Electric Heating

Jez said:
Is that rate competitive for the highlands of scotland? I guess delivery cost must be a factor? 18p seems absolutely massive.
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I’m not sure mate, that’s the price on the estate my place is on, it’s 14p about 10 miles away which is annoying. Edinburgh is a lot cheaper at my GFs place.

Hence the wood burner, cheap to run as the estates wood is more or less free and saves absolute fortune over winter.

So I can put up with a higher leccy cost.
 
The varying rates by location is surprising I never realised they could be so different.

Interestingly in other European countries they are starting to restrict the use of gas boilers in new builds in favour of air/ground source heat pumps.
 
If we stick the Climate Change Act 2010 then 50% reduction by 2035 and 80% reduction by 2050 means all electric homes and sooner than you think. This will be crippling for those of us that live in old homes that are difficult to insulate and difficult to retro fit with underfloor heating.
 
I don't see a huge issue with heat pumps and old houses. A heat pump system can act as a direct replacement for GCH using wet radiators and a hot water tank. The only real issue is finding a suitable place to mount it. You don't need to have a split AC type unit in every room but the system would only be able to heat, no cooling would be possible. Heat pumps are not really new technology either, they are really not much more than air conditioners that can also act in reverse, the condenser is switched for the evaporator and hey presto you have a heater.

There are two drivers behind the adoption of heat pump technology in the UK:
1) Emissions and the need to lower them.
2) Gas prices are rising and will continue to rise both organically and artificially through some kind of taxation to lower emissions in the future.

What is also helping is electricity prices will continue to be suppressed by cheap renewable as more and more come online. New wind offshore is much cheaper than Hinkley C let alone onshore. Solar is also reasonably effective in the UK. In addition as more storage (both at a micro level at home and macro level on the grid itself) comes online to smooth out peeks in demand it will also lower the costs because there will not be a need to have power stations sat idle but still getting paid because they are spooled up ready to drop in if there is a spike in demand.
 
Vargas said:
I remember using £15 a day on leccy last winter :eek: that’s when my GF was visiting and all the oil radiators were working overtime :D
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Are you sure?

£15 a day is over 1000kw/h hours a day, is that even possible on a household supply? It would be something silly like a constant drain of 44kw or the equivalent of 22 oil filled radiators running full tilt 24/7 (which they never do). I doubt even residential a weed farm or a home crypto operation pulls that sort of wattage.

For comparison I was using under 15kw/hours combined gas and electricity a day in the height of the beat from the east. (10 electric, 5 gas, roughly £1.35 a day).

In the summer its more like 6-7 electric and 0.5 gas a day.
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
Are you sure?

£15 a day is over 1000kw/h hours a day, is that even possible on a household supply? It would be something silly like a constant drain of 44kw or the equivalent of 22 oil filled radiators running full tilt 24/7 (which they never do). I doubt even residential a weed farm or a home crypto operation pulls that sort of wattage.

For comparison I was using under 15kw/hours combined gas and electricity a day in the height of the beat from the east. (10 electric, 5 gas, roughly £1.35 a day).

In the summer its more like 6-7 electric and 0.5 gas a day.
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Factor of 10 out there mate, £15/day is around 130-135kwh :) Possible, but does seem high. I have electric sourced heating in a ~3000sqft house which is cheaper than that.
 
Ah yeh :D mental maths fail there.

130kwh is still 8x my usage, I don't know the sqft of my house but it isn't small but it is relatively new so well insulated.
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
Ah yeh :D mental maths fail there.

130kwh is still 8x my usage, I don't know the sqft of my house but it isn't small but it is relatively new so well insulated.
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:D

Unfortunately Rannoch in winter is absolutely freezing. £15 was the most I spent in a 24 hour period. Unoccupied for days at a time the place is freezing, walls are very cold, takes a few days for the whole place to heat up, combine that with a 3kw fan heater, 2 x large oil radiator on full and the GF having 2 baths a day soon adds up :D I also like to have long electric showers.

Forgot to include 250w projector, gaming pc and the kettle.

At 18p a unit it all soon adds up.

Thankfully those days are gone with a large wood burner...
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
Are you sure?

£15 a day is over 1000kw/h hours a day, is that even possible on a household supply? It would be something silly like a constant drain of 44kw or the equivalent of 22 oil filled radiators running full tilt 24/7 (which they never do). I doubt even residential a weed farm or a home crypto operation pulls that sort of wattage.

For comparison I was using under 15kw/hours combined gas and electricity a day in the height of the beat from the east. (10 electric, 5 gas, roughly £1.35 a day).

In the summer its more like 6-7 electric and 0.5 gas a day.
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Weed farmers bypass the leccy in this neck of the woods lol
 
Seems a lot of confusion between air source heat pumps and air conditioning here. Very similar but also very different.

I'll try and take a picture of my radiators over the weekend. 1960s house.

I've got air conditioning as well. Both are great systems they just need to be installed correctly.
 
I pay 17p per kWh, the joys of living in Northern Ireland!

Sonny - Most moden multisplit systems will reach a CoP of 4 - Dropping to about 3.4 in very cold weather. It has nothing to do with the size of, or thermal performance of your house.
I'm talking about your initial statement - that heat pumps need days to warm up. Which is entirely wrong. Plenty of people have posted to say that it takes about 30 minutes to warm the house - I design these things as it's my job.
Look to something like Panasonic, Daikin, Mitsubishi, for quality stuff.

I'm now trying out a Daikin unit (seem to be the test bed for our competition) which is sorta a hassle having the installers in, but after the year is out they pay for the place (my house) house to be painted by "professional" painters, so that's a bonus.
It's been repainted 4 times in 7 years, and if I'm bothered then doing all white I can get my own colours, the painters do great, and I still get it free.
 
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Kimi said:
Seems a lot of confusion between air source heat pumps and air conditioning here. Very similar but also very different.

I'll try and take a picture of my radiators over the weekend. 1960s house.

I've got air conditioning as well. Both are great systems they just need to be installed correctly.
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Same as mine, the A/C is a later add-on, wanted to keep the central heating because if I ever sell this place, buyers expect it...
 
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