I feel it's a bit short sighted, this talk. By the time gas boilers are phased out we'll have far more renewables on tap and grid level storage to iron out the dips. (By the way many of us are already on 100% renewable tarrifs, imperfect though they may be). It will probably never be as cheap as gas, but you don't seem to get the goal here - *we need to stop burning fossil fuels*. Burning less of them is not an option - we have to stop interfering with the natural carbon cycle altogether. So over the coming years we are probably going to need a combination of efficiency improvements in our houses and a switch to electric heating (unless some other silver bullet comes along, like green hydrogen). This will require investment by everyone involved, we're gonna have to accept that. Shrugging your shoulders and saying that gas is cheap so let's keep burning it is really quite an irresponsible position for a channel named "The Green Age"
I just want to emphasise the impact on the EPC. I have a listed cottage the I renovated. It is not on gas so I installed an electric boiler. I rent the house out and have recently been told that the house is deemed to be unmortgageable by lenders because of its EPC is an F (it needs to be E to rent out). Having explored every option, the only option open to me is to switch the electric boiler to gas, using gas canisters. I stumbled across an article written by an EPC inspector who was perturbed by the sharp rise in people switching their gas boilers to electric following the government announcement and some clever marketing and wanted to demonstrate the difference in EPC rating. It was staggering, you could move up several points with a gas boiler. He even compared gas boilers to storage heaters and there was simply no comparison - gas was by far the best option for EPC rating.
Great video, this highlights the problem in that however well insulated your house is, it will still cost about 4x to heat with electricity than gas. As for reliability, my electric boiler (no gas here) the one mentioned in the description is now 15 years old and has only needed a small £5 sensor replacing in all that time. What you didn't cover was how was all that wind/solar produced energy going to get down the cables too our homes etc. The distribution system is not able to cope. A standard house would need a 12KW boiler (bearing in mind that a gas equivalent is about 24KW) which is 50Amps. The cables up the street are just not big enough to supply that extra power to each house. (Plus the power to charge their car).
Thank you for this. It clarified something for me. I started researching this a couple of months ago, largely because I have solar panels on the roof and i wondered if it would be more economic if I found a system whereby I could run the HW and CH from this energy source rather than gas. I have ruled out GSHP (v expensive and no access to the garden to do the necessary excavation work) and ASHP (although more efficient than gas, still expensive and they only work with bigger radiators and better insulation). I was hoping that this podcast would tell me was that there were some mid-range suppliers that I had overlooked. What I now realise is that there isn't a cost equivalent to the Vailiant. There is a very high spec one from Fischer, the installation of which is about twice that of Vailiant. And there is Heatrae Sadia, which I don't think is engineered well enough. So there is a big, gaping hole in the middle just waiting for someone to step in. Hopefully by the time my not very good Ideal boiler needs replacing in three years' time, there will be more to choose from on the market.
I have got 2 new storage heaters i still pay too much money for the bill.Can i ask which one is consume less electric; electric boiler healing system or storage heaters? Thanks
Thanks guys. I don’t really understand why we are heating water to pump around the house to then heat the radiator to then heat the room. Surely an electric radiator is the future and ditch the out dated wet system?
I'm planning to convert property into two flats and thinking about an electric boiler. You mention unit costs gas vs electricity, but I find the current gas boiler which is new last year, actually uses a good deal of electricity pumping the hot water around the house, would be interesting to know the actual like for like to heat a home.
Electric heating is the future,but the issue is cost per kwhour and national generation capacity. Solar PV and battery storage in individual installations is the greenest way to go, but capital costs are an issue. Great presentation.
If a landlord has a 20 year old gas boiler but wants to replace it now, do you still recommend that he gets another gas boiler? or a different heating system?
Utility scale batteries are relatively cheap now(for example Tesla Mega packs-one recently installed in Sussex) and should be implemented as an alternative to traditional Pica plants that are much more expensive and less responsive.
