greenhouse heater / camping battery?

Gave me a shock there Pete ! Just checked B and Q its £6.98 for 4 litres . Luckily I only use about 4 litres from late March to May in the GH. Why is paraffin so expensive these days ? It used to be a cheap fuel.

 

Not enough oil-derived fuels left in the ground, so price will go up (my estimate is 10% over inflation) from now on until an alternative fuel is found.

Using less (well, using fuel more efficiently) is the only route to solving that problem. There are caravan heaters, which run on Paraffin, which are hugely more efficient than the old "trim a wick and light" type (sorry, forgotten the name of them). Dunno how suitable they are for greenhouses though.

 

That's 48% more than I pay @ £5.90 for 5 litres, but you need to take your own containers http://one-stop-diy.co.uk/scripts/prodList.asp?idCategory=260 Unfortunately the discount store where I used to get 4 litres containers for £4.40 closed down early this year.

 

Anyone compared the price of (running) Paraffin heaters with Electricity?

Strikes me that now that the price is Paraffin is over £1/litre, and the fact that Paraffin heaters have to be on "constant" (when lit for an anticipated "cold night") there must be saving in having a thermostatically controlled heater - for which Electricity is capable of having a very accurate thermostat and bottle-gas a less accurate thermostat. I would expect both to be cheaper than Paraffin, and Electricity - if available - to be cheapest, except perhaps in a very cold winter when it would be used much more than an "average winter".

Also: less chance of "going out" (power cut possible though) and no issue with wrongly trimmed [or burning to become untrimmed] wick sooting up the greenhouse"

 

It was on sale in Nottcuts garden centre, I have seen it cheaper but mostly over £7 for 4 litres, I used to get four gallons of Esso Blue off a van that came round on saturday mornings in the early 70s for 5 bob.

Electricity has got to be the easiest and possibly the cheapest once installed, do worry about those power cuts though.
One power cut on the coldest night of the year could kill years of growing.

So I keep a bit of parafin just in case.

 

You might need to take into account the cost of an electrician extending the electrical supply to your greenhouse these days.

As mentioned above I get too many power cuts to rely on electricty alone, despite having Economy 7. So mainly use Propane, plus paraffin an electric heaters.

You always need a backup incase one fails, unless you want to spread newspaper all around your house and carry all your plants in for the night late one evening when your only heater fails - once is enough for me.

 

That sounds like it should be a scandal, in this country, unless there are some mitigating circumstances? We get a few power cuts each year, most are for "just long enough for a computer to reboot" :( but we do get a few that go on for several hours. Pretty rare though.

The worry would be going to bed at night, on the coldest night of the year, turning off the bed side light ready for sleep - and one minute later a power cut starting that went on all night :(

I suppose on really cold nights it would do no harm to light the [in my case] bottle gas heater as it will for sure not "over heat" the greenhouse and does have [although crude] a thermostat. Or I need a power-cut alarm, linked to a low-temperature alarm, which does not run off the mains !

Good point. For anyone on Economy 7 electricity at night is about 50% cheaper than the day rate, and night is most often when greenhouse heating is needed of course.

My electricity price is going up in January. It seems (if I read it right) that there is no change to the day rate (they have fiddled with standing charge and the associated primary units, but not the core daytime units), but my NIGHT RATE is going up by 20% !!!

I haven't looked yet to see if that applies to other providers but if so people who heat their houses by night-store heaters will be livid. I have always thought that, in part, I was helping the electricity company by moving as much of my consumption, as I can, to night rate, and in return they gave me a good price. If I was dependent on night rate I'd be angry rather than just annoyed. (I don't know why we have an Economy 7 meter, I don't think the house ever had storage heaters)

 

I'm sure Economy 7 rates used to be at least 75% cheaper than day rates only a few years ago.

Every time they increase the tariffs these days, the energy companies always seems to pile the increase on the night rate.

 

Well after what happen to me I dont care if the electrical heater is twice as much.Paraffin heaters are just to risky.. since my episode spoke to a few people and there is all kinds of problems..So thats it never again.

 

Scrungee, I had economy 7 for years, thinking it might work out cheaper for greenhouse heating, but, and I think its true, unless you consume very large amounts of electricity at night, ie. storage radiators, its not really worth it.

 

If anything I think Electric will be cheaper (excluding the cost of connecting electricity to the greenhouse)

In a normal/mild winter the heater will come on very little, the ability to thermostatically control it means power is only used when the temperature is low. In a very cold winter the heater will be on a lot, and perhaps Electricity will be more expensive than Paraffin / Bottled gas in that situation? If you can plumb your greenhouse into the house central heating, or the mains gas supply, that will be cheapest.

Electric fan heater also has the benefit that the fan moves air around, reducing condensation and risk from moulds.

However, personally I think it is crucial to get an accurate thermostat. The normal ones that come with cheap heaters are dreadful. You run the risk that the thermostat will overheat the greenhouse by 10C - which will cost a fortune - or under heat it by -10C which will kill all your plants ...

Accurate thermostats are likely to be £50 or so unfortunately.

I think it is also work getting a plug in energy logger - so you know how much you are spending.