Is domestic heating oil NOW more expensive than electricity for hot water?

Its already more expensive.

The energy density of diesel/oil is about 10 kWh/liter,. Do the sums.

If you use a heat pump ..giving you ay least 3:1 upside, you are down to something that is ALWAYS cheaper than oil, even at peak rates.

Trouble is a typical domestic isnatllation is around £6-15k to install.

And don't you need a fair bit of land, too? I saw a documentary of Matthew Parris's, and his land ran to an acre or so, I believe.

How deep does one have to go? Can't one DIY a solution? E.g. Copper pipe.

Gravediggers would be the people to hire. They know what deep holes are. How much are gravediggers paid? Not much! So five gravediggers on site for a week should see most of the job completed.

MM

IIRC there are two ways to do it - lay a big area with shallow pipes, or dig a couple of very deep boreholes with a pipe down one and up the other.

Shallow ones are cheaper but as you say you need a large area to lay them on.

For the shallow ground loop collectors, anything from a few feet to as deep as convenient, as long as it's below the frost line.

For boreholes, 150-250 feet deep... probably not a DIY job ;-)

I'd say copper wasn't the best choice, especially with current metal costs. Also, you need about 2000' of shallow loops for an average house..

The figures above come from

If I owned this place and had the capital, it would be high on my list. Fuel isn't going to get any cheaper.

So would I find it cheaper to switch off my oil boiler and use the immersion heater which is on full price electricity to heat the water ?? thanks E

I haven't switched on my oil boiler, bar 5-minute test periods, since April. I switch on the immersion heater for 30 minutes in the morning. Sometimes I just boil a kettle for a wash and a shave. However, it would be very different for a family.

MM

You could use an air source heat pump - and take it with you when you leave, if you're in rented.

In message , MM writes

You lead such an exciting life

I've got an acre that's usable. You can go deeper instead of wider, but that means a drill.

About 1.5 meters down and plastic pipe is teh order of the day: brine fluid inside.

the pipe isn;t te expense, its the damed great refrigerator...

Not just yet: but on economy 7, definitely.

Question re the above thread and the need to be SO careful about not heating hot water; or at least the most economical way to heat it.

Oil fired hot water heating furnaces here have a reputation for being extremely inefficient if during warmer weather, when home heating not much required if each time they have to cut in, heat up and then cool down just to heat a few gallons of hot water for washing up or showers.

We are 'all electric' and have been since 1970.

If we use 200 pounds of hot water per day?

Raising the temp of that water incoming at a ground temp. of about 50 deg.F to 150 deg.F, for dishwasher showering etc. (i.e. + 100 deg.F) Using a well insulated always on hot water tank with thermostatically controlled upper and lower 300 watt heating elements.

So 200 x 100 =3D 20,000 BTUs. Is that correct?

And one kilowatt of electricity can produce about 3,400 BTU?

At our present cost of electricity (mainly hydro generated) of 10 cents (Canadian) per kW/hr that's 60 cents per day (roughly 15 new pence) or about $18 per month!

Since our total electric bill for everything, including heating, hot water, TV, 2 computers running 24 hrs/day etc. some night time outside lighting etc. the !8 dollars represents about 8% of our total energy bill.

Well actually a bit more cos that $230 includes a monthly account charge of $16 and sales taxes of 14% (about $28) of the total bill; so lets say hot water consumes 9% to 10% of total actual domestic energy bill?

Various conservation measures such as allowing shower water to cool to room temp before draining the bath tub, washing clothes in mixed (tepid) not hot water etc. are also practiced. The heat loss from the hot water tank is very slight and even that heat escapes into the house which is electrically heated anyway. Suffice to say that tank can be turned off for week when we go away and the tank water is still warm when we return.

That doesn't seem unreasonable; does it? Even if we were cut our hot water cost in half, saving say $10 per month, that is hardly significant?

Lighting also: A brochure from our local power utility said that typically a family spends about 8% of the electric bill for lighting. So if that is true in our house, where the 8% represents something of the order of $16, we could save about two thirds of that by installing CFL (Compact fluorescent lamps)? Well not quite cos we have already have four foot fluorescents in kitchen and workshop; thus saving some $10 per month.

But again the wasted heat from the older less 'efficient' incandescents helps heat the house! The one exception being a 50 watt long life incandescent bulb over the front porch. Wonder if that bulb will ever fail. It's been there several years, on all night every night of the year, but its wasted heat IS lost to all outdoors.