Intermittency is a odd term really as no power station is constantly on. The main reasons for renewable energy downtime is curtailment because the grid can’t take the load as other power plants have Power Purchase Agreements (PPA’s) to deliver the power. In regards to the weather, historically the wind is blowing when the sun isn’t shining and vice versa but it’s rare for both, but does obviously happen. Also COVID has shown that renewables are a lot more robust than others due to the fact they have no fuel. I know there are still issues to be solved like grid inertia and reactive power but intermittency really isn’t an issue these days, especially with the European interconnects we have now as part of the super grid.
What do you mean it doesn't heat the shower? If the gas combi boiler does, why doesn't an electric one please? Edit: Ah maybe you weren't talking about a combi...
Can't help thinking the combined heatsource heat pump / cylinders you see in USA are a far better solution. These are where the heat pump is mounted directly onto the cylinder and is an all in one product. They don't seem to be in th UK at all.
Hi chaps, Good to hear about these so thanks for the episode. Would be useful to hear comparison of air source heat pumps v electric boilers. Presumably ASHPs much more efficient? Comments in intermittent electric supply from wind only valid in absence of widespread roll out of home battery storage which should be part of the grand plan. Would also help people access cheep & clean electricity at night and balance the grid. Hope comment about big airport in the North was joke as this is exactly the opposite of what we should be doing.
It's very likely your 75 year old grew up with a coal fire and back boiler. The main benefit of using electricity is that it's renewable, gas is not. As for gas powering power stations, England still uses far too much gas for this, however renewables combined (if you include nuclear) are a higher percentage than gas. Scotland on the other hand is 98% renewable. So to flip your arguments, the only benefit to gas is cost to the consumer. Renewables are now the cheapest form of energy to produce, and Emission Trading Scheme will keep driving this down. The gov will stop subsidising gas at some stage, so electric heating has a strong future. Only green hydrogen might stop it from being 100% electric.
Maybe there's a way of making the electric boiler's electricity usage being charged at a different rate through the smart (dumb) meters. Surely the gov can't expect people to suddenly start spending 5 times they were on gas to heat their water. I'm in need of replacing my gas boiler and really fancy the air to water heat pump route but the install costs are prohibitively high. I can't help thinking installers hike prices as soon as the magic words of "government grant" i.e. the RHI are mentioned. Considering the heat pump itself is less than a grand etc etc installers are really taking the p**s when they say it'll cost between 5 and 10 grand.
Please don't recommend these systems to landlords the tenants won't be able to run them. My tenants are being chased by debt collectors and looking for a new property. I massively regret to paying the extra to have gas installed
The fundamental issue is you are advocating consumers continue to burn something to heat their house. For a lot of us, that isn't acceptable. It's time this video were updated or frankly deleted because it is flogging yesterdays technology and totally the opposite of what the world is demanding.
PLEASE believe me I found out at my expense 😱. ‘This form of heating costs an ABSOLUTE FORTUNE 😱!!,,had to have mine taken out just couldn’t afford the electricity bills,😱££! Remember this is an advert and these guys are actors,,don’t be fooled 🤫🇬🇧🇬🇧
I feel it's a bit short sighted, this talk. By the time gas boilers are phased out we'll have far more renewables on tap and grid level storage to iron out the dips. (By the way many of us are already on 100% renewable tarrifs, imperfect though they may be). It will probably never be as cheap as gas, but you don't seem to get the goal here - *we need to stop burning fossil fuels*. Burning less of them is not an option - we have to stop interfering with the natural carbon cycle altogether. So over the coming years we are probably going to need a combination of efficiency improvements in our houses and a switch to electric heating (unless some other silver bullet comes along, like green hydrogen). This will require investment by everyone involved, we're gonna have to accept that. Shrugging your shoulders and saying that gas is cheap so let's keep burning it is really quite an irresponsible position for a channel named "The Green Age"
Well said I completely agree,
with the recent surge in gas prices I would be interested to hear you opinion on gas v electric now?
