Flat with electric heating only - bad idea?

[FlyingPi]

After looking for ages we've found a flat which seems ideal. However I'm concerned about possible high heating costs.
The whole building is about 20 years old and there's no gas supply; EPC has it rated as C band (70) and recommends replacing the storage heaters with the high heat retention types. There's also no hearing in the main bedroom apart from a plug in heater and the flat faces the river so I'm thinking it might be windy/cold. It does have double glazing.
The flat is slightly less than we'd budgeted for so we probably could afford the upgrade. Would it still be quite expensive energy bills, do you think? I've only ever had gas heating before. Would it be enough to put you off an otherwise great flat?

I'd go and ask your neighbours what their bills are like and if they've upgraded etc - most people wouldn't mind I don't think?

A lot of flats won't have gas. What kind of oven did they have?

Electric oven.
I can see asking the neighbours could be helpful but would it not be a bit odd to knock their doors and say, "hi, I'm thinking of buying here, how much are your bills?" I'm not sure I'd bother answering that to some random!

Yes it would put me off. Friend has electric wall heaters and her flat is riddled with damp and black mould.

Dig out the EPC and find the annual kWh for heating and hot water.

Then double that number.

Then times it by £0.33 plus a daily charge of £0.54. Add those up and add 5% for VAT.

Then consider this:

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2023/oct/24/higher-energy-bills-forecast-for-uk-households-next-year

Someone posted on here yesterday trying to sell her son's fully electric flat. She claimed it was costing £100 a month in winter and £50 in summer with him being frugal. It was 45 sq m and had people either side and above.

The number and position of neighbours matters. If it is top floor, you lose heat. If it's a top floor penthouse with no neighbours either side, you lose even more heat.

An EPC C is pretty decent, but EPCs are often vastly, vastly wrong, and TBH, I struggle to believe a fully electric flat could even achieve a C because of the running costs.

Usually a new build gets downgraded after its first EPC, and as it's 20 years old, unless they have made energy improvements, it should really have fallen into the D category, imo. This is because when flats are first built, developers literally hand over blueprints and all the fit out proof to assessors. When they next come to assess, this proof is not available, the assessor has to make assumptions, and it falls down a category.

Would it put me off? If gas doesn't even enter the building, yes. Because energy is so desperately volatile at the moment.

It depends on your lifestyle. If it's a small flat and you're both out at work full time it could well work out cheaper to go with electric. I did my own experiment with this moving from an old gas heated flat to a similar electric heated one. The all electric was significantly cheaper on fuel bills alone. When I took gas installation and servicing costs into account it was even better.

I think most people would be happy to help.

I would discourage you. My personal experience with electric only is being cold all the time and still paying a fortune. I’ve never found storage heaters work - wake up sweating and by the time you’re home from work it’s freezing. It was 20 years ago so difficult to compare prices but even if you ignore that it was really unpleasant way to live.

Perhaps you could ask the owners to show you there last 2 years bills?

I used to pay more in electricity when I was in a flat with storage heaters than I did for electricity and gas after all the prices went up. It was also always cold particularly when the heat ran out at the end of the day. The electric hot water boiler was expensive too - about £30 a month more than gas.

Most flats will have electric heating Do you plan to stay there a long time or is it just a stepping stone till you buy a house (with gas)Quantum rads are supposed to be the best and if it is small place with you out all day The problem arises as you age and become stuck at home which costs

I wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole

The thing is gas can be switched on or off when required so you pay for what you use unlike the old economy storage heaters though I believe the new ones let you vary the heat a bit They require no maintenance ie annual
service and rarely break down Not sure about installation costs

I'm in a small 2 bed 1st floor flat which runs on Economy 7. So electricity is much cheaper at night and that's when the water is heated and the storage heaters charge up. I have no heating at all in my bedroom as I hate sleeping in heat, but I do have a free standing oil radiator I can wheel about if necessary. Storage heaters aren't bad, if you take time to understand how they work and set them correctly. You need to find out who the flat management committee is and you can ask them the questions you need to know. I have no damp at all as I run a dehumidifier overnight on the cheaper electricity rate and also ventilate sometimes in the afternoon. I love my flat!

No doubt doesn't regularly ventilate, or have a dehumidifier, and dries washing indoors? Black mould is 99% of the time caused by lifestyle. She needs to reduce the moisture levels in the air and things will dramatically improve. It's not the wall heaters at fault.

I have very old storage heaters running on E7. Though old, they can be set for the weather/season with little trouble and though my electricity bill is high, it’s not outrageous. If I’m going to be out during the day I put them on a lower setting and always keep the output on minimum unless I want a boost in the evening. I use a couple of supplementary heaters in the evenings when it’s properly cold.
My flat is huge, under the roof, with single glazing and poor insulation apart from heavy lined curtains. I use a dehumidifier daily in the winter. I’m comfortable.
If you like the flat otherwise, buy it.

MIL has a similar set up and her house is very warm and mostly heated by her neighbours. It’s worth exploring a bit more I think.

We've just put in modern electric heaters and a new water system in a flat. It's not proving expensive but the flat was warm to start with and doesn't need much heating. It only has one external wall. The old gas boiler died and was going to be extremely expensive to replace so this heating literally cost a tenth of the expected cost of the new boiler.
Factoring in the cost of servicing gas is a good point.

I live in an all electric house. The heating is more expensive but you only have one standing charge and have no need for gas safe enginneers to service the boiler.

Gas is becoming more expensive, electricity is getting cheaper to generate but is currently linked to the price of gas, when this ends the price will come down.

I am currently paying £125 a month for energy and I am in credit, for a three bedroom house on an E10 tariff. At the height of the energy crisis my payment didn't exceed £220.

Storage heaters are cheap to buy and fit compared to gas but if the ones you have work there's no urgency to replace them, unless very old, mine are from the 90s and work fine, newer ones would look better and have more programmable controls but basically do the same job. You have to understand how to operate them effectively and then they are fine.

Eh? Storage heaters can be turned off! They have an isolation switch at the wall I use this to turn mine off in March/April and then they go back on in October. There is also a circuit breaker switch.

They do take a while to cool so if you switch them off they still feel warm for 24hrs but they aren't drawing power.

They also have variable settings so you can determine how much power they draw and how much heat they emit.

Yes, mine are turned off during the summer and even though very old, have thermostats and effective input/output controls. They’re on now, but because it’s been mild and I have them on a low input, haven’t been heating up much, just enough to take the early morning chill off.

Sorry I meant electric can be more difficult to regulate than gas day to day Of course it is turned off in warmer seasons

When are the new regs re new gas boilers being discontinued Is it 2036 or something like that

Why ?

Electric is much easier to deliver heat exactly where you want it to. You can turn on heaters say in two rooms and leave 3 off with the flick of a switch. Whereas for gas that isn't possible without messing around with valves.

Electric heat is far more flexible in targeting heat to where you want it. For example, I've never heard of a gas powered heated throw. It also heats up more quickly and is cheaper to install and maintain.

It's just not great if you have poor insulation and a big house. In a modern flat it is fine. Some modern buildings you hardly need any heating.

Our 2 bed 900 sq foot flat is all electric, with modern storage heaters on an E9 package, and the bills are absolutely fine. Less than when we had gas central heating in our previous small house. It is very well insulated and double-glazed though. So I wouldn't write it off.