So these numbers compare with the rising cost of heating oil now around 60 pence per litre here!

This is a really good reason why not to use a mix of units.

If you do the whole calculation in Celsius and litres it will be much less prone to errors.

Then, the only constant that you need is the specific heat of water, which is 4186 J/kg.deg C

The calculation is then extremely simple:

Energy required = mass x specific heat x temperature rise

Since the mass of 1 litre of water is very close to 1kg, the volume can be substituted directly. Pure water at 4 degrees has a mass of

Exactly. Marginally worth it,

Correct. CFLs are a fashion statement. In the overall scheme like using a teaspoon to shovel the snow from your back door.

Its returned to the universe, so the Sun will last that little bit longer..... :-)

That's nothing! I also count the number of times I snag a nail on my cardie. Information is power.

MM

I think it's totally irresponsible of the government to totally ignore solar power for domestic use. Germany offer its citizens all kinds of perks to persuade for the implementation of capturing solar power, but Britain, as ever, lags way behind. Lags, in the sense that we here are insulated from common sense, especially as far as the government is concerned. The government is always having a go at the motorist while Britain's public transport infrastructure is not joined up, is unreliable, often sparse and costs a fortune for a ticket unless one books six years in advance. The other day, with my new bus pass that is only available for free travel after 9:30, I needed to get to Boston Pilgrim hospital early, so had to pay for my tickets. Bus to Spalding (from where I live): £1.80. Bus from Spalding to hospital: £3.70. Exorbitant! Thankfully, on return it was obviously well past

MM

Must have one helluva cardie. Most people snag their cardies on nails. Maybe it's all the BA that's soaked into it? ;-)

You haven't seen my nails... Needful Things doesn't come close!

MM

Its not up to the government to offer it.

Er.no actually. When you do the sums on green energy grants, most of them are a complete waste of money, and furthermore, may overall be more carbon intensive than the alternatives. Its only becasue the Karuts have a big stupid green lobby that they haave done anything at all.

Quite the reverse..the government is actually starting to listen to the poeople who have done the sums..

The government is always having a go at the motorist while

If you were in Germany you would have to put up with a crazy government that spends a fortune on useless windmills and solar panels.

At least tax laws are quickly repealed with a change of government. It takes a huge amount of energy to rip a windmill down, and dig up its huge concrete base.

Out of interest just did some quick sums on cost/kWh for different types of fuel.

Input data - FUEL/Energy per Unit/Current cost :-

Anthracite Grains (Coal) 9.044kWh/kg Cost/50kg £12.50

LPG 7.08kWh/litre Cost/litre £0.57

Gas 11kWh/cubic metre Cost/kWh £0.027 (secondary rate)

Electricity Cost/kWh £0.13

The above figures yield a current cost in pence/kWh as follows:-

Electricity 13.00p LPG 8.05p

Of course the efficiency of your heating appliance will affect your actual yield/kWh.

MOI? Solid fuel gravity fed boiler (Anthracite grains) - boiler efficiency >85% and have just taken delivery of my winter fuel so am happy :-)

Icky

Ooh! That electrcity cost of 13.00p per/kWh is much higher than here (Eastern Canada). Most of it, in this part of the country is hydro generated (like Scotland and Norway?), but several wind generating installations are in the works and actually starting construction. So far there has been little generation by private homeowners, partly because we have low sunlight and long winters here on the east coast of Canada. So there is no legislat ion, yet, that says that utilities MUST buy back homeowners surplus power. My average domestic cost per kWh is now about ten and half cents Canadian.

Not OFFER it, as in supplying and fitting the actual equioment, but encouraging suppliers with rebates and tax holidays to provide the market on as wide a basis as possible. For instance, ground heat recovery systems.

How can solar power be more carbon intensive than burning fossil fuel?

Well, if you simply adopt the view that the green lobby is stupid, we're not going to get very far, are we.

Have you any link here so that I could actually understand what your argument against solar energy recovery consists of?

So, in your view it's wrong that Germany beats us hands down in the installation of solar power recovery systems?

Would you rip ALL the windmills down? With what source would you replace the energy they generated? Nuclear? Coal? Gas? Oil?

Anyway, I shall provide some links:

"Since the introduction of the Renewable Energies Laws (EEG) in April last year, Germany has been experiencing a remarkable boom in solar energy."

Find similar success stories about solar power in the UK and you'll have your work cut out!

MM