Heating. Is it worth changing?

[cheminot]

Our house in 16 has electric convectors for heating and an electric chauffe-eau for hot water. At present it is our 'maison secondaire' until I retire. I have been exploring the idea of fitting an oil fired system. I have calculated that it will cost me in the region of 4000 euros to fit such a system. ( This is just for materials as I would install it myself) I have discounted gas because of the cost and I cannot be bothered with woodburners.

So, given that electric heating is supposed to be more expensive to run than oil the following question comes to mind; If I assume my lifespan from my date of retirement (age 60) to be 20 years how much more will I pay in fuel bills over that period by keeping to electric heating rather than changing to oil? Will the extra come to more than 4000 euros? bearing in mind that on top of the price of oil, oil boilers have to be serviced annually, modern electric convectors are cheap, reliable, easy to install, come with timers and thermostats fitted and can be individually switched off in rooms that are not in use. Nor would I have to fork out 4000 euros up front.

Your thoughts on this please! Has anyone tried doing any calculations on these lines?[I]

Cheminot 

[Babnik]

How can you do those kind of calculations unless you are clairvoyant and know what the price of oil will do in the next 20 years? My guess it's going one way only!!!

Steve

[Owens88]

I want to post some nice friendly sentiment about wouldn't it be nice to be here in 20+ years and look back for review. However its late and I cannot find the words.

 

FWIW

I was sold a house with wet CH and an old OIL CH boiler and tank. The old CH boiler had not worked in 10 years and the costs of replacement made my blood boil repeatedly.

I eventually was briefing the electrician for the standalone units (radiants, convectors, fan assisted etc.) on the grounds that they are efficient and controllable. He then suggested an electric CH boiler to feed the wet system (I am happy with it). 

 I think. I seriously doubt the merit of a NEW oil fired CH system but could be wrong.

Since then I have read (in this forum and elsewhere ) more about geo thermal (ground effect) and geo/air/thermal /split thingies that mount in the wall and work as both chillers and heaters. I would also explore both these angles if/when I start another project.

Good luck.

 

John

[adrianpmills]

As a long term option I would think geothermal, woodchip boilers, etc would work out more economical than oil.  Oil is a limited resource being used up quickly and I see no reason why its cost could not easily double, triple, quadruple or whatever over the next twenty years.

[Anton Redman]

As France is at least 80% nuclear for electricity production it is probably worth researching at what oil price they start being in profit and may be the price of electricity will stabalise.  I will probably move to wood burining with reversable air conditioning as back up when we build the kitchen dining room. but only for the new area. If I had space for both a wood burning boiler and an oil burner I might be tempted to install a wood buring water/central heating burner in parallel pparticularly if I had enough land to coppice.

[toni]

Just been listening to some environmental stuff on the radio. The expert advice was that since we're going to reach 'peak oil production' by 2010 woodchip boilers are the way to go. Apparently these can be hooked up to existing gas/oil systems and are environmentally neutral. The only snag would appear to be that you need a fuel storage area adjacent to your boiler so probably not suitable for appartments or small dwellings. Maybe the best option would be to sit tight for the present and wait and see.

[Eslier]

I am sure there are all sorts of idealistic and sensational reasons why one could argue that changing to oil would be a bad thing but  if we leave the idealists to get on with campaigning for the Green Party and the sensationalists  to seek out the back copiesof the UK Daily Mail that they've missed  then the  realistic point of view gets a chance to be heard. The period we are talking of, 20 years, is fairly "short term" in the big picture of things. We must accept that oil is an important part of the world economy and whilst prices are bound to fluctuate, there is little realistic chance of a major breakdown in supply or the sort of price increases that would  makes us all go out looking for our own peat bogs.

Compared to using electricity, oil will almost certainly be a cheaper option for the forseable future albeit the gap narrowing from time to time.  What you may not yet have taken into consideration, is that if all your heating and hot water is no longer fueled by electricity then you would benefit hugely by switching to the TEMPO electricity tarif. The savings this alone could offer you will cover the cost of quite a few hundred litres of fioul !

We use oil for heating a large seven bedroom property and for all our hot water. The cost of doing this is significantly less than we were paying to heat our business premises by gas when in the uk and the properties are of a sililar size. This, even after the increases we have seen in the cost of fioul this year.

I would say, go for it.

[cheminot]

Interesting stuff about alternative heating methods, but to return to the central question, what I am asking is is the capital outlay required to change from electric heating worth the outlay? I frequently read that electric heating is the most expensive but have been unable to discover how much more it costs compared to other forms. Every type of heating has its start up costs and how long would it take for the supposedly cheaper forms of energy to make a saving in real terms if these costs are factored in?

I am looking at it from my own circumstances, heading for my dotage at what seems to be a disagreeably accelerating rate, I wonder if, even at todays energy prices whether it would be worth the layout given my possible life expectancy. 

Cheminot 

[bejay]

cheminot

My understanding is that heating by electricity will, with any degree of certainty, only be economically favourable in the long term if a house is designed and constructed to achieve that goal. This is unlikely to be the case with an existing house in France.

bj

[cheminot]

Hi bj,

I am not sure what you mean by this. If you mean insulation ie: rockwool etc then surely this works no matter what form of heating you use.

My house (pavillion) was built in the 1980's and is pretty well insulated, wall lining, loft insulation, double glazing, (dont know about the floor)

Are there any other factors which lend a house to a particular form of heating?

