Sensible prices now are well above £6k for a system like that, you've seen the quotes in solar thread so you must know.
Energy Prices (Strictly NO referrals!)
- Thread starter DXP55
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Soldato
i would say i would only entertain a heatpump if it was to replace my gas completely........ absolutely no point if i am still paying a gas standing charge as well as the service / maintanence costs of a gas boiler... not to mention it is still not giving me that self deluding greenwashing vibe
even then i would only be getting a heatpump if i was due a boiler replacement anyway..... there are lots of different technologies on the cusp of coming out now either for off peak mass energy storage or IR heating, as well as heat pumps, so unless i needed something right now i would be hanging back, and if i had money burning a hole in my pocket i would look to be improving insulation if possible instead...... (if you dont need heating on then you are not using any power to heat... keeping hold of the heat you have will always be the best solution to heating your home)
Certainly a big push will come I think.
Most of this tech is still pretty niche and hence only small amounts of people can/will install it.
Lots of luck factors then come in, modern houses will have small rads, one of my parents houses from the 60s had monster rads and that was for supposed background heating! Heatpump would be far easier to install there than in my house.
Although maybe 22 rads might work out, most are 11 at the mo so a fair upgrade is possible in terms of BTU output for a simple rad change
Yes of course. Its somewhat of a opportunist position though since thats a very recent change. You would have been lucky to average 1% the last 10 years unless you went into investment as opposed to savings.
BUt part of this is meism, expecting someone else to fix the lack of energy, make it cheap, help our resiliency etc, or do your bit. Many will simply look at the hard financials, many others will look wider.
When I did mine I did hard financials. Its going to save me just short of £2k a year, or around 80% of my elec costs if my model is correct.
Thats based on £13.5k. Although I did add another £600 to go whole house off grid capable should there be blackouts, I can now draw 5.5kwh when the grid is down, although that assumes I have got enough battery charge to do so.
At £12.9k saving 2k its 6.5 year payback.
Caporegime
It is going to save you 2k a year at the current rates but not when they drop back down again.
Soldato
Indeed however most don't get quotes for a simple solar system now, often (normally) batteries, eddis etc
The last two iirc were around 13.5-14k, for 4kw+ of panels, diverter, plus 9.5-12kwh batteries.
The batteries alone ignoring everything else will be over £4k straight off.
Thats really not that different to quotes from 3-4 months ago
Yes prices have gone up, probably 20% since the start of the year. They went up around May/June when it all started kicking off on energy prices.
More the issue I think is that installers don't want a simple 10-12 panels job, they want to sell the whole lot, instead of making £1k or so on a solar install they can make £2k on a larger one for not much extra work.
Soldato
Which will be when?
Because the forecast I have at work from our energy consultants is higher pricing next year, and the government have indicated less help on costs.
Its one of them things, its all crystal ball and what if.
When it’s 40c inside already, keeping windows shut isn’t going to do it.But keeping the windows shut can stop it getting to 40 in the first place
Keeping windows shut doesn’t prevent it going to 40c.
Single brick walls heat up surprising fast.
Sam principles in the winter solid wall let out a lot of heat and in summer it let a lot in.
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Caporegime
Which is what you are basing your savings off.
Soldato
I don't really see electric/gas prices really dropping for 2-3 years at least, and it's like anything, once it goes up, it tends to stay up.
crystal ball or what ifs all you want, but I think the smart money is on preparing for high prices not low ones.
If they wind up dropping back a bit I think they'll still be fairly high historically speaking.
crystal ball or what ifs all you want, but I think the smart money is on preparing for high prices not low ones.
If they wind up dropping back a bit I think they'll still be fairly high historically speaking.
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Soldato
Well not really I am basing them on known factors for now, or where nothing can be known I am using current position. I will amend as I can.
So current go pricing but the revised current (higher) pricing for when I would renew and the now pricing on electricity, not the expected April increase.
I haven't included any inflation impact on future costs either. Since its unknown, all you can do right now is simply make it up completely or use the best information available.
Always the case with multi year decisions you simple cannot tell most of the time how it will change.
Telling you attack my response though and don't defend your "they will fall back again"
Which is based on what? Tea leaves?
How low do you think they could go? Back to COVID prices (very low) or pre COVID prices?
If its pre COVID prices then at that time the Go rates were also significantly cheaper, so my winter charging would still be significantly cheaper per unit and I would still be roughly grid independent for the other 6 months.
