Electricity versus LPG

johnny_t · 11 Oct 2005

Got the letter last night saying that my LPG is going up again, so I'm going to buy a fireguard, get the chimney swept and start burning old pallets in the fireplace in the front room for warmth, but I still need to get my water warm somehow.

Given that I have a fairly old Vaillant 828, does anyone have any view on whether or not it would just be cheaper to stick a timer on my immersion heater, or is that still going to be much more expensive. Or will (shudder) replacing my boiler with a more efficient one pay for itself in a reasonable timeframe (I looked into solar, but the payback is about 10-15 years, form what I can see)

meldrew's_mate · 11 Oct 2005

johnny_t said:
I looked into solar, but the payback is about 10-15 years, form what I can see

It's only 10-15 years at todays prices!!

Tommorow it might be 5 years so watch out for a boom in sales of Solar stuff.

Cost of electricity is about 10p / kWh, cost of gas is about 2.5p, cost of LPG??
Factor in your boiler being about 65% efficient and it may be about the 30% less than electricity, I'd still keep the boiler and use the immersion as back-up for DHW.

Have you considered economy 7. The standing charge is higher but the power costs about 5p / kWh and if you (i.e.) use a timer on the washing machine and dishwasher it could work out cheaper.

htgeng · 11 Oct 2005

Ditch the old boiler asap and get a quality modern condensing boiler with weather compensation - viessmann or atag.

As for hot water - get a large 200litre indirect cylinder with an immersion heater at the bottom. That way you can have either LPG boiler or economy 7 for hot water. You can run both ways for a couple of months and see which works out cheaper.

My guess is that economy 7 would be slightly cheaper if you only use the 200 litres in one day. If you run out of hot water, then use the boiler - not the immersion to boost it!

johnny_t · 11 Oct 2005

OK - I know this is a bit of a crystal ball question, but does anyone have a rule of thumb for how much cheaper a new boiler is going to be to run compared to an old one. i.e about 5%, about 10%, about 20% etc. Just helps me get an idea of payback times....

Nige F · 11 Oct 2005

LPG=NFG check out OIL

oilman · 11 Oct 2005

Before the recent price changes, it was possible to recoup the cost of changing the boiler to oil, and installing a tank, within 3 years against LPG. Compared with LPG in bulk tanks, electricity would be dearer, but needs almost no maintenance. If you're using 100lb cylinders, just consider suicide.

johnny_t · 11 Oct 2005

Its either a 1200 or 2000 litre tank up the end of my garden, so no need to reach for the rope just yet.....

A change to Oil is sounding OK at the moment - Is there anything else that I need to take into account ??

John

bripl · 11 Oct 2005

the normal lpg tank for a house is a 1/2 ton approx1409litres although some older verticals do still survive 1600 litres or if you are really unlucky you could have a sphere.most reasonably modern installs could have two 100h connected together around 400litre capacity per tank have a word with calor ask them when it was last serviced[the tank] and tell them you are considering getting gas elsewhere,i would keep the old valliant and invest in good controls and insulation hope this helps

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Electricity versus LPG

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