I just want to emphasise the impact on the EPC. I have a listed cottage the I renovated. It is not on gas so I installed an electric boiler. I rent the house out and have recently been told that the house is deemed to be unmortgageable by lenders because of its EPC is an F (it needs to be E to rent out). Having explored every option, the only option open to me is to switch the electric boiler to gas, using gas canisters. I stumbled across an article written by an EPC inspector who was perturbed by the sharp rise in people switching their gas boilers to electric following the government announcement and some clever marketing and wanted to demonstrate the difference in EPC rating. It was staggering, you could move up several points with a gas boiler. He even compared gas boilers to storage heaters and there was simply no comparison - gas was by far the best option for EPC rating.
Problem is EPCs haven't caught up,
Great video, this highlights the problem in that however well insulated your house is, it will still cost about 4x to heat with electricity than gas.
As for reliability, my electric boiler (no gas here) the one mentioned in the description is now 15 years old and has only needed a small £5 sensor replacing in all that time.
What you didn't cover was how was all that wind/solar produced energy going to get down the cables too our homes etc. The distribution system is not able to cope.
A standard house would need a 12KW boiler (bearing in mind that a gas equivalent is about 24KW) which is 50Amps. The cables up the street are just not big enough to supply that extra power to each house. (Plus the power to charge their car).
Thank you for this. It clarified something for me. I started researching this a couple of months ago, largely because I have solar panels on the roof and i wondered if it would be more economic if I found a system whereby I could run the HW and CH from this energy source rather than gas. I have ruled out GSHP (v expensive and no access to the garden to do the necessary excavation work) and ASHP (although more efficient than gas, still expensive and they only work with bigger radiators and better insulation).
I was hoping that this podcast would tell me was that there were some mid-range suppliers that I had overlooked. What I now realise is that there isn't a cost equivalent to the Vailiant. There is a very high spec one from Fischer, the installation of which is about twice that of Vailiant. And there is Heatrae Sadia, which I don't think is engineered well enough. So there is a big, gaping hole in the middle just waiting for someone to step in. Hopefully by the time my not very good Ideal boiler needs replacing in three years' time, there will be more to choose from on the market.
I have got 2 new storage heaters i still pay too much money for the bill.Can i ask which one is consume less electric; electric boiler healing system or storage heaters? Thanks
Thanks guys. I don’t really understand why we are heating water to pump around the house to then heat the radiator to then heat the room. Surely an electric radiator is the future and ditch the out dated wet system?
Your right in a way but you always need to heat water for showers and baths, so better to have one system that does both
Guy on the right doesn't have his microphone turned on. His voice never gets louder when he turns toward the microphone.
I'm planning to convert property into two flats and thinking about an electric boiler. You mention unit costs gas vs electricity, but I find the current gas boiler which is new last year, actually uses a good deal of electricity pumping the hot water around the house, would be interesting to know the actual like for like to heat a home.
Electric heating is the future,but the issue is cost per kwhour and national generation capacity.
Solar PV and battery storage in individual installations is the greenest way to go, but capital costs are an issue.
Great presentation.
I live in a housing association flat, would it be feasible for me to install an electric boiler?
Have you heard of SunAmp heat batteries? Thoughts?
If a landlord has a 20 year old gas boiler but wants to replace it now, do you still recommend that he gets another gas boiler? or a different heating system?
mass offshore wind and storage might help these things make sense ( with one of those agile tarrifs)
How is the run cost effected as you would be going from a 30kw gas boiler to a 9k electric boiler??
Utility scale batteries are relatively cheap now(for example Tesla Mega packs-one recently installed in Sussex) and should be implemented as an alternative to traditional Pica plants that are much more expensive and less responsive.
can electric boilers be solar powered?