And even in worst case, even if the price of elec falls somehow to ultra low levels, unless its basically give away pricing, more chance of Brexit being a success IMO, even then, as long as I am paying back I am happy.
If it took 10 years to pay back, its all warranty guaranteed to that point. The most likely failure would be an inverter around then, likely payback would be 1 year on that and again at that point I would be paying naff all for elec in effect.
Most people seem to think the days of cheap energy are gone. I tend to agree, many factors are going to be pushing for that to be the case.
Cheap encourages excessive usage. Cheap doesn't support investment. Cheap makes nuclear impossible, Cheap doesn't support robustness of the grid from decent capacity.
FWIW I made the decision to buy before the current pricing, iirc it was 28p I was using when I decided to go for it. The payback plummeted when I put in 50p a unit when talk was it could be that high.
Caporegime
wow!
There seems to be a common opinion all CH is equal and all insulation is equal. I have the opinion Gas CH seems to have huge variances on cost from property to property.
Too many are fixated on unit cost and peak consumption costs, which is why we have people assuming gas kettles are more efficient than electric, and gas CH beats everything because the unit price is lower. Efficiency seems to be ignored.
Soldato
It pretty much always will, you can't generate heat out of nothing, a kwh of gas is cheaper than a kwh of electric most of the time.
Aircon and heat pump tech can use electric efficiently to bring some parity, but for most people there won't be a more efficient in home heating system installed than gas ch.
House thermal properties will vary a lot though, but that is true no matter which heating source you use on your own house, so it won't invalidate the argument that gas ch is generally the one you want to use.
Yeah but you may need much more KwH to provide heating than electric, thats the bit people are ignoring.
I did some sums last week, for my boiler e.g. and discovered in my circumstance a 2000 watt portable heater is cheaper than using my boiler to heat my room.
Once move on to heat pumps it becomes clearly in favour.
For gas to break even in my circumstance it needs to be no more than about 23% of the cost of electric, currently its about 34%.
Once all the unlinking of energy costs kick in, more renewables come online etc, the gap will close even more on unit costs. There is a reason gas boilers are been phased out.
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Soldato
Cost will be a part of it at some point, ultimately its going to get more expensive over time.
If something needs 9 KwH to do the same as something needing 2 KwH which is cheaper?
Caporegime
I have noticed that in this thread which I didn't think would be the case. People are posting some astronomical figures for their heating cost whereas ours seems pretty low. Almost to the point that I doubt them as I am the least eco man you could know. I leave the water running when cleaning my teeth. I fill the water up to the top etc. 2 adults 2 kids. Kettle constantly on the boil. Our boiler is 12+ years old, house is of 1970's origin but has wall and roof insulation plus PVC double glazing throughout so not even modern. Temp is set to 20 from 9am till 10pm.
I did another meter rating today and over the past 3 days we have used on averaged £9.91 of gas a day which is still over £300 for the month :/ but credit will more than enough pay for that till March.
Because I dont know your unit rates I dont know your actual usage, but if we assume 11p a unit for your gas, then you using about 90 KwH a day in gas, thats way above the amount I am prepared to pay for.
But for an all day cost, so making it on a cost per hour basis, its good for gas.
My home is mostly single glazed wooden framed windows, drafty front door, no insulation anywhere, gas CH is on full power all the time, doesnt drop off, no room thermostats, takes an age for temperature to rise, last time I left it on all day it barely got to 16C. Portable heater can get room up to 16C in about 10 minutes and beyond for longer. As MKW said of course temps drop off way quicker with a portable heater, but thats something I can overlook when its taking several hours to get to 16C.
But bear in mind I dont care about heating my entire home, I consider it wasteful to heat rooms I am not using, I also if I do succumb to using heating it wont be an all day thing either. The economics of using gas CH seems to be based around needing to heat an entire home, and for long periods of time. Then assumption's get made about windows, heat loss etc. These are important because CH is about providing slow gradual heat, but if the heat loss is too high then it struggles to overcome it.
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Caporegime
I am with Eon Next which is 10.24 kWh and that is over a 24hr period. Hopefully we have an early spring as it has been really chilly over the past couple of days. Our heating in the past couple of days comes on at 9am for an hour or two then will come on sporadically during the evening till it switches off at 9pm.
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If you're hoping for spring to start in December I think you're going to be out of luck.