Electric central heating

[Penners]

if you can figure out a way around this then the Nobel prize and riches beyond avarice will be your reward!

I'll give it some thought over a glass of rose this evening. Doesn't sound too difficult.

I will, of course, thank you in my speech to the Nobel Institute, but if you think you're getting a cut...

 

[Flyfisher]

The merest fleeting mention at such an august gathering would be reward enough . . . . :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[pete32]

Hi Vicky,

We were in a similar situation a year ago and I opted for a system called duoheat, this is supplied by dimplex. They are basically storage heaters but look very stylish compared to older systems, they are also very user friendly allowing each room to be individually controlled, they have a background heat also that allows a constant temperature throughout the house so no need for extra heaters. On the plus side all heaters can be set to whatever temp and be set fot the number of hours required per day and look relatively stylish, no leaks or yearly maintenance charges as with other fuel systems. The negative is that they are expensive to run in the winter but we live in a poorly insulated house which makes a big difference.

They are priced around 250-400 pounds per radiator, dimplex will design the system for you if you contact them online. Then the cost of the electrician. I am slightly biased to this system as I am an electrician so I could install myself and this saved me considerable cost, anyway hope this helps.

Pete

 

[Penners]

The merest fleeting mention at such an august gathering would be reward enough

Oh, don't worry. That's all you'll get. :wink:

 

[Penners]

The question electric underfloor heating hasn't been mentioned. I have no experience of it personally, so I don't know how it compares in capital or runnng costs with other forms of heating. However, the ads claim that some types can simply be laid under the carpet. Here's one supplier's website, chosen at random.

I imagine that its efficiency and running costs would be considerably affected by the type of floor underneath it. How well insulated it is, and so on.

 

[Ian Bond]

I'm trying to get away from direct electric heating due to the cost.

NP*w*r have decided that I will be paying £1.5K in the next year for my electricity use in a 2 bed terrace, 1,500 ft^2 !!!!!

That's about 10,400kwh, with 2,400 of that at the cheaper Night Rate (am on Economy 7 with an immersion heater for hot water).

Their estimate is rather high for the day usage - I make it around 6,000kwh, but that's still very high compared with the UK average domestic use, which is around 3,800kwh a year according to one source. My reliance on electric heaters is the reason for this, of course.

I've managed to slash that prospective bill in half by switching suppliers and providing my own estimated based on past usage. To be (partly) fair to NP*w*r my meter failed and they have no data for the whole of last summer, which may have skewed the estimate upward.

I'd still like to get my energy consumption down as low as possible, and intend to install gas CH when funds allow. But I also want to install at least one multi-fuel stove, so hopefully I can get some 'free' heat from the many offcuts of wood that I seem to generate from DIY, and whatever else I may find lying around.

I'd thought about getting a Combination High Efficiency gas boiler for all my needs, but decided against this - I'd rather separate space and water heating or at least have a backup/alternative if one fails.

pete32 - I agree with you about the ease of installation and maintenance of electric systems. It's certainly easier and less disruptive to install than a wet system, with pipes everywhere and the potential for leaks (not that my joints ever leak!).

Just wondering approximately how much electricity your using for heating per year?

We must be using an additional 2,200kwh plus during the winter months running a few oil-filled electric rads, and it is freezing

 

[Lime]

The question electric underfloor heating hasn't been mentioned. I have no experience of it personally, so I don't know how it compares in capital or runnng costs with other forms of heating. However, the ads claim that some types can simply be laid under the carpet. Here's one supplier's website, chosen at random.

I imagine that its efficiency and running costs would be considerably affected by the type of floor underneath it. How well insulated it is, and so on.

I think underfloor electric heating and downlighter illumination are two of the most un-green modern fads.
Both require substantial structural work on a property.
The underfloor elements is inaccessable when something eventually goes wrong and downlighters destroy good ceilings, create a fire risk and allow heat to escape from the room.
They are not eco friendly in anyway.

 

[Lime]

I'm trying to get away from direct electric heating due to the cost.

NP*w*r have decided that I will be paying £1.5K in the next year for my electricity use in a 2 bed terrace, 1,500 ft^2 !!!!!

That's about 10,400kwh, with 2,400 of that at the cheaper Night Rate (am on Economy 7 with an immersion heater for hot water).

Their estimate is rather high for the day usage - I make it around 6,000kwh, but that's still very high compared with the UK average domestic use, which is around 3,800kwh a year according to one source. My reliance on electric heaters is the reason for this, of course.

I've managed to slash that prospective bill in half by switching suppliers and providing my own estimated based on past usage. To be (partly) fair to NP*w*r my meter failed and they have no data for the whole of last summer, which may have skewed the estimate upward.

I'd still like to get my energy consumption down as low as possible, and intend to install gas CH when funds allow. But I also want to install at least one multi-fuel stove, so hopefully I can get some 'free' heat from the many offcuts of wood that I seem to generate from DIY, and whatever else I may find lying around.