Interesting enough...but I had to laugh at the sound quality despite such enormous radio DJ mics...!!
Intermittency is a odd term really as no power station is constantly on. The main reasons for renewable energy downtime is curtailment because the grid can’t take the load as other power plants have Power Purchase Agreements (PPA’s) to deliver the power. In regards to the weather, historically the wind is blowing when the sun isn’t shining and vice versa but it’s rare for both, but does obviously happen. Also COVID has shown that renewables are a lot more robust than others due to the fact they have no fuel. I know there are still issues to be solved like grid inertia and reactive power but intermittency really isn’t an issue these days, especially with the European interconnects we have now as part of the super grid.
What do you mean it doesn't heat the shower? If the gas combi boiler does, why doesn't an electric one please?
Edit: Ah maybe you weren't talking about a combi...
Can't help thinking the combined heatsource heat pump / cylinders you see in USA are a far better solution. These are where the heat pump is mounted directly onto the cylinder and is an all in one product. They don't seem to be in th UK at all.
Hi chaps,
Good to hear about these so thanks for the episode. Would be useful to hear comparison of air source heat pumps v electric boilers. Presumably ASHPs much more efficient?
Comments in intermittent electric supply from wind only valid in absence of widespread roll out of home battery storage which should be part of the grand plan. Would also help people access cheep & clean electricity at night and balance the grid.
Hope comment about big airport in the North was joke as this is exactly the opposite of what we should be doing.
It's very likely your 75 year old grew up with a coal fire and back boiler. The main benefit of using electricity is that it's renewable, gas is not. As for gas powering power stations, England still uses far too much gas for this, however renewables combined (if you include nuclear) are a higher percentage than gas. Scotland on the other hand is 98% renewable. So to flip your arguments, the only benefit to gas is cost to the consumer. Renewables are now the cheapest form of energy to produce, and Emission Trading Scheme will keep driving this down. The gov will stop subsidising gas at some stage, so electric heating has a strong future. Only green hydrogen might stop it from being 100% electric.
What about hydrogen boilers
Maybe there's a way of making the electric boiler's electricity usage being charged at a different rate through the smart (dumb) meters. Surely the gov can't expect people to suddenly start spending 5 times they were on gas to heat their water.
I'm in need of replacing my gas boiler and really fancy the air to water heat pump route but the install costs are prohibitively high. I can't help thinking installers hike prices as soon as the magic words of "government grant" i.e. the RHI are mentioned. Considering the heat pump itself is less than a grand etc etc installers are really taking the p**s when they say it'll cost between 5 and 10 grand.
It would have been good for you to compare against lpg as well as oil for efficiency and costs. It sounded very biased towards gas.
Who is paying this, Gas or electric, it sure is not Green Energy
I could only mange 5 mins of these two waffling! Top tip WRITE A SCRIPT!
Guys, 3 whole minutes before you get to the subject! 😂
Can you un recommend gas boilers now that it’s 44 p per day standing charge + 36 p peg kWh. This is OLD data
Please don't recommend these systems to landlords the tenants won't be able to run them. My tenants are being chased by debt collectors and looking for a new property. I massively regret to paying the extra to have gas installed
Why? Can't tenants run them?
Debt collectors.... that would be the running costs
I am building an all electric house :)
i have just ordered a Tesla battery and i wont to come off gas so im looking at how to heat my house .what battery have you got ?
The fundamental issue is you are advocating consumers continue to burn something to heat their house. For a lot of us, that isn't acceptable. It's time this video were updated or frankly deleted because it is flogging yesterdays technology and totally the opposite of what the world is demanding.
PLEASE believe me I found out at my expense 😱. ‘This form of heating costs an ABSOLUTE FORTUNE 😱!!,,had to have mine taken out just couldn’t afford the electricity bills,😱££!
Remember this is an advert and these guys are actors,,don’t be fooled 🤫🇬🇧🇬🇧
Use heat pumps instead.