electric Ch boilers - any advice - whats your verdict

[sean141]

hi there, i live in a 2 bed masionette, around 1960, so quite large rooms, when i moved in it had economy 7 heaters. so have decided to go for a wet central heating system. i've fitted the plumbing and rads and and was just going to get a gas combi-boiler installed. I didnt realise that you could get electric boilers for both hot water and CH, i'm now wondering what peoples views and experiences are regarding how well the electric boilers work/cost against running a gas combi CH system. obviously i i could install the electric one my self, as with the gas, firstly i need a gas connection, then run the pipes through the property, then have the gas boiler installed, connected and commisioned. any view welcome
regards
sean

 

[Adam_151]

This would be notifiable work becuase it involves provision of a new circuit, there are however no such requirements for DIY gas work, competant? then go ahead and install your own gas boiler

Anyway, they need a pretty hefty electricity supply, and I believe gas is cheaper per unit than electricity (I'm assumeing that a unit of gas is the same amount of energy as it is in leccy)

 

[plugwash]

iirc those boilers draw a lot of current and it wouldn't surprise me if you need to upgrade to a 3 phase intake especially if you have other big appliances (like an electric shower or big cooker). You'd have to look at what boilers were availible and how much electric power was needed to get the heating power you required

also to make any form of electric heating economical it has to mostly run at night, is that the kind of heating profile you wan't for your house?

 

[Steve]

also to make any form of electric heating economical it has to mostly run at night, is that the kind of heating profile you wan't for your house?

doesn't make it any more efficient though. Just because electric is cheaper, doesn't make it more efficient to make it!

 

[Dellsmp]

Electric boilers are more efficient because no heat is lost out of a flue, nearly all the source energy is transfered to the water, so its more efficient at putting energy into the water in your system.
The main problem is the high unit cost of electricity in the first place, that and the fact that you can get far more energy into your house via a gas pipe than an electric cable.
I'm sure someone on the plumbing section can provide calcs on btu's and stuff, but it doesn't matter since gas is still the cheapest option when it comes to heating unless of course you dont have access to it

 

[plugwash]

depends how you define efficiant i guess. Electricty is cheap at night for a reason you know.

generally the cheaper to run (either because they are more efficiant or because they run on cheaper fuel) plants such as coal nuclear and some ccgt plants run 24/7 while the more expensive plants to run (e.g. ocgt and some ccgt) and plants that have a limited total capacity per day but can spread it on any schedule (hydro with dams) are run as nessacery.

other renewables tend to dump leccy into the grid on thier own schedule and this would make it very hard to replace a significant ammount of our generating capacity with them.

pumped storage can be used to move the load a bit but it is very expensive to build and not exactly efficiant either.