water heating

[Leveled]

Would it be cheaper to use my immersion heater for hot water( not off peak) than my oil fired boiler, with oil at 50 ++ pence a litre How should I compare the cost Tanks E

[The Natural Philosopher]

The short answer at the moment is no.

I calculate oil at around 5.5p a kWh, comparable with off peak but half the price of on peak.

Take oil price per liter and divide by 10 roughly to get price per Kwh.

But with any oil inefficiencies, or further price rises, the answer may yet get to be 'yes'.

[Dave Liquorice]

I'd qualify that to maybe.

My main supply of leccy is at 8.415p/unit. The E7 costs 4.27p/unit I expect one could find a better E7 tariff as that is Equipower (no standing charge not even a hidden one, only pay for the units you use at a flat rate).

As input cost, you do need to assume only about 75% efficient. So that

5.5p/unit input becomes more like 7.5p/unit output.

Very likely to and not too far into the future with crude now pushing rather hard against $120/barrel... 15% rise in brent crude this month. It was at $85 back in Feb and 12 months ago $65.

Not far short of a 50% rise in 12 months OUCH! Something is going to break and when it does it could get very nasty, very quickly.

[Leveled]

You are indeed lucky to have such cheap electricity the flat rate EBICO price for our region is12.13 pence ,who does your 8.415p price??or is this a large business deal?? I was just considering switching on the immersion instead of the oil fired boiler,

[The Natural Philosopher]

gas will be up at similar prices: coal is still quite cheap I believe.

But nuclear keeps the leccy prices down somewhat.

[Dave Liquorice]

For EBICO flat rate normal tarrif for here (Norweb) is 10.67. The E7 peak is 13.18.

I get the 8.415 from Scottish Power with their online monthly fixed direct debit tarrif.

[<me9]

Does that mean you have two different suppliers, one for normal tarrif and the other just for the off peak units?

[terry]

Electricity here, eastern Canada, used domestically, averages 10 cents (that's about 5 pence) per k.watt hour; no E7 or off-peak discount rates for residential users.

All forms of oil heating now very expensive and going up all the time. One litre costing around 90cents to $1.10 (Canadian currency). Gasoline now averaging about $1.20 to $1.30 across Canada.

Question: If hot water is to be heated by the same oil fired 'boiler' (furnace) that also provides central heating there must be periods when it operates extremely inefficiently, cutting in only sporadically just to heat a small amount of domestic hot water? Consequently an electric hot water heater (tank/cylinder etc.) might be a good choice for economy?

PS. How do you chaps spell it these days; "litre" or "liter"? In Canada purists seem to regard spellings such as "liter" as being Americanized; in much the same ballpark as 'foto', 'sox', 'labor', 'harbor', 'humor' etc. Just curious! Cheers

[Dave Liquorice]

Two suppliers, across 3 meters. Historical, don't ask. Two meters have very low consumption hence being on EBICO to side step any standing charges, even if the p/unit is slightly high, it's not as high as the Tier

1 units on "no standing charge" tarrifs. The other has consumption in the low 20s units/day so is on the cheapest p/unit tarrif I could find a couple of years back. This is a daily standing charge tarrif but as it always uses more than the Tier 1 amount that's not relevant.

Tier 1 might be Tier 2, I mean the expensive first x hundred units to pay the "no standing charge".

[The Natural Philosopher]

If te biler is timed and has sufficient hysteresis and a relatively efficient heat ehanger, i isn't that inefficient to e.g.come on for a 20 minute burn to heat a water tank.

However low output inefficiences are a source of argument and BS among boiler makers.

Not sure.

[Owain]

Personally I still spell it pint or gallon, depending on context :-)

Owain