Cheminot

[adrianpmills]

The idealists can campaign for the Green party, the sensationalists can read the Daily Mail and the crackpots can bury their head in the sand, maybe even the oil bearing shale.  There are many informed, sensible people studying the world's oil resources.  That the OPEC countries will reach their peak oil production in ten years or so, is a reasonable conclusion.  If you look at what happens to supply and prices on the downside of the hydrocarbon production 'bell curves' you will see that prices do not fluctuate, but instead rise steeply.   Twenty years is not at all short term.  Consider how long the world has been using oil - not very long at all, how quickly proven reserves are being consumed (quickly), the population growth over the next twenty years and the industrialisation of China, India, etc.  The next twenty years becomes very significant indeed.

There may be significant undiscovered oil reserves in the Arctic and other areas, improvements in technology may lead to economic extraction of Canadian 'heavy oil' and the Middle Eastern countries which will be left in charge of the world's oil supply might develop stable regimes sympathetic to supplying the West (and shortly the East) at prices it is used to.

I wouldn't expect to get cheap oil for the next twenty years, but I must admit I do rather believe the crazy notions of extremist organisations such as the US geological survey. 

 

 

 

[Albert the infopikey]

cheminot wrote "what I am asking is is the capital outlay required to change from electric heating worth the outlay?"

It depends on a lot of variables, but as a guide "The Housebuilder's Bible" which is a standard reference for UK self-builders has a few pages dedicated to this topic. The figures are UK-based, but probably good enough for comparisons.

The results for a typical house show that the cost of instaling elctric heating and most fossil-powered central heating systems are similar, but even so, it takes about 12 years for for the oil-fired system to start showing savings over electric.

If you have an existing electric system that is adequate for your needs then the payback period for oil stretches out to several decades.

If you want to do the sums yourself, it should be possible to get cost per kWh (kilowatt/hour) for electricity and oil, factor in the likely efficiency of your boiler (e.g. 90% for a modern oil jobbie) and then work out how many kWh you are going to need in a year. Subtract the annual price for oil from the annual price for electricity and divide the result into the capital cost difference to get the number of years to pay back.

You could put in things like price inflation assumptions and suchlike in and build a spreadsheet but I leave that as an exercise for the student.

However, I'd expect to find some calculators like this on the Web.

[bejay]

Cheminot

Yes it did come out a bit cryptic didn't it

What I was trying to say is that some very highly energy efficient homes require very little energy input and since you need electricity anyway you you may as well use it for the small amount of heat required. Some of the concepts involved are unusual, going towards bizarre. No normal or traditional construction techniques come near these efficiencies.

Which is a long winded way of saying that electricity is an expensive way of heating a normally constructed house which you know already and is not the question you are asking!

Actually you will have the critical information you require to work out a pretty accurate analysis of costs involved. One years worth of electricity bills will tell you exactly how much energy in kWh you have used to run your house. This has to be matched by any other system you care to choose and then it just a matter of arithmetic. Which is what Albert is saying.

But this is of course based on current energy costs.

I think it is safe to assume that oil will become more expensive but then so will electricity even in France where nuclear power is so important. Electricity is a marketable commodity and its price will be determined by market forces.

I'm afraid there just is not a simple answer to the question you pose.

bj

 

[Blackadder<IMG src="http:forums.livingfrance.comimagesline.gif"><BR>Blackadder<BR>Keighley and Creuse]

I'd look at a 'log boiler' and stock up on wood over the next few years as most sensible folk in countryside france seem to do. A simple system where you do one burn a day that fills a hot water tank, you then use that water through the day....works that way in winter, in summer it may last 3 or 4 days dependent on use. How about linking it to a solar panel or two...theres a kit for 2000euro at one of the big diy stores.

Oil WILL no doubt become more and more expensicve and we'll no doubt be held to ransom by the middle east in years to come. Interesting times ahead

[Dave&Olive]

hi

    ok planning heating for your old age ,  just doing it my self , thinking upon the lines that when one form goes up in price the rest soon follow ,eg oil goes up , gas follows this then leccy goes up , but in france you can always find something to  burn !!!!!!

                so what i am doing as part of my renovation work is to make a one up one down "gite " for a better word ,for our winter self contained home banging in as much issolation as i can  eg 50 mm under the new floor , 100mm to the walls and 75mm to the roof and a layer of the high tec stuff under that, fitted a poele to it and a radiator that runs off the house oil/ wood burner.

just my view , but if i could afford solar power >>>>>>. i  would still spend a few pennies now on issolation

     hope this helps

                      dave

[Dave&Olive]

hi

       just a ps , there is a new programe on  tv with sam mc `cloud , someone sorry a lady was worried about rising heating costs , so she had a house built for her old age, it was that well insulated, unless the outside temp dropped bellow -5  her body temp kept the house warm, and yes she had a wood burner in case it did

               dave

[cheminot]

Thanks to everyone for their replies. If I were building a new house I would indeed use as much insulation as possible and go for the most efficient heat source but because my house is already built my options in this direction are limited unless I spend large amounts.

One thing seems common to almost all forms of heating is that the initial installation costs are high, thus my wondering whether at my time of life those more economical than electricity would be financially viable over a period that I can reasonably expect as a lifespan.

Given the near impossible nature of my question I am very pleased with the variety and depth of the replies, in the end I suppose it will come down to whether I want to part with the cash!

Cheminot