I have a friend who has asked me advice on his heating. The house has no ga s, and has a mixture of storage heating and a wood burner back boiler drivi ng some radiators for the rooms that don't have storage heaters. The house had economy 7 but the current supplier does not support it, though it still has a dual meter and teleswitch. The back boiler needs a constant supply of wood which is proving onerous. He needs a more controllable heat, he has an aging mother there too, and wo uld like to be able to turn on the storage heaters when he needs them, whic h involves bypassing the teleswitch but i am not sure if the bricks in the storage heaters would delay any heat output, we are trying to do this as ch eaply as possible. We could replace the radiators with electric ones or remove the bricks from the storage heaters and bypass the teleswitch and use the same wiring?
Replace the back boiler with an electric boiler and more rads? Any ideas for the cheapest option.
given that you have a free choice in who supplied you
without buying a duel supply radiator tuning on the heaters during the day will be very slow to react. But it will keep the heat output a bit more constant.
will be very much more expensive to run
or would be if you were on the right tariff for the SRs
No don't do that. they are not designed to be used that way
The obvious answer is to get an E7 tariff and activate the storage heaters. Zero initial cost and moderate running cost.
You cannot "turn on storage heaters when you need them". They just sit there providing background heat. If you want a controllable storage heater then you need a fan-assisted one but they're bulkier and expensive.
Add storage heaters to rooms that don't have then as and when needed and can be afforded.
Anything else with have either a high initial cost (eg oil or LPG central heating) or high running cost (electric radiators).
But also check Energy Saving Trust website as there may be grants available for heating upgrade or more insulation.
If the insulation is reasonable use an air source heat pump driving a sealed wet radiator systrem, and have a mans pressure DHW tank with immersion top up. (heat pumps cant do the temeperature)
You may need bigger rads as heatpumps tend to not deliver water much over 40C
Back in the day IIRC the cost for energy used to be (cheapest first):
Mains gas.
Mains electric.
Bulk gas or oil or solid fuel.
Bottled gas.
Wood is a bit of a funny one because it used to be dirt cheap but with all the trendy wood burners it is now very expensive in most areas.
If the list above is reasonably accurate then electric heating (of almost any sort) would be cheaper than bottled gas.
So one way would be to switch to a supplier with an Economy 7 tariff and run the storage heaters as normal, then top up during the day using fan heaters, oil filled radiators, whatever. Electric heaters for the rooms without storage heaters - storage radiators would be good if easy to fit.
Immersion heater for the hot water.
Run the wood burner for pleasure when there is cheap wood available, and get bonus hot water and radiators. Don't rely on it for the primary source of heating.
LG ThermaV range has a high temperature variant which will pump out up to 16kW at 80degC for retrofitting into a conventional wet system. They now have MCS approval meaning you can get a useful government grant worth up to about £6k over 7 years.
The slight dissadvantage of the high temperature variant is a reduced COP in the range 210% at -7 deg C outside ambient, to 260% at +7 degC outside ambient.
So he will need to change suppliers to one that does - using peek rate when he does not have to will be significantly more expensive.
Without storage heaters that are specifically designed for dual supplies and to provide top up heat that is not going to work.
Options would be some split unit aircon / heatpump units - they cost about a third of the price to run from peak rate electricity.
Alternatively fit a large thermal store that can be heated via cheap rate immersion heaters, and run the radiators off that. (you could also arrange to connect the wood burner back boiler to that as well, so it could top it up when you do run it)
It depends what you get. Logs command a premium, but scrap wood is still free. The problem with wood is the amount of labour involved, but if you're chronically unemployed there's usually free wood available in most places.
"Annual cost of LPG The average annual cost for heating and hot water using LPG in the UK is £780* when consuming around 12,000 kWh of gas a year.
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"Annual cost of heating oil The average annual cost for heating and hot water using heating oil in the UK is £466*, when consuming around 12,000 kWh of gas a year. £466 Average annual cost of heating and hot water using heating oil.
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"Annual cost of electricity The average annual cost for heating and hot water using electricity in the UK is £2,456 when consuming around 13,100 kWh a year*. This cost is just a guide to help you compare costs of different types of fuel. There are a number of factors that affect energy bills, including the age of a house and insulation, the efficiency of a hot water and heating system, and where you are in the UK. £2,456 The annual cost of heating and hot water using electricity
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OUCH! Interesting that oil is so much cheaper than gas at the moment. It throws your point back, I suppose. Why would anyone install LPG when oil is nearly half the price?
