We're on LPG. I've just had Calor Gas here. They want me to have a new boiler. It would be a Worcester Bosch Greenstar CD1 24 combi. It would cost £3,000, including VAT, fitted. How does that sound to you?
We have electric water heating as well as gas. Does anyone know the theoretical energy equivalent between electricity and LPG? And while we're at it, between electricity and oil? These two salespersons didn't know the answer.
I'm paying 49p per litre for LPG. How does that sound?
Any help on this issue would be appreciated, as I am totally ignorant in these matters.
Is that for a simple boiler swap? Took me two days to change mine from a floor mounted one to wall hung condenser in the same place - including the brickwork for the smaller flue. And changing from open vented to sealed - and I have a storage system, so more pipework. Although all pipework and a cold water feed were easily accessible.
Your boiler will cost just over 1000 quid including VAT. So 2000 quid labour sounds a lot to me - unless it's a pretty involved swap.
remove wall hung boiler and brick up. fit new Vaillent boiler in loft. fit 5 zone valves. rewire the thermostats. reconnect all the rads optionally fit Vailent pressurised hot water tank. replace existing PB water pipe to make sure it can cope with the new higher pressure.
That was about £1000 labour, which I don't think is OTT.
The boiler seems a bit expensive but they don't want to fit a cheaper one, the cylinder is the same price as I can get trade.
I just haven't decide if £1000 is VFM for a pressurised tank.
Why? Is it knackered? Are they claiming they can't support it parts wise? Or are they trying to convince you to go for a more fuel efficient model? Unless its knackered, or the short term savings are worth 3K my advice woul d be to stick with what you've got (and if you must change, get some other quotes). Often parts which the likes of BG and Calor are unable to obtain a re readily available. Funny that.
Generally speaking efficiency of heating by electricity is very close to
100%.
Heating with a natural gas condensing combi boiler is around 90% and upwards assuming your return water temp is kept to below 55°C.
I do know that the cost of heating water by electricity is 3 to 4 times the cost of heating the same water by natural gas.
If I recall correctly, electricity prices are around 12p per kWh and gas is about 3p-4p per kWh.
You need to look up the price per kWh for your LPG and oil. (kWh is a unit of energy and the amount of energy required to heat water will be the same.
If I recall correctly, Oil is in the same ball park as electricity price wise per kWh (unless you happen to have a heat pump with a high COP instead of a immersion tank.)
I can't comment on LPG though.
However, if you have a chimney stack, and a free source of wood pallets, a wood burning stove does save on costs of fuel. :-))
Well if you take the cost of the boiler itself as a bit under a grand, it gives you some idea of the costing for the work.
The amount of actual effort involved in a boiler swap varies depending on what you currently have. So swapping one combi for another - all else being unchanged is probably a couple of man days of effort when done well with thorough system flushing etc. More complicated changes take longer.
24kW is a bit on the feeble size for a combi (which needs to be sized on hot water demand rather than heating load). It will do a decent shower, but take quite a while for a bath fill.
Its not a clear a difference as say natural gas and electricity since LPG is a good deal more expensive.
LPG is good for around 26kWh per m^3 (i.e. 1000L) in is gaseous form. Price per L (liquid) will vary depending on supplier and if you own your own tank or rent it. But 45 to 50p /L seems not uncommon.
So if you take the volume conversion for propane/butame mix as being about 250 times, 1000L of LPG will give some 250m^3 of gas or say 6500 kWh.
Reasonable perhaps, perhaps toward the upper end a bit.
That gives you a kWh price of about 7.5p or about 50% more than natural gas, but half the price of (peak rate) electricity, and comparable or slightly more than oil.
Electric use will be near enough 100% efficiency. A modern gas boiler should do over 90% seasonally adjusted, and an oil one a bit less. So in real terms oil and LPG will work out similar, but both cheaper than electric unless you are using some form of heat pump technology, or can store energy from cheap rate electric (with a thermal store/heat bank for example).
There is a reasonable comparison here:
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What setup of heating / hot water do you currently have?
Well, you should have a good idea of how much a self employed plumber should charge per day in your area. Even if you double the time both myself and John Rumm say to 4 days, that would be 500 quid a day. And no plumber is worth that. If two days, 1000 a day. I doubt even aerial fitters make that. ;-)
There is an alternative you might want to think about. That is a heat pump,either ground or air source. It will cost you more then a boiler but can connect to your existing radiators. Should be cheaper to run than propane gas.
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There are government grants for both installation and running of these devices.
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An installer would be up to date on the current money available.
Well worth looking into especially as you have no mains gas, I think you get extra money.
This is a helpful energy cost comparison, though I don't know how accurate it is.
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My dislike for LPG for heating is exemplified by costing more than Economy 7 and oil. LPG boilers are perhaps better known by plumbers than oil, but this is very area dependent. TNP will probably question the true cost of logs for burning!
£3,000 is extortionate for a straight swap. I have seen a straight swap done in a morning (non condensing to condensing of the same make), but not knowing the boiler you're having removed it's difficult to compare. If the flues line up then it should be an easy job.
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