demand would be immense (not to mention some of the other increased demands there will be to achieve net zero such as cars).

The total national electricity requirement by 2050 is expected to double, this includes industry, domestic, institutional (I wonder how attention the NHS are paying?) and transport.