Aidan Ap Word Posted March 22 Share Posted March 22 1 hour ago, ftb_fml said: Thanks - think this is definitely something I need to educate myself on further. A long time ago in another life I had the "pleasure" of an education in thermodynamics, however with the tiny temperature gradients involved I still struggle to see how such devices can be particularly efficient or offer sufficient temperature increases. I guess there's also the question of the hot water supply too; am spoiled currently (by modern standards at least) with an old gas boiler and large storage tank.. They claim very high rates of efficieny - partly because they are using very high tech fluids ... heat pumps in Norway working at way below 0 celsius ... obv I am not there to see it first hand ... tis a glycol (or similar) I believe - some of them liquids used claim to have freezing temps below -40 celsius IIRC ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gigantic Purple Slug Posted March 22 Share Posted March 22 I think it is a throwback to a bygone age that people think of it as really expensive. It depends on how modern your house is a lot of the time. If it has good insulation and windows and you get something like an E7 tariff it can be cheap to run electrically because you hardly need any heat anyway. You also lose the cost of the boiler service and the whole setup is far less likely to break down. Plus you can control where the heat goes a lot better. Maybe look up the EPC for a rough idea of what the energy usage per year is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sell2rent Posted March 22 Share Posted March 22 Not relevant to a flat, but I've been very happy with oil in my last 5 houses. Presently about 7p/kWh. It was high in 2008 and 2022 but spikes tend to be brief. I had storage heaters in a 1990s insulated commercial premises I owned and ran. They were ruinous. Staff would turn them on to boost in the morning before a coffee break and didn't understand how thermostats worked, then it would be too hot and they would open the windows. They laughed when I complained. Then one month I had to put money into the business to pay them and couldn't pay myself and they listened briefly during the GFC. In an insulated flat on the right deal not operated by idiots, it would be fine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sackboii Posted March 22 Share Posted March 22 There's also these.. 😉 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LivingWithTheInlaws Posted March 22 Share Posted March 22 1 hour ago, ftb_fml said: I'd assumed that along with heat pumps there would be a push to make electricity cheaper with renewables (naive, perhaps). I guess what the insulation situation gives, the lack of exposed exterior walls take away in terms of viable locations for heat pumps (although I'm not really sold on these anyway yet...) I guess the least-inappropriate place would be at the front but I'm not sure how viable this would be from a packaging perspective. On top of that I suppose there's the potential grief of having significant work done on a property that's shared with others. Electric tariffs are still linked to gas prices and renewables are the same wholesale price as fossil fuels. This needs to change. We have an air source heat pump. I was very disappointed to find out that the energy price cap model is based on a typical house heated with gas (making up three quarters of the energy usage). Because of this bias towards gas, it's the cap on retail gas price that keeps the overall cost to this model house lower. The unit cost of the electricity is higher. I couldn't believe that despite the push for heat pumps, they would rig the energy prices in favour of gas. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
winkie Posted March 22 Share Posted March 22 Nobody in their right mind would invest in a heat pump, unless ground source installed at time of build .......better off insulating the home live in.......some of the best gas boilers last for years, no annual fees to maintain......they are solid and if not replaced with something inferior that costs extra service to keep alive and working.......not everything new and needy is better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dames Posted March 22 Share Posted March 22 Gas + Opentherm 👊💪 D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LivingWithTheInlaws Posted March 22 Share Posted March 22 56 minutes ago, winkie said: Nobody in their right mind would invest in a heat pump, unless ground source installed at time of build .......better off insulating the home live in.......some of the best gas boilers last for years, no annual fees to maintain......they are solid and if not replaced with something inferior that costs extra service to keep alive and working.......not everything new and needy is better. Our heat pump has run for 12 years without any maintenance. It gets checked once a year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grayphil Posted March 22 Share Posted March 22 6 hours ago, ftb_fml said: Granted a bit OT but struggling to find much info. Looking at a modern-ish (2005) flat with electric heating (no mains gas). This in itself is a bit of a turnoff on cost and versatility grounds, however with the pushback against gas I suppose might become less of a problem / relevant in future. I'm trying to do some research on running costs but struggling; if anyone has any links to appropriate resources I'd love to see them - cheers! Run away, don't do it. My partner had a 3 bed terrace that cost £350 a month in electric, that was before the costs jumped, she thinks it would have been around 700 a month just for electric heating. Happy we bought a place with gas boiler Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
winkie Posted March 22 Share Posted March 22 35 minutes ago, LivingWithTheInlaws said: Our heat pump has run for 12 years without any maintenance. It gets checked once a year. You haven't sold it to me.....my sturdy gas boiler has been going for longer than that, no service required, boots up every time, got a carbon monoxide detector...no problems whatsoever, just heat the rooms use....open the window in the room sleep in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
winkie Posted March 22 Share Posted March 22 1 hour ago, LivingWithTheInlaws said: Our heat pump has run for 12 years without any maintenance. It gets checked once a year. What type is it......makes a difference. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruce Banner Posted March 22 Share Posted March 22 1 minute ago, winkie said: What type is it......makes a difference. Same with gas boilers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TenYearToGetMyMoneyBack Posted March 22 Share Posted March 22 (edited) I can't comment on today's prices but I have spent twelve years living in houses with storage heaters and they seemed to be effective. Storage is the key though. You definitely don't want to be paying peak rates. Others have mentioned the lack of needing maintenance. Don't forget that you will also only have one standing charge. My Bristol house had gas but I deliberately bought an electric cooker and storage heaters to avoid paying a second standing charge. p.s. I tried zero maintenance on the gas boiler here which was fine for about six years until it sprang a leak and turned the airing cupboard into a wetting cupboard. Edited March 22 by TenYearToGetMyMoneyBack P.s. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dweller Posted March 22 Share Posted March 22 8 hours ago, ftb_fml said: Granted a bit OT but struggling to find much info. Looking at a modern-ish (2005) flat with electric heating (no mains gas). This in itself is a bit of a turnoff on cost and versatility grounds, however with the pushback against gas I suppose might become less of a problem / relevant in future. I'm trying to do some research on running costs but struggling; if anyone has any links to appropriate resources I'd love to see them - cheers! Have you looked up the EPC? https://www.gov.uk/find-energy-certificate Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hughjass Posted March 22 Share Posted March 22 2 hours ago, winkie said: You haven't sold it to me.....my sturdy gas boiler has been going for longer than that, no service required, boots up every time, got a carbon monoxide detector...no problems whatsoever, just heat the rooms use....open the window in the room sleep in. I wouldnt be bragging about not having something serviced. Would your house insurance be valid if anything happened? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
winkie Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 4 hours ago, hughjass said: I wouldnt be bragging about not having something serviced. Would your house insurance be valid if anything happened? I don't service the electric fuse box.....or the water pipes either.....would your insurance be valid if you didn't lag your water pipes during a cold and frosty winter? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MonsieurCopperCrutch Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 13 hours ago, ftb_fml said: Granted a bit OT but struggling to find much info. Looking at a modern-ish (2005) flat with electric heating (no mains gas). This in itself is a bit of a turnoff on cost and versatility grounds, however with the pushback against gas I suppose might become less of a problem / relevant in future. I'm trying to do some research on running costs but struggling; if anyone has any links to appropriate resources I'd love to see them - cheers! Don't do it. As a university student I lived in a flat with electric heating. It was an expensiive freezing dump and then you turned the electric heaters off. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kzb Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 20 hours ago, LivingWithTheInlaws said: Electric tariffs are still linked to gas prices and renewables are the same wholesale price as fossil fuels. This needs to change. We have an air source heat pump. I was very disappointed to find out that the energy price cap model is based on a typical house heated with gas (making up three quarters of the energy usage). Because of this bias towards gas, it's the cap on retail gas price that keeps the overall cost to this model house lower. The unit cost of the electricity is higher. I couldn't believe that despite the push for heat pumps, they would rig the energy prices in favour of gas. They're not rigged in favour of gas. We are paying way over the odds for wind power, something like £174/MWh on average (17.4p/kWh), wholesale price. Gas is actually pretty cheap in comparison, today's BBC natural gas price works out to 2.36p/kWh. So compare 17.4p with 2.36p and tell me which is cheaper. (These are the wholesale prices of course.) But then they put carbon taxes on gas-produced electricity, so the market is rigged the other way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kzb Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 16 hours ago, hughjass said: I wouldnt be bragging about not having something serviced. Would your house insurance be valid if anything happened? Our boiler has to be serviced every year or the 7-year guarantee is void. A short while back on here I got ridiculed for servicing the boiler, which I was surprised at. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kzb Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 16 hours ago, TenYearToGetMyMoneyBack said: I can't comment on today's prices but I have spent twelve years living in houses with storage heaters and they seemed to be effective. Storage is the key though. You definitely don't want to be paying peak rates. Others have mentioned the lack of needing maintenance. Don't forget that you will also only have one standing charge. My Bristol house had gas but I deliberately bought an electric cooker and storage heaters to avoid paying a second standing charge. p.s. I tried zero maintenance on the gas boiler here which was fine for about six years until it sprang a leak and turned the airing cupboard into a wetting cupboard. If you want the Octopus 7.5p/unit off-peak tariff, do you have to have an EV charger to qualify ? Or can you have it simply because you have storage heaters ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frankie Teardrop Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 Its a bit windier today. Hence am paying 10p kWh for leccy on Octopus tracker today. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kzb Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 20 minutes ago, Frankie Teardrop said: Its a bit windier today. Hence am paying 10p kWh for leccy on Octopus tracker today. Yes I forgot to mention that tracker tariff, it does look like it has worked out cheaper. However, a downside is, these Octopus tariffs can be withdrawn on a whim. If you are making a long-term decision like buying this flat, I don't think that decision should be based on the evanescent existence of favourable tariffs from one supplier. They could disappear any time, and then you are stuck with your flat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruce Banner Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 1 hour ago, kzb said: Our boiler has to be serviced every year or the 7-year guarantee is void. A short while back on here I got ridiculed for servicing the boiler, which I was surprised at. And I was attacked for working on my own boiler. Ignorance from some members as to what is legal and what isn't . I replaced the control board and a PTC thermistor thus fixing a problem with the anti-cycling circuit, fitted some larger radiators and painstakingly balanced the system (it's sensitive to a minute fraction of a turn on the radiator lock stops) so that the return water temperature remains below 55 degrees C. Thus enabling the condensing mode which has improved efficiency by about 10% and heats the house much faster. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dames Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 30 minutes ago, Bruce Banner said: And I was attacked for working on my own boiler. Ignorance from some members as to what is legal and what isn't . I replaced the control board and a PTC thermistor thus fixing a problem with the anti-cycling circuit, fitted some larger radiators and painstakingly balanced the system (it's sensitive to a minute fraction of a turn on the radiator lock stops) so that the return water temperature remains below 55 degrees C. Thus enabling the condensing mode which has improved efficiency by about 10% and heats the house much faster. Do u run Opentherm? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruce Banner Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 (edited) 2 hours ago, Dames said: Do u run Opentherm? No. Edited March 23 by Bruce Banner Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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