Anyone got an Electric Combi Boiler?

AndyWest

AndyWest

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My Mum needs a new oil tank (£3k) for her heating and her boiler although only 3 years old is costing a fair bit to keep it going. She is spending £1200 a year on oil. She lives in a 1970's 2 bed bungalow with 7 rads and 2 showers. We have just started looking into converting to electric for hot water and heating. There is no Gas in her road.

Would an electric boiler be better?
 
Electric for hot water and heating is expensive.
What about LPG?

£1200 for oil in a 2 bed bungalow seems very excessive. Last year we bought a 3 bed 1920’s house and spent approx £1500 on oil for the year. we've just installed a new fancy boiler so expecting that to drop quite a bit this year.

Is there anything the government can do to help with additional insulation?

I would also question the price of a new oil tank. A 2500 litre tank can be had for about £1.2k for a bunded tank.
Single skin tanks (if you’re allowed) are around £800ish
 
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Average price per Kw used:-
Oil .... 9p
LPG ... 12p
Electric ... 15p

If you change to another fuel you will obviously have another boiler installation cost. Also shop around for comparisons for new tanks. It’s quite competitive at the moment especially if having a new one in same position. Electric boilers really aren’t taking off at the moment and seeing as your mum is already on the best alternative to gas it seems sensible to shop around tank wise and stay with oil.
 
Is the bungalo properly insulater ?
 
LPG heating used to seem expensive compared to oil round here. I should be *very* surprised that a replacement should be £3000 - I nearly went through this 4 years agoi, but we were donated an almost new bunded tank that I fitted myself.
 
As Elliott has said a tank should not be that expensive. In many cases a single skin tank will be adequate and legal, though you'd need to check. A single skin 1200 litre tank, which I'm sure would be fine for a house the size of your Mum's can be had for less than £600 - https://www.fueltankshop.co.uk/1200-litre-low-profile-oil-tank-titan-lp1200tt/p4267

However, good insulation will help a lot. Doing all the external walls with 50 or 100mm Kingspan will cost a bit but will make a big difference.

Also agree about looking into LPG central heating.

Dave
 
My Mum has had 2 quotes that are just under £3k. £2.5k if she keeps it situated where it is. The quotes are for moving nearer the boiler. She is getting a 3rd quote this week.

The Bungalow is well insulated as I did that myself and we are going to double layer some of it soon. All the walls have a coating on over the brickwork but can't remember what it's called. Kingspan sounds familiar.

Thanks for all the help. Very helpful. :)
 
Tringa said:
However, good insulation will help a lot. Doing all the external walls with 50 or 100mm Kingspan will cost a bit but will make a big difference.
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Hi can you expand on what this is? Does it actually go on the outside of the building? Ive got a bungalw with exterior lower half brick and then upper half painted pebbledash. Im assuming this couldnt be used there? Thanks

EDIT: numpty mode, by exterior walls Im now thinking you probably mean stuck on from inside the property but on the outside walls. So presumably where fitted wardrobes are involved it means removing them and any coving, Fitting on the kingspan stuff then reftting coving and wardrobes? And decent double glazed windows also probably needed otherwise could be a waste of time and money? Not to mention loft insulation.
 
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DorsetDude said:
Hi can you expand on what this is? Does it actually go on the outside of the building? Ive got a bungalw with exterior lower half brick and then upper half painted pebbledash. Im assuming this couldnt be used there? Thanks

EDIT: numpty mode, by exterior walls Im now thinking you probably mean stuck on from inside the property but on the outside walls. So presumably where fitted wardrobes are involved it means removing them and any coving, Fitting on the kingspan stuff then reftting coving and wardrobes? And decent double glazed windows also probably needed otherwise could be a waste of time and money? Not to mention loft insulation.
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You can either insulate inside or outside, and there used to be (maybe still is in some areas) government grants for some people in some properties. External walls only, but with the insulation on the inside or outside. The outside of your place sounds perfect for external insulation. Better windows may also help, depending on how bad yours are.
Both involve much the same process - stick slabs of insulation to the walls and render over (external) or batten out and plasterboard(internal) If done internally (which I did, as my place was a wreck and I couldn't afford to do it externally) then any wardrobes etc on the external walls come out, and you loose at least 100mm off your room, more like 150mm.
A suspended floor can benefit from being insulated (lift floorboards, fit insulation slabs between joists and if possible a thin sheet about joists before relaying floorboards) Even a better underlay (they do have tog ratings) will help a lot.
External involves very little disruption, internal lots. If the house is in a good state then outside would be the obvious choice if it's possible.
I can't say how much it might save off bills, but my neighbour who has no insulation comes round to ours to warm up....
 