I'd thought about getting a Combination High Efficiency gas boiler for all my needs, but decided against this - I'd rather separate space and water heating or at least have a backup/alternative if one fails.

pete32 - I agree with you about the ease of installation and maintenance of electric systems. It's certainly easier and less disruptive to install than a wet system, with pipes everywhere and the potential for leaks (not that my joints ever leak!).

Just wondering approximately how much electricity your using for heating per year?

We must be using an additional 2,200kwh plus during the winter months running a few oil-filled electric rads, and it is freezing

I use a gas multipoint for my water heating.
There is a myth in the plumbing trade, oft repeated, that they are slow to fill a bath and don't serve a large house well.
That is not my experience.
They can go on filling baths with hot water forever whereas hot water cylinders are very limited.
They don't waste heat keeping a tank of water hot either.
With two sons, often with several of their friends staying overnight, having two bathrooms and running bath after bath of hot water is only possible with a multipoint.
No other system can cope.
Each bath takes about 10 minutes to run to be about half full.

I use gas wall heaters (balanced flue) to heat the house, once again moaned at by the trade, but they do a very good job.
They have the advantage that they work independently of each other and don't require any water pipework or electricity either.

Piped hot water to fill radiators is rather stone-age IMO.

 

[biffvernon]

...the necessary time for new clean-burn and carbon sequestration technologies to be perfected.

Perfected! It's still at drawing board stage and the drawings don't add up. There will be no significant carbon sequestration in the lifetime of coal power stations being built today

 

[FamilyWiggs]

I've just installed electric UFH in the lounge when I put in slate flags, and in the dining room underthe relaid Heather Browns. I have the matting on top of some sort of polystyrene-based foam insulation, then about 10mm of lime mortar screed (so is reasonably "flexible") and approx 35mm of slate or Heather Browns on top of that.

I would have preferred hot-water UFH, but the installation would have been much more tricky.

Electric UFH is very easy to install. The dining room (no other form of heating and 2 walls are underground), is 200Wsq m,(20 sqm) and the lounge (has two radiators fed by oil boiler topped up with wood burner with backboiler) is 160W/sqm - 40 sqm.

So far I have only put it on a couple of times. It is very pricey to heat the floor from cold (and to be fair the rooms aren't finished/furnished and the wind still whistles around the newly fitted windows, etc), but produces a nice gentle heat over the whole room and maintaining the floor temp uses less electricity (I have put in a fancy controller that can vary the voltage supplied. Quite different to radiators with their convection currents. I have kept the floor at 15 degrees, which seems to make the room quite warm. It also seems to be about the limit at which the 160W mats can maintain 45mm of thermal store above them, so I guess in the depths of winter I'll need something else - but then the woodburner will be going for most of the winter.

There are a number of suppliers online, and you really have to do your sums. They vary in price three-fold, for no appreciable difference in product (all made in India as far as I can tell). The cheaper mat suppliers are not the cheaper insulation suppliers nor the cheaper controller suppliers - so shop around for all three.

If, like me, you are laying uncalibrated flags/tiles, you can't use the recommended "flexible tile adhesive" - not unless you salary equals the GDP of a minor African nation. I just hope the lime mortar turns out to be flexible enough, or there'll be tears. As the flags were 60kg each, my back can't take lifting and relaying them!

I am happy with it so far, but have yet to calculate the electricity bill - will do that once the floors are grouted and I can experiment with different settings.

Of course, officially you should get a Part P qualified electrician to make the connections (separate fused spur, or separate radial with a contactor if over 13A), but it is so easy to self-install :wink:

It's very cosy to have a warm floor. All I need now is to find a way to oil the spindle on the leccy meter dial - I'm sure it's going to take off otherwise!

If anyone is interested, I'd be happy to pass on the online suppliers I used

 

[Penners]

underfloor electric heating and downlighter illumination...Both require substantial structural work on a property.

Not according to the websites that I've seen. Electric UFH can, it seems, be installed under the carpet.

I hasten to add that I don't advocate electric heating in any form. I was simply giving the OP information that didn't appear to have cropped up in the thread yet.

 

[FamilyWiggs]

Electric UFH can, it seems, be installed under the carpet.

I've seen that too - but surely the point of UFH is that it is laid under a dirty big thermal store? Not sure your average Axminster has quite the same properties...

 

[chuckey]

Pete32, the storage heaters I looked at were Dimplex cxl type. They have 3 sheets of a semi-rigid glassfibre sheet as the insulation from the core to the outside(1/2" thick?). They also should have a motorised outlet vent, as they are, if the core is hot the vent is open, albeit a small amount. Also the convector heater is a catch cos it runs from full price electricity during the day. So the tendency to "turn it down" is mitigated.
If you use electric under carpet heating, the elements have to run at a higher temperature to get rid of their electrical power. This is OK, now introduce an old person who is sitting in their chair with relative stationary feet. what happens (don't laugh) is their feet get over-heated and their feet and ankles start to itch!!!!
Frank

 

[Lime]

underfloor electric heating and downlighter illumination...Both require substantial structural work on a property.

Not according to the websites that I've seen. Electric UFH can, it seems, be installed under the carpet.

I hasten to add that I don't advocate electric heating in any form. I was simply giving the OP information that didn't appear to have cropped up in the thread yet.

