I have no mains gas and only a mutli-fuel stove in the living room, but I do have a couple of portable gas fires (one in living room & one in bedroom) that I use to add heat when needed (on nearly all the time at the moment), but having just had two 13kg bottles delivered for £66, gas doesn’t seem to be as cheap as it used to be.
Im wondering if electric radiators might be cheaper to to run and nicer to look at?!

I was looking at something like this.

I’m the same. No gas but electric wall heaters throughout my flat. I have these in various wattages depending on the room size

http://www.trade-point.co.uk/departments/electric-1000w-white-dillam-panel-heater/1404866_TP.prd

Thermostat control, 7 day timer, temperature indicator. Kick out loads of heating. My electricity bill is £43 a month all year so they’re not bad to run.

I spent the last two winters in a ground floor flat over a vbasement with no insulation underfloor and a condemned boiler in peebles.

Oil filled radiators as and when took the edge off quite well aslong as you kept your feet off the floor

Pretty much every ski chalet we’ve ever stayed in has been solely heated by electric radiators. Seem to cope with the cold ok, but probably expensive to run.

Storage heaters & economy 7 an option?
Depends on how big the place is.
There are cheaper to run but you need to plan when you are going to be cold.

I’ve got an electric storage heater in the living room supplemented by electric panel heaters in other rooms. Very similar to @BoardinBob at around £45pcm

Storage heater and E7 will only work out cheaper if you are really well insulated, a la ski chalet above.

The the order of cost for rural properties generally goes; bottled gas > calor/bulk gas > oil, although if you already have gas fired appliances, obviously the cost to change to calor will be less.

Seem to cope with the cold ok, but probably expensive to run.

This is the case.

We had Total Control Total Comfort, AKA Economy 10, ‘better’ than Economy 7 as it was actively managed by the supplier.

A reasonable size 4 bed house of 2006 construction in the Highlands cost £250 a month to heat on electricity (edit: at 2009/10 prices). 😯

My parents house is predominantly electric (mostly storage, some additional convector heaters) and it costs a bomb to run (similar to @matt above but for a 3 bed cottage built about 100 years ago). They do have a log burner and just paid for a calorgas flueless heater for one room.

I’m not sure how the posters above managed to keep their bill to £45 pcm. Mine was a lot more than that (new build 2 bed flat, electric non-storage heating).

Bill download seems to be broken on the BG website today, but I think it was closer to 75 than 45.

Should add your gas suppliers ripping you a new hole. I get 13kg delivered for 24 quid each.

As for a 45 quid leccy bill on storage heaters….. Must have been a cold time in your life or the early 90s.

We had storage heaters and a couple of convection heaters in our 3-bed flat flat (100sqm, above a shop which never seemed to have heating on, cavity walls 3″ of fiberglass in the loft). Bill was about £110/month IIRC.

It was only cold if you had a really warm night followed by a really cold day as they did some sensory trickery so they only heated up enough.

They were also on economy 5+1 (or something like that) which gives them a boost at the overnight rate mid-afternoon.

And adding 300mm of insulation in the loft made a huge difference.

All that having been said, I’d go electric and spend the other £5k or so a boiler would cost on solar to offset the cost.

1 bed ground floor flat here and with Economy 7 and storage heaters in a modern build (~2003), my electric bill is £46 a month and that evens out over the year.

When I get my own place though it’ll be gas/oil central heating and a wood burning stove, so much easier to control temps that way. At the moment it’s too warm in the mornings but too cold in the evenings.

Electricity standing charge must be a fair bit of that 45 quid. It’s certainly a very unrealistic figure for average users but a small flat with hot neighbours would help. My uncle’s house is still pure electric (storage topped up with a bit of radiant, pretty cold) as was my old grannie’s flat – the latter small and surrounded so doesn’t need much heat.

£5k or so a boiler would cost

A 5k boiler ….. What’s it heating the whole block if flats ?

^ Probably a British Gas quote 😯

small flat with hot neighbours would help.

Wasn’t that why there was a baby boom during the 70’s strikes?

My flat used to cost me about £600 a year on electric, thats for everything though. Would assume heating was around half of that, given only one of the walls faced the outside it really wasnt on often.

footflaps – Member
Pretty much every ski chalet we’ve ever stayed in has been solely heated by electric radiators. Seem to cope with the cold ok, but probably expensive to run.

Averages about £100/month for the year on a 3 bed in Austria.

When I get my own place though it’ll be gas/oil central heating and a wood burning stove, so much easier to control temps that way. At the moment it’s too warm in the mornings but too cold in the evenings.

I have the new Quantum storage heaters that don’t leak heat like the old ones, they have a brain inside that charges up according to how much has been output the previous day plus you can tell it you are either in or out all day and modify the program to suit your needs.
My 80’S build 1 bed flat costs me £480 a year (all electric economy 7) I have fitted triple glazing, a new hot water cylinder, 250mm loft insulation plus the new storage heaters since I bought it 3 years ago. The dormer windows are a small cavity with jablite so not up to current spec, I have done what I can and it’s a lot more comfortable than when I first moved in, there was no loft insulation!

I would love to know if it was possible to heat a 250 – 300L insulated water tank overnight on E7 / E10 , to 75’C
Then use the latent heat capacity to heat a CH system of radiators like a std CH system. The water is going to cool as the return water will be colder , but 300l is a large buffer .
Might need a 3kw element to trickle it during the day to keep it toasty
This could also slow the degredation of the water temp in the header tank.
You could then utilise TRV’s , room stats etc and , unlike night storage heaters , if the weather changes then you dont come home to a furnace.
Think 1000l tank would be a better sized buffer tank tho. ..

unlike night storage heaters , if the weather changes then you dont come home to a furnace.

Not the case with modern heater technology,

^ We had pretty much that exact system that for economy 10.

It’s shite.

Just a wee twist to the tail, I read what trail_rat said and I decided to see if I could get the (Flogas) bottles cheaper.
Somehow, I can order Flogas bottles from Gasdeal for £23.99 delivered and who actually use Flogas to deliver them!
I am really not sure how that works, but at about £8 a bottle cheaper, it means I may be using them a bit longer, but will still be thinking about some sort of neater electric heater of some sort.

Thanks for the replies.

Electricity standing charge must be a fair bit of that 45 quid. It’s certainly a very unrealistic figure for average users but a small flat with hot neighbours would help

Top floor
Very large 2 bedroom flat
10 year old building
Well insulated loft
£45-£50 a month on my bill for the last 10 years.

I’ve got a shoebox sized mid terraced 2 bed from the 1830s. No central heating, just a wall mounted blower in the bathroom and three smallish oil filled rads. It’s bastard cold in the mornings unless I leave them on through the night. Cost about 100 a month this time of year and very little from early spring to autumn.

Jumpers ftw!