Advice on electric combi against gas boiler please

[marktaunton]

hi
I have a small three storey 3 bed old townhouse (1800 mid terrace) with no gas supply or central heating (except old storage heaters). To get gas will cost £1000 to the door and then more costs for the meter etc. So basically advice please on whether it is worth considering an electric boiler at around £1500?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Centralheatking]

Hi Mark T - welcome 2 UKPF - yours is a good question - one I have asked myself and has appeared here on UKPF before.

I expect you might of googled etc - the amount of power an electric powered combi would need
requires a 3 phase supply - common in USA but sadly only 'commercial' in UK.

You say its a town house - ie not rural - £1000 is cheap as in the country it can be 10's £1000's
anyway nat gas is still the cheapest energy around - bite the bullet.

When you have done come back and ask us all about which system to choose - we have collective wisdom ...............Centralheatking

 

[Worcester]

Rule 1, insulate, insulate insulate
Rule 2, Natural gas is the cheapest for of heating
Rule 3, if you've done (1) and still can't get natural gas, go for an ASHP (Air source Heat Pump)

Even then £1000 to connect and a Natural Gas boiler will be your cheapest over 3 years

 

[GasmanxxxR1]

Rule 1, Dont talk about electric boilers
Rule 2, DONT TALK ABOUT ELECTRIC BOILERS
Rule 3, Have gas run to your house

 

[SafeGasInstall]

GAS as its cheapest ,
renewable if you have 10s of thousands to spend on a system

 

[Nostrum]

Example:

15,000kwh annual heat demand

x 0.15p for electric = £2250

+ 10% (90% efficiency gas boiler) = 16,500kwh x 0.005p = £825

paid for in a year.

 

[SafeGasInstall]

can some one come up with same calculation for the renewable option

 

[Mike Jackson]

With an 1800s town house I don't think renewable is viable you'll struggle to get the level of insulation required at any sort of reasonable cost.

 

[Nostrum]

Air source heat pump with a SPF (seasonal performance factor) of 2.7

15,000kwh / 2.7 = 5,555 x 0.15p = £833

(I think, I've got lady gaga dancing around in bra and knickers in front of me for a minute)

 

[Worcester]

@Nostrum, that's about right if you are running at 50° + on existing rads. However that's not the case.

As he was / is on storage heaters, hes' going to have to put in some form of emitter - underfloor heating / radiators.

if you design the emitters, underfloor heating. radiators to run at 35° your spf on a well designed system is at least 3.6,

So his bill is 15000/3.6*0.15 = £ 625 AND he'll get PAID £790.00 per year for 7 years .... thats £990 per year - it's better than that becasue the £790 is RPI linked, and the £200 he'll save in fuel is saved from TAXED income.


That's why I've said time and time again, if you're already on mains gas, an ASHP doesn't add up.

 

[Worcester]

If he or someone in the house is on some kind of benefits though, he would be a classic GOOD use of the green deal - he might even get it all funded on eco, else it will be a saving (Golden Rule) on his existing bill.

Might even get the insulation done foc on eco at the same time

Now you see why you might want to be PAS2030, and tie up with a GDP - it's a classic one that WONT go to the big boys.

 

[lame plumber]

funny that the politicians are now talking about removing subsidies on pv as it might be a vote loser now, took them a while to spot the problems in the future, I do hope they start to see that if something cant pay for itself without subsidies, then its not worth having imho and that of all business models. Once this is understood, then the renewables sector might have to drop its prices and compete with the rest of the industries involved in heating etc.

 

[Ermintrude]

Didn't this get posted yesterday ?

 

[Ermintrude]

Yes it's worth considering electric combi. You will come to the abrupt conclusion in one of two ways. 1. You will realise it was a complete waste of money and your going to have to pay for gas as it's only been installed a week and your sick of it already or 2. You hear some one saying noooo! And you heed the advice.

 

[Worcester]

@lameplumber, not sure why you think we either can or should drop prices?

Perhaps I should tell you to install a boiler for £130 like some are doing on eco, after all if they can do it why cant you

As I said an ASHP isn't economical against natural gas, they make good sense against oil, and we wouldn't promote one in that instance. If you've got a clean sheet as in this case, then it's a different matter.

The RHI is not set at a 'profit' making level like the FiT mistakenly was - that has now been rectified by a massive drop in FiT rates. The RHI -is just that an INCENTIVE designed to make the additional capital cost of renewables affordable so that the Government can meet an EU target that it didn't set itself... It has no choice if it wants even a slim chance of meeting them.

Now lets consider Biomass..

Same infrastructure as a normal high temp central heating system, if using radiators, no necessity for a buffer tank
Cost of fuel: 15000kwh @ 5.4p/kWh (£260 /T @ 4800kWh/T) = £812.50 oh a saving!
AND he gets paid 15000 x 12.2p/kwh = £1,830.00 TAX FREE for 7 years ye hah!!"
AND he can get an UP FRONT pre-payment of that of £2000.00 to put it all in .. PARTY TIME!!! - FOR THE CUSTOMER.

 

[Ermintrude]

You forgot the awful bio hopper !

 

[Worcester]

Not needed at that size, bit of daily exercise does everyone good, boiler has a built in 100kg hopper, so it can be filled and forgetten for a week (480kwH) Got standalone outdoor units ready to go..

 

[SafeGasInstall]

@WR : don't you go to sleep pal ?

 

[Nostrum]

I used 2.7 as it is the lowest SPF that is eligible to be considered a renewable source if I remember and depending on the house it may not be possible to design a system with an SPF of 3.6 AND have room for the furniture around the radiators!

also, remember the RHPP payment is deducted from the RHi payments so you cannot double subsidise.

thirdly, is that a trianco external wood pellet boiler? Not sure if I would want one myself, just the thought of storing the pellets in that is enough to put me off, would be a mess if the lid didn't seat down properly and the rain got in although I haven't seen one in the flesh ( last trianco oil boilers that were released before the company went bust for the third time were a bit pants though)

 

[Nostrum]

funny that the politicians are now talking about removing subsidies on pv as it might be a vote loser now, took them a while to spot the problems in the future, I do hope they start to see that if something cant pay for itself without subsidies, then its not worth having imho and that of all business models. Once this is understood, then the renewables sector might have to drop its prices and compete with the rest of the industries involved in heating etc.

but without subsidies the industry doesn't get off the ground. Using p.v as an example, the market demand drove the prices down, it's success was also its failure. Increased demand also pushes r&d in the technology harder which in turn means the technology can progress at a faster rate, which in turn pushes it closer to be viable without subsidy. Its a chicken and egg situation which requires careful balance.

its always the same no matter what is being subsidised, the people who aren't involved are always upset that they aren't able to gain from it. The same as ECO, when warmfront was running everybody moaned that it was only limited to a few contractors, now this time they have opened the funding up to anybody ( with pas:2030) and people still moan.

Bring back the scrappage voucher? Can you honestly expect the energy companies to dish out £1.3bill willy nilly to every tom dick or Harry without some kind of monitoring system? .. And that's where pas:2030 comes in.

 

[Worcester]

No its NOT a Trianco

 

[Killy Bing]

No its NOT a Trianco

what is it ?

 

[Nostrum]

A re badged trianco from what I can tell, when they went bust a company called wood energy solutions bought the rights too it I reckon.

As I said I haven't seen it in the flesh so it could be cracking but until I do I have my doubts.

 

[Worcester]

My ignorance, WES make it, though from a good look at it, they have re-engineered an awful lot of it.

What was wrong with the Trianco units? (maybe kept the box..)

Just had a loong chat with Trianco - see post in Renewables section