Gas/electricity heating cost comparisons

[Mungo "Two Sheds" Toadfoot]

So, the horrible half of the year is upon us again and I find myself again wondering which is the cheapest method of keeping from freezing to death, not being one of them overly rich sorts that can afford to run the heating

24/7.

So... me and t'missus have a 1940s (good solid brick) 3 bedroom semi-det house to ourselves and the dogs, with new gas central heating and a 3 burner gas fire in the living room. The new gas boiler also heats a cylinder of hot water and we have recently acquired two electric oil-filled 1kw-3kw heaters.

What's the best way of not bankrupting ourselves this winter? We're not fussed about growing cacti but we'd prefer not to gradually turn blue while we watch Eastenders.

Central heating on with TRVs off in the rooms we don't use? Thermostat's in the hall, not in the living room if that's a concern. Fire on in the living room and an electric heater in the bedroom? Don't be such a scrooge and be prepared to give over hundreds of me hard-earneds like last year? New coat for the missus and make her wear it indoors? Train the dogs to lay on her?

Si

[ARWadsworth]

I have heard rumours that some people bypass the electricity meter.

[Invisible Man]

The new gas boiler should be pretty efficient. Our thermostat used to be in the hall. It was impracticable to re-wire it to the lounge so we got a wireless one which means we sit in the temperature we want.

[Alan]

In message , "Mungo \"Two Sheds\" Toadfoot" wrote

Move the thermostat to the living room or to the place where you vegetate longest. A (not so cheap - £30+) modification would to put a wireless receiver in the existing thermostat position and a battery operated wireless sending unit in the living room (both halves of the system usually come as a kit).

If your existing room thermostat is a basic on/off type consider a modern electronically controlled one which will have many combinations of time and temperature.

[Roger Mills]

Probably all of those things.

Seriously though, if it's a new - high efficiency - gas boiler, radiators powered by that are going to be far more economical than anything electric - even off-peak, which you don't appear to have. You do, though, need to try to avoid heating parts of the house which you're not using. How easily could you zone the CH system? One thing to watch is that the heat losses of the heated rooms will be greater when the adjacent rooms are not heated, so you need to take that into account when sizing the rads.

A gas fire is good for a bit of top-up heat, but is pretty inefficient - so it may be more economical to heat a whole zone with radiators rather than a single room with a gas fire.

[js.b1]

1 - Electric blanket for the bed.

2 - Blackout blinds for the bedroom and living area, plus draw the curtains early.

3 - Insulate the walls of the room you live in, 25mm polystyrene backed plasterboard with dot-n-dab from Travis Perkins (cheapest) or Jewsons (more expensive) and a quite a few stainless screws n plugs (I say stainless because non-stainless can and do split solid brick wall mortar lines IF your mortar is weak). Solid brick can cause dot-n-dab to fail, but stick enough stainless fasteners on there and you should be fine. A quick PVA & skim over the top so when you remove the wallpaper you don't trash the plasterboard.

More heating is a recurring cost, insulation is a once-only cost and will really help solid brick walls.

If you have open flue, get an EI Carbon Monoxide alarm and a door sausage if the draughts are excessive.

If you have wood single glazing: get a router with 3-4-5mm bit, make up a simple wooden frame with slot routed in it, then slip in acrylic cut to size at a hardware store with a table saw (maybe B&Q do it still?), drill thro the frame into the window frame, fit M5 wood inserts into window frame, buy closed-cell one-sided adhesive foam from Ebay and stick on the rear of the frame, fit frame over window with M5 screws. Probably a good idea to hair-dryer it first to blow off any surface moisture, but it is easily removed. Alternatively heatshrink window film is about =A37-12 and on the key windows goes a long way. Draught proofing is obvious I should add.

Felt underlay is the highest Tog rating (3?), the now not-easy-to-find- but-tough crumb rubber is the lowest Tog (1?).

You can buy electric "snugs", but frankly nothing beats an overlong fleece sweatshirt and pair of rugby socks :-)

[Terry Fields]

One way is to tackle heat losses.

Keep all windows and doors shut.

It's surprising how much extra comfort can be gained by using sammy snakes to stop draughts under the doors.

It's the same with thick floor-length curtains at the windows, having one or two layers of thermal linings. These might need sammy snakes too to stop reverse chimneying of hot air.

If you have short curtains that come down to a window cill, sammy snake them as a well.

Depending how much sunshine makes it through the lounge windows, be prepared to draw the curtains before the interior temperature starts to fall as the sun goes down.

Make sure there are no tiny cracks between walls and ceilings.

These things can add up to a fair old difference in the comfort stakes.

TF

[Clive George]

:-)

[Phil L]

searching google images for 'sammy snake' doesn't bring up anything usefull in relation to heat conservation, are you sure they exist in the world outside your house? :-p

[Bob Eager]

[Mungo "Two Sheds" Toadfoot]

Now that's a good idea. I'll look into that one.

Si

[Mungo "Two Sheds" Toadfoot]

That's a +1 for the wireless 'stat. Thanks.

Si

[Mungo "Two Sheds" Toadfoot]

1 - Electric blanket for the bed.

There's a lot of very good answers here!

Many thanks to all, and I'll get the missus onto making some Sammy snakes :o)

Si

[tony sayer]

In article , Mungo "Two Sheds" Toadfoot scribeth thus

Yes we got one of they last year, quite amusing to be able to cart it around and fiddle with it from wherever you want;)...

[Pete Zahut]

Wireless stat, yes - but not in the living room. We've just moved ours out of the living room into the hall because being in the living room all the time, body heat, heat from the telly/Sky+/hifi boxes and heat from the lights all meant that the stat was reaching its set temp too easily and leaving the rest of the house cold.

[js.b1]

Ebay has some cheaper "door sausages" or "fabric draught excluder"...

280569395710 - 80cm 150498969689 - 30" 260666596961 - 34" 400158844430 - 45"

Make sure you check the length. Not as good designs as a few years back, had a lot of subtle gold / beige / neutral with interesting white patterns etc. Can be had for about =A35-6 each.

The idea is to have them sit at 45-degrees to the door, so they reduce excessive airflow a bit - but allow it through the gap at the end typically to an open flue gas fire.

It may be worth having a gas vent fitted in the room with an open flue, even if one is not required re gas input

[Mike Lane]

A somewhat related question:

What is the most efficient/economical temperature at which to run one's C/H? My boiler (like most I suppose) has a continuously variable control from 'OFF' to a maximum of around 85 degrees C. I have TRVs on all radiators but I still tend to raise the temperature of the radiators in very cold weather. I've often wondered if this is being extravagant.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Its the only way you can do it. Ideally with a proper condensing boiler that modulates, you want to set the output temp to be just enough to keep the house warm. That varies with actual outside temp. Also, low temps mean long warm up times. So there is a trade off between 'heating off during the day' and 'heating operating inefficiently to get house warm in a hurry..'

[Mungo "Two Sheds" Toadfoot]

The only problem we have with draughts is through the dog flap in the kitchen, which I must address at some point. The kitchen faces south though so the wind's not generally blowing at the door. We put a heavy curtain up at the living room door, rather than close the door, because of the three little furry buggers tromping in and out all evening.

Si

[Mungo "Two Sheds" Toadfoot]

I don't think that'll be a problem as our living room is over 20' long and

13' wide so there's plenty of places to put it. I considered the hall to be a poor location as it's open to the stairs and landing but only has one fairly small radiator through the lot. As heat rises it will all bugger off upstairs before activating the 'stat and by that time the living room will be too warm.

That was the theory anyway.

Si