DorsetDude said:
Hi can you expand on what this is? Does it actually go on the outside of the building? Ive got a bungalw with exterior lower half brick and then upper half painted pebbledash. Im assuming this couldnt be used there? Thanks

EDIT: numpty mode, by exterior walls Im now thinking you probably mean stuck on from inside the property but on the outside walls. So presumably where fitted wardrobes are involved it means removing them and any coving, Fitting on the kingspan stuff then reftting coving and wardrobes? And decent double glazed windows also probably needed otherwise could be a waste of time and money? Not to mention loft insulation.
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You are correct, it goes on the inside of the external walls. A single storey, flat roofed extension on our house was always cold. When we investigated we found the walls were a single skin of breeze blocks and the only insulation between the plaster board and walls was about 4mm of polystyrene. We had the battens replaced with deeper ones and had Kingspan fitted between the battens. You are correct fixed units will need to be taken down and any coving replaced, but the effect is dramatic.
Agree about good double glazing - earlier double glazing had a much smaller gap and is not as good as the modern stuff - and loft insulation too.

Dave
 
Tringa said:
We had the battens replaced with deeper ones and had Kingspan fitted between the battens.

Dave
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I didn't explain in my bit about lifting floorboards but it applies to walls too - by adding a further thin (25mm) layer of insulation to cover the battens and the main (100mm?) insulation you lessen thermal bridging meaning that you get even better results and avoid cold spots..
Another thing is that all this insulation and replacing windows can lead to much reduced ventilation - it seems odd to spend so much effort and money keeping the cold out, but you do need adequate ventilation, so trickle vents on new windows, bathroom extraction and actually opening windows for a few minutes is important.
A human expels a large amount (I think it is about 400ml) of moisture in a day which has to be got rid of somehow, and socks on radiators etc make it way worse...
 
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I'd think an electric boiler would be cripplingly expensive to run.

There might be grants from her energy company to help with costs especially if she is claiming any benefits or only has a small pension.

If the oil tank is knackered anyway, moving to LPG and renting that tank might work out cheaper. What is the efficiency of the current oil boiler? What is the efficiency of an LPG one? It might be that £3k can be better spent on changing to LPG even though cost per kWh of LPG is higher.

One of those laser thermometer things is well worth buying. You can then hunt down any cold spots and insulate them properly.

You also want to make sure if there are radiator valves on all the radiators they are moving freely and not sticking. Even the non stick ones seem to stick.
 
AndyWest said:
My Mum has had 2 quotes that are just under £3k. £2.5k if she keeps it situated where it is. The quotes are for moving nearer the boiler. She is getting a 3rd quote this week.
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Does your Mum need to have the tank moved closer to the boiler?

If not, she could buy a tank plus the relevant fittings, then getting a local central heating bloke to link it up might not cost too much.

If it needs to be moved closer perhaps getting a local builder to prepare the site for the new tank might be cheaper.

Dave
 
It looks like Mum is leaning towards going all electric. I think it may well work for her.

I wonder if I could persuade her to get an electric car? :D

Thanks for all your help :)
 
With all due respect try and persuade her otherwise, it will be very expensive.
 
Electric heating is more expensive than fossil fuels.

If it wasn't, we wouldn't faff about ringing around for oil prices and having it delivered in to ugly tanks.
 
Please make sure that she has an alternative form of heating/cooking as back up.

If there is no leccy for the pump for her heating then that will fail even if it is , as at present , oil.

I have Gas central heating , and a few portable electric heaters [ with thermostats on them ] for back up , and can cook by either gas OR electric.
 
camerassassin said:
Please make sure that she has an alternative form of heating/cooking as back up.

If there is no leccy for the pump for her heating then that will fail even if it is , as at present , oil.

I have Gas central heating , and a few portable electric heaters [ with thermostats on them ] for back up , and can cook by either gas OR electric.
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Any heating system requires electricity to run. Do you propose building a camp fire in the living room?
 
If it's cold and the electricity is down I can head to my kitchen where I have a GAS cooker - that will give off heat
 
camerassassin said:
If it's cold and the electricity is down I can head to my kitchen where I have a GAS cooker - that will give off heat
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Do you live in Russia, I've lived in this house since 1990 , never had a power cut
 
You have been very very lucky is all I can say.

I've had occasional ones in time of really bad weather when power lines have come down in the countryside or there have been local problems and I live in a city
 
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