Gas or Oil???

We live in an area that doesn't have natural gas, so any gas installation would be LPG.

We are fitting central heating in time for Christmas....so can anyone help with running costs.

Just assume there are seven rads and hot water feed on all the time. Both systems set at the same temp. The only difference would be the cooker would require changing from electric to gas, if gas was installed.

Any thoughts on which would be cheaper??

Much obliged.

 

Im certain Ive been told that oil is cheaper, not sure of the margin though....... With lpg you have to pay a maintance fee to the suplier of the tank or some sutch.

In our area there is a coperative of households who collectivly bulk order so as to get the best oil price.

 

Thanks PG:thumb:

I suspect oil is cheaper, but not by much these days.

 

aint oil boilers notoriously dear to get serviced?

 

Tweaks have you not considered underfloor electric heating it would be as cheap to install it is more efficient and would be as cheap to run.

 

Mains Gas is cheapest, clearly that's not an option :(

Oil is cheaper, than LPG. Plus LPG will tie you to a supplier when they install the tank, and I'm not sure what happens after that period expires - I think you may find that an alternative supplier won't deliver to that tank, so you'll have to get that tank taken away, and start a new contract with the new supplier, and their new tank, and then you get locked in all over again. But I may be wrong on that.

I like to cook with Gas, we have a range with gas rings and electric ovens. We installed that in January and have still not used one full bottle (we've got the smaller waist-high bottles, rather than the shoulder-high ones).

If you can install a condensing (oil) boiler that will be the most efficient type. However, you do need to keep it in "condensing mode" for as long as possible - it stops condensing when the return water is hot, but the boiler still needs to keep going (i.e. the temperature is over the threshold for condensing, but not yet as hot as the central heating limit). Might be worth enquiring about how you optimise that - turn the Rads temperature down, but run them "longer", maybe?

"hot water feed on all the time"

A modern hot water tank will be very well insulated. You should be able to run the boiler for a short time before you get up, and again in the early evening, and have all the hot water you need (plus an override switch for when you have a house full of power-showering teenagers!)

Running a central heating boiler for hot water is inefficient - the boiler is designed for a bigger job, and thus will waste energy, relatively speaking, when doing hot water. We have found that this year, with higher oil prices, it was cheaper to run the immersion heater (on Economy-7) this summer, rather than our oil boiler for just hot water. If you have long pipe runs to your rooms (i.e. you have to run the hot taps to for a whole before you get any hot water) you might want to install an on-demand-pump - you turn the hot tap on, the pressure drops in the pipe, a sensor turns the pump on, and you have hot water almost instantly. For this to work your hot water pipework must be in a loop - i.e. no "dead legs", but you can then also put Towel Rails on the circuit - so whenever a hot tap is turned on the hot water is pumped round, and the towel rail gets a shot of hot water too.

You might want to think about Solar Hot Water at the same time, if you are having a lot of plumbing work done. That will usually require an extra "Thermal Store" tank, and you may be able to join that to the central heating circuit so that the boiler can run in condensing mode for longer - heat water in Rads circuit, then heat water in Thermal store, and then the Rads can run off the Thermal Store for a while, so the boiler doesn't have to come back on until that lot has cooled down fairly.

(Note that your Solar is only going to do good stuff in the Summer, so hence the boiler can use the Thermal Store in the Winter 'coz the Solar won't be collecting hardly anything)

The Solar should give you all the hot water you need from June to September, and probably most/all you use in May and October too.

I personally don't think that under floor heating is an option unless you are building a new house. Very hard to retro fit into an existing house, particularly if you have nice carpets and tiles down already. If the building is a shell then maybe ... but it is definitely a more comfortable heat than Rads. and uses lower temperature water than Rads. so opens other opportunities like using a Heat Pump.

Personally we are in the process of throwing out our Oil boiler and installing a Wood burning boiler plus Solar so we that are not at the mercy of ever rising oil prices.

 

If u do get oil make sure the tank is secured and locked as there's loads of cases of oil being stolen wih the credit crunch

 

Sorry, taken me a while to dig this up:

Have a look at www.BoilerJuice.com - they aim to organise groups of people in close proximity and arrange discounts on oil purchases.

 

Thanks everyone for the information. Underfloor heating is not an option. Having read about LPG then that isn't an option either, so will go for Oil.

Although I shall get a gas hob and run that off LPG as I did in my last house...worked out extremely cheap compared to electricity.:thumb:

P.S. We still have an open fire though, which we shall burn logs on at Christmas, can't beat a real fire can you.

 

No u can't and u can cook yummy chestnuts too :thumb:

 

Yup, heh,heh.