I wonder if oil and LPG prices don't track each other?
Revised answer - install an oil boiler and get payback in just a few years?
Interestingly
"Annual average cost of gas The average annual cost for heating and hot water using gas in the UK is £548 when consuming around 12,000 kWh a year*. Remember, this cost is just a guide to help you compare costs of different types of fuel. There are a number of factors that affect energy bills, including the age of your home and insulation, the efficiency of a hot water and heating system, and where you are in the UK. £548 The annual cost of heating and hot water using gas.
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Gurgle. This suggest that (if the figures are correct) that is currently cheaper to heat your home and hot water with oil than with mains gas. Which then prompts the question "why would anyone buy a gas boiler when oil is cheaper?". Yes, convenience and less price volatility, and no issues over storage, but still.....
Even burning an anthracite based smokeless fuel that is more expensive than plain coal we find it is much cheaper than electric and our Winter electric bill is considerably less than the summer one. The stove heats the domestic water during the winter months where as in the warmer months it is an immersion heater is used. And often a stew or other meal is cooked on it and a kettle is kept warm at the side ready to be heated up to temperature on the top so that is some more electric not used. No mains gas here so changing to oil or stored gas would involve a reasonably outlay. I also like the simplicity of the gravity HW system and dump radiator as if the electric fails it still works. Always buy the solid fuel ahead in the middle of Summer as our coal merchant discounts quite considerably. Did try some plain Kellingly coal a couple of years back delivered on a pallet from a merchant near the colliery but although we are far from smokeless zones it did stink outside a bit much to be acceptable and the ash disposal was a lot greater.
For the odd fire on a cool "summer" evening free wood gathered around while out walking is used, tend to have enough that it is seasoned for a least 2 years before use . The pile had got large enough that we did not start on the purchased solid fuel till about a week ago.
Has that ever been true even in the dim and distant days of white heat of technology "electricity too cheap to meter" ? My recollection of electric storage heaters (my parents were early adopters) were insanely ugly boxes that got mad hot in the middle of the night and lost their heat during the day when no-one was home and provided precious little useful heat in the evening thus ensuring the expensive electric fire and fan heater got run as well. They were basically a waste of space. The firebricks came in handy for making a small kiln after we scrapped them.
Blocks of flats designed for all electric heating with a brick core in the centre of each flat and under floor heating seemed to work but were still pretty expensive to keep warm in winter.
Mains electric can only really win if you combine it with ground source heat pump technology (and even then when all the mechanical maintenance is included it is pretty borderline).
It might perhaps be cheaper than bottled gas (particularly if you only keep one room in the house warm) but I doubt if it will beat oil now for an equivalent amount of energy delivered. If you compare like for like then I think the order is :
Mains gas (big gap) Oil Bottled Gas Coal (big gap) Electricity
The position of wood burner depends on whether you are burning scrap wood or kiln dried splinter free designer logs. Either way it is bit of a faff smashing stuff up to burn almost every day.
Our village hall is entirely electric and costs the earth to keep warm in winter. If there was any way to heat it some other way we would do.
Or get an oil boiler installed to power the existing radiators.
gas, and has a mixture of storage heating and a wood burner back boiler dri ving some radiators for the rooms that don't have storage heaters. The hous e had economy 7 but the current supplier does not support it, though it sti ll has a dual meter and teleswitch.
would like to be able to turn on the storage heaters when he needs them, wh ich involves bypassing the teleswitch but i am not sure if the bricks in th e storage heaters would delay any heat output, we are trying to do this as cheaply as possible.
om the storage heaters and bypass the teleswitch and use the same wiring?
(1) Change electricity supplier. (2) Move house to somewhere easier to manage/more convenient. This will probably be forced on her quite soon in any event.
Depends on if you want to roll your own or buy something ready to use.
Advance, Grant, and McDonnald (and many others) all have off the shelf products. Some are fairly pricey though! (many of the off the shelf systems are also setup to allow contributions from solar coils, and to also feed the domestic hot water as well as the rads.
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