electric heating

When any thought is given to central heating, gas seems an automatic choice. This is almost always based on cost. What I’m going to showyou here is that idea is false. Electric heating isn’t fantastically more than gas costs, and can actually work out cheaper.

For this example I’m going to use the figures for my own home - which is a detached 3-bed home with fairly-good insulation levels. We’ve been running an electric heating system for three years now out of choice. It makes me smile to see people who live in an area without gas wishing they had connection to the mains. Why? Evidently they cannot use a calculator.

Right, before we go any further let me state that these figures have been verified and checked, then re-checked. The information was fed into an ‘energy-switch’ website to get accurate data. Also, of course, I have carefully evaluated three years worth of my own meter readings which are taken every month. So first of all, let’s look at the actual energy use and cost of heating and hot water:

Annual heating & hot water requirement of 15,000 kWh

Electric heating and hot water - 15,750 kWh @ 9.5p/kWh = £1,496 (Assumed efficiency level of 95%. This would be lost heat through various reasons)

Now let’s compare against a gas system. It must be understood that electric heating is almost 100% efficient, whereas a gas system is far from that. There are also many other factors at play which make it very difficult to guess what gas would cost in my home (which I’m using for my example). I therefore have to guess an average figure for consumption:

Gas heating and hot water - 22,500 kWh @ 4p per kWh = £900 (Assumed system efficiency level of 67%. This would be lost heat at the boiler, plus lost heat on the system and uncontrollability resulting in needless heating - which is what you get on a typical gas heating system due to lack of control)

Remember, these are the (November 2011) costs for fuel

So, it would look as though gas is much cheaper. Well on running costs, it is. Gas is £900 while electric is £1,496. But that isn’t the whole story at all. Gas boilers have to be serviced and maintained. They also break down. So an insurance scheme is going to be vital. So let’s add boiler and system insurance of £180 on to that gas bill...

= £1,080

But we’re not done yet. Modern boilers only last 10 years. Therefore, there is a real depreciation figure. A boiler will cost in the region of £2,500 to replace - so that’s an additional £250 a year...

= £1,330

And we’re not done yet. Installation costs of a gas system against an electric one is something that is often overlooked. A decent electric system for a 7-room home will cost about £750. However, the installation costs of a gas heating system is far more - in the region of £4,000 [source: Defra]. That means loss of interest in your bank account to fund the installation. This means an additional £120 a year in lost interest for gas and £23 for electric.

= £1,450 for gas

= £1,519 for electric

So the difference between the two systems is just £69 a year!

To me, it’s a no-brainer! The idea that gas is always cheaper to heat a home is completely FALSE. The figures change with the size of the property. If you have a flat or small house then electric is cheaper. However, with a larger property, gas works out cheaper over time. Get your calculator out and see. If you are a landlord or small property developer then it’s far better to install electric heating. Not only will it be cheaper, they’ll be no maintenance charges and no gas safety certificate required. Okay, so where do you go from here if you’re actually interested in ‘going electric’?

If you have a larger home then gas will almost certainly work out the cheaper option. But if have decided to go electric, what type of system do you want? Like all heating, there’s cheap, there’s middle of the road, and there’s ‘ideal’, but obviously fairly expensive.

Cheap is panel heaters

Middle is underfloor heating

Upper is trench heating