Energy electric radiators or gas central heating

[msjackie]

Hi
We are moving into a house that has no heating. We want the cheapest to run but don,t mind the cost of installing. Our options are the new energy saving electric radiators or gas central heating with a combi boiler. Which is best to get?

 

[glasgowgas]

electric heating is 4 times the run cost of gas

 

[electronicsuk]

I'm not sure what an 'energy saving electric radiator' is, but there's only a finite amount of saving to be had with any form of electric heating - almost all incoming energy is converted into heat, so you can only improve on that by carefully controlling on/off times and room temperatures. In that respect, electric heating is near as dammit 100% efficient, but as mentioned by glasgowgas, it's also four times as expensive to run due to the cost of electric vs natural gas.

If install cost is of little relevance, gas CH is certainly the way to go, although a ground source heat pump would also give similar running costs and runs on electricity. The million dollar question is where prices are likely to go in the future as gas becomes more scarce, and my gut feeling is that although electricity costs will certainly go up on account of many power stations being gas fired, the price of natural gas will increase by a higher percentage.

 

[msjackie]

Hi If we went electric we would use the Rointe as they sound good. This is their web address http://www.royale-radiators.com/affordable-electric-heating.html. But will gas cental heating be cheaper than these?

 

[electronicsuk]

Hi If we went electric we would use the Rointe as they sound good. This is their web address http://www.royale-radiators.com/affordable-electric-heating.html. But will gas cental heating be cheaper than these?

Although their literature seems to suggest that running costs are comparable to gas, I would like to see their proof, and I'm certainly highly sceptical of their claims. I don't have any particular bias towards gas, in fact I am an electrician, and as such I'm only well to aware of the costs involved in running almost any sort of electric heating system.

To illustrate this simply, gas costs approximately 3.5p/kWh at any time of day. Electricity costs around 15p/kWh during the day and 5p/kWh at night rate on a standard economy 7 tariff.

The radiators you link to also claim to be cheaper to run than storage heaters, which is another claim that defies belief, as storage heaters charge up on the cheaper economy 7 night rate and slowly release their heat during the day. Admittedly they don't work all that well, and still aren't anywhere near as cheap to run as gas, but they'll still cost a heck of a lot less than running electric heating on full price day rate at 15p/kWh.

Their are other electricity tariffs available with electric heating systems in mind, but they all rely on the heat demand being at the times when the tariff is providing cheaper off-peak electricity. This makes them less than ideal for use with a heating system that is unable to generate and store heat during the off-peak period.

 

[bengasman]

There is another downside to electric storage heating. The units heat up during the night, and loose heat all day, whether you need it or not. The regulator is little more than an obstruction of the airflow, and a rough guess would be that you loose 10 - 20% during the hours that you don't need heating.
All and all, electric heating will cost between 2 and 4 times more than gas.

 

[Nige F]

Gas definitely. But beware the Gas installer who has the gas safe card etc. But not a lot of experience Unlike some who have both, and don`t expect British Gas to be that good either