Switching From Gas Central Heating to Electric Heating
In the UK many people have the misconception that gas heating our homes is the cheapest and therefore only viable option. However, with the significant leaps made in electric heating over the last few years, people are seeing it as a truly versatile, efficient and cost-effective way of heating a home.
More and more people are looking to make the switch from inefficient gas central heating to electric heating. What are the reasons behind this?
Firstly, when considering the change one of the significant factors is that there are no noisy boilers to service regularly or worrying about potential breakdowns and expensive repairs to pay for. Throw into the mix the fact that gas boilers have a life expectancy of around 10–15 years with a replacement cost of around £4000.00 they are a financial ticking time bomb.
Landlords also now have to pay for annual gas appliance testing which includes boilers and gas fires. This means an additional cost incurred each year to carry out these checks and a requirement for carbon monoxide alarms to be installed. Electric heating is rapidly becoming a sensible choice for landlords who want to keep control of costs and breakdowns.
Few people realise that gas heating is actually inefficient – even when brand new. As there are pipes under the floor and in walls where heat loss of the water occurs, a new boiler may well only be 90% efficient with older boilers potentially being only 50% efficient. An electric radiator is 100% efficient, turning 1kW of energy into 1 unit of heat.
It is true that the unit cost for gas is currently less than that of electricity but don’t be fooled into thinking that this means a gas central heating system will be cheaper to run. Efficiency of heating is largely down to controllability and this is where electric heating wins hands down. With gas heating you generally have one wall-mounted thermostat or you may have an ‘intelligent’ learning thermostat which you can take with you from room to room should you wish. However, when the boiler calls for heat, hot water is sent through the many metres of pipework in your home to each radiator. Some radiators will have TRV’s which will allow you to control the heat output slightly but there is no accuracy with these and ultimately you end up heating rooms unnecessarily. When the thermostat senses that your set temperature has been achieved it turns the heating off. However, it is basing this decision on the temperature of just one room – therefore potentially leaving other rooms insufficiently heated or overheated.
A good electric heating system will enable you to precisely set the desired temperature in each room resulting in complete heating of all areas according to your individual requirements. For example, you can set the programmer to turn the heating on half an hour before you go to bed and again before you get up in the morning. You can set your lounge heating to provide you with the perfect level of heating ready for when you come home from work too. As a result of this your usage in certain areas where heating is not always needed is much lower and therefore so are your bills.
It is a fact that inefficient gas heating is having a detrimental effect on our planet and we all have a part to play in reducing carbon emissions. Electric heating is clean and green with zero emissions, no carbon monoxide to worry about or carbon dioxide being released either. By installing an electric heating system you are certainly doing your bit to help the planet!