Electric Boilers

[plumbingdazman]

Are electric boilers any good and will they povide enough heat and power for say 6 rads and a hot water cylinder.
Also do they do a combi version in an electric boiler, only asking as gf's mum has no mains gas in villae and oil very expensive to start up.

Many thanks Darren

 

[cowdrayplumber]

A few of our properties have electric boilers (amptec/heatrae sadia) and they quite happily run about 6 rads and cylinder but customers have reported it costing them upto £10 a day to run on a cold winter days although that may be exaggerated.

 

[tamz]

Amptec and Electromax are system boilers.
The Amptec just connects as a normal boiler to a S or Y plan with a cylinder for the HW available up to 11kw but they can be joined to make a greater output depending if your electric supply is up to it.
An Electromax is an Amptec inside a casing with an unvented cylinder.
Neither of these boilers take full advantage of the off peak tarriffs which are necessary to keep the cost of electric heating down.

There are very few "combi" type electric boilers around to choose from. These are basically thermal stores with a couple of immersion heaters but the do use the off peak tarriffs to best advantage.
Here are a couple of links. The second one is more expensive.

The Electric Central Heating Company

[DLMURL="http://www.thermaflowheating.co.uk/index.htm"]Electric Combination Boilers - Electric Central Heating - Thermaflow[/DLMURL]

 

[dai the plumber]

Cowdrayplumber is bang on at £10 + a day to run, £70 per week. I've not long taken one out because the customer couldn't afford to run it. Neither Lpg nor Oil are anywhere near as expensive as electric to run. I've got oil and it cost me around £30 a week in the depths of the last arctic blast.

 

[GQuigley67]

yeah they say electric boilers are 100% efficient but the amount of electricity they use I would tend to disagree

 

[stevetheplumber]

mostly electric boilers are used where theres no other option a lot of the newbuild flats in london are going up with no gas and listed buildings that cant have flues put out

 

[Vessy]

Does anybody know if a 12kW flow boiler would heat up 10 Rads in a 4 bed house? Seriously looking at one of these as it does calculate to be cheaper than LPG. Done the boiler sizing wizard and it tells me I need a 10kW boiler for my heating needs

 

[franky]

Forget the electric boiler mate if you can't use gas and have to go down the electric route try to use electric underfloor heating.
My electrician puts it in, in some of the bathrooms I do customers love it and its supposed to be efficient although you might want to check that out yourself.

 

[rm1]

thermaflow do a 9kw,12kw boiler where the hot water is just like a combi boiler it has 3 elements that control the heating to be cost effective scottish power fit an economy 2000 meter which allows for a cheaper tariff with off peak periods on 3 occasions duing a 24 hour period there is no power to the boiler however it is guaranteed to provide sufficient heat and hot water during the off periods there is also an aquastat fitted on the boiler to reduce costs further as this prevents the heating pump from operating until the temperature is 30 degrees within the boiler

 

[quality]

If you have to go with electric heating a heat pump is the only way to go

 

[tamz]

If you have to go with electric heating a heat pump is the only way to go

Not up here it ain't unless you go for a ground source which is beyond the budget of most.

Electric heating of any kind should be the last option. Underfloor is very expensive to run too. Don't believe the ??pence a day rubbish on bathroom kits. For a bathroom it may be fine as a luxury item but no way for a whole house.
That lesson was learned in the 60's -70's and it has never gotten any better.