Using "under floor" is a misnomer if used for under a carpet upon the floor, surely?
Having had scissors drop onto a floor into which the points firmly embedded themselves I don't think the under carpet version is a good idea.

 

[Penners]

surely the point of UFH is that it is laid under a dirty big thermal store? Not sure your average Axminster has quite the same properties...

I have a bit of trouble with this concept. It seems to me that all the thermal store does is a bit of time shifting (like the thermal equivalent of taping The Antiques Roadshow to watch it later).

When the UFH comes on, the thermal store sucks up its output for - say - the first 20 minutes. Then, when the UFH is later switched off, that stored heat is given off for 20 minutes afterwards.

There's no gain in energy efficiency, is there?

 

[MdB]

There's no gain in energy efficiency, is there?

No, but there is great reduction in cost as per night storage schemes. Cheap electricity at night gives a nice warm house in the morning but its cold again in the evening when you need it....

(The above assumes an Economy 7 tariff which give you one period of cheap electricity during the night. Also available (but much less well known) is Economy 10 tariff which gives three periods of cheap electricity - 12 midnight to 5am, 1pm to 4pm and 8pm to 10pm. This makes a lot more sense to me than Economy 7 though I guess the savings won't be as good.)

 

[vicky whitworth]

Hi Guys, well that provoked an interesting debate. Thank you. Not sure which way to turn now. Mains gas isn't a possibility because we live at the end of a farm track and even the nearest village doesn't have mains gas. I wouldn't go for bottled gas as I have enough trouble remembering to order oil (once ran out on Christmas Eve and couldn't cook the turkey the next day!). We do have an oil supply but we have been considering having an electric Aga (rather than oil) on the basis that the long-term future of oil isn't secure and an Aga is a long-term investment. In the light of the debate about electric central heating any views on electric Agas? My research seems to show that there isn't such a thing as an electric central heating boiler (in the conventional sense) and I am already (having listened to you chaps) starting thinking I will have to go with oil. I just think somehow we (UK) will have to keep producing electric even when the oil is all gone. Wish life was simple!

 

[Penners]

I have enough trouble remembering to order oil

Some of the oil companies (maybe all, for all I know) operate a "keep you topped up" service. They take on the responsibility for remembering when you need more oil and they deliver it automatically. I think they call it the "no-more-raw-turkey" plan. :wink:

Of course, the downside is that you don't get the opportunity to buy oil at "spot" prices, so you're almost certainly paying a bit more.

I just think somehow we (UK) will have to keep producing electric even when the oil is all gone

It's inconceivable that any Government would allow the country, in effect, to "run out" of electricity. There would be rioting in the streets. But in the future I think the cost differences between different fuels will greatly diminish, if not disappear. This process has already started.

 

[AMc]

Other electric heating....
You can also look at air source heat pumps which work like air conditioners in reverse. The installation costs are cheaper than ground source heat pump installs (though the more digging you do yourself the cheaper that design gets).
They're not ideally suited to, but can be made to work with oversized radiators. Wet underfloor is recommended as it works better at lower water temperatures when heat pumps are more efficient.
We'll be fitting an ASHP to replace an aging oil boiler adding wet underfloor heating and oversizing some radiators.

Capital costs will be higher than an oil boiler, I'm hoping that some of that will be offset by not needing to annually service the pump - currently £100 a year if I can find a CORGI oil engineer to do the existing boiler. Running costs are expected to be on a par with or slightly below oil, but that's moving target. Something to bear in mind about oil being cheaper now is that in the 18 months we've been living here we've seen costs rise from 33p a litre in Dec 06 to 55p in Mar 08- I'm told that oil was 12p-14p a litre 5 years ago.

Supplementing with wood...
We're also installing another wood burner, possibly 2. We currently limit our oil consumption at weekends by keeping the wood burner in the lounge lit most of the afternoon and evening so the heating thermostat turns off the boiler. This year we've spent about £500 on oil and about £50 on wood. Our wood comes as waste from a landscape gardener so the 'carbon footprint' is limited to the diesel he uses to drop it off. Not something that everyone can do but the 'farm track' location suggests you may have a ready supply handy.

Green Electricity....
I'm buying my electricity from http://www.good-energy.co.uk who buy 100% renewable units for every unit they sell. I'm working on the premise that my electricity supply can be generated with some flexibility (wind, wave, solar, gas, coal, nuclear, oil etc). If I replace an oil boiler & tank then I'm tying in to that fuel for at least 10 years.
I know adding to the electricity demand is giving ammunition for a resurgence of coal and nuclear, but I believe If I show a commitment to a 'green only' power company and the cost of oil, gas and coal continue to rise it will soon be more commercially sensible to invest in more wind etc. I know the ramp up for more renewables is slow, but the only way that's going to happen is if there is a strong commercial demand.


The greenest and cheapest heating is turned down or switched off, so I'm continuing to look for ways to draft proof and insulate the house without preventing it from 'breathing' moisture.

 

[Penners]

The greenest and cheapest heating is turned down or switched off.

A worthy point, AMc, but I'm not sure that turned off heating counts as heating!