Fuel central heating or gaz de ville?

[Le martin-pêcheur]

Hi,

Having had houses using log burners and/or electricity for heating for the most part in France, I wondered if anybody has used gaz de ville and has a rough idea of costs as against fuel. We had fuel central heating once and found it to be expensive, would gas be cheaper? Just an estimate would be ideal, as i understand the costs will vary as to usage. I thought I would ask our experts here before trawling through the French sites.

Many thanks for any information that anyone can provide.

Tony

[pomme]

A trawl of the French sites is quicker https://selectra.info/energie/guides/comparatifs/electricite-gaz-bois-fioul-propane

https://www.fournisseurs-electricite.com/guides/equipements/fin-chaudiere-fioul/choisir-fioul-ou-gaz

The French government are planning to get rid of oil heating boilers in ten years https://www.lemondedelenergie.com/gouvernement-fioul/2018/11/30/

[Le martin-pêcheur]

Many thanks, I shall have a look at those sites.

Cheers,

Tony

[idun]

We heated with a log burner for about the first 15 years that we owned our french home, our appartment prior to that had a storage heater, which was actually very good.

And then they put gas lines into our village and the first lot, finished about 10 metres from our house, so I asked if we could have it, and was told if at least one neighbour wanted it too, we could. So we and the neighbour took it.

For us, it was more economical than buying wood, as where we lived it was always expensive, we used 7.5 tonnes every year ( remember that was only from Oct/Nov to April) and often it was getting on for £90 a tonne, and even buying in bulk was not that much cheaper.

I have friends in France, who now have granule burners and find them economical.

I have recently renewed my gas/electricity contract in England and have compared prices and gaz is a lot more expensive in France for the time being. We use about 12000kwh of gas per year, and would probably have used more in France as it would have been a lot colder where we lived. Plus ofcourse the abonnement is a lot dearer in France too.

If you decide on gaz de ville, then get a good boiler, that is as economic as it can be.

[Le martin-pêcheur]

Many thanks indeed Idun.

Cheers

Tony

[idun]

A few more thoughts, the disparity between regions of France and wood prices. When I first came on here, and we had already had our gas heating for several years, and I was amazed to hear the price people were paying for wood from other regions was about half the prices we were paying in my part of the Alpes. As friends were still using wood burners.

Never worth trying to burn other than very dry, well seasoned wood, it does not heat. Also soft woods can clog up chimneys, cause fires with their sap.

Still gaz de ville is a mighty investment too. All the radiators or underfloor or whatever you want. And a good boiler. We bought a Weismann boiler in the UK two years ago and our bills just about halved from the old, boiler. I daresay most modern boilers are quite economic, but really really worth looking into performance.

[Le martin-pêcheur]

Thank you Idun,

We're currently in the southern part of the Haute-Vienne and wood is fairly cheap and readily available, we use electric radiators when it's not worth lighting a fire, but they are not so cheap to run.

Looking to move again soon, so looking at various properties, one of which has gaz de ville for everything, and another which is wood burners and electricity. The latter we can easily estimate the running costs, hence my question about gaz de ville.

Of course convenience can become a factor which has to be weighed up against overall running costs and of course installation/maintenance.

Could be the wood burner route again methinks.

Thanks again for your informative post.

Cheers,

Tony

[Théière]

Air source heat pumps are a lot less costly to run than electric radiators, they also warm the room quicker as they have fan units instead of just radiated heat.

Best to also suppliment with a wood burner/pellet burner but by far the best thing is insulation!

[NormanH]

The flat I moved into  last September has reversible air conditioning which may be the same thing that teapot is talking about.

My monthly bill for a 65sq metre flat has come down from around 100€ with electric radiators in the old place to 55€ in the new one; but the new one has double glazing.

There are tax allowances  available for improving insulation etc and I suggest that this is something to consider since there is no point in heating the garden...

[Le martin-pêcheur]

A great many thanks to all who have responded to my request. A good deal of food for thought there.........

I agree with the heating the garden - a comment we have often used as we wait for our cat to decide whether he wants to go out or stay in

Thanks again,

Tony

[nomoss]

+1 Théière on insulation.

I insulated our single storey house, which has 120 m2 of living area plus another 115 m2 of utility and storage space under the same roof, with 4 cm extruded polystyrene below the OSB + laminate floor, 4 cm polystyrene backed placo plus 5 cm fibreglass on the outer walls, and 30 cm cellulose above the placo ceilings.

Now our pellet stove tends to overheat the living area in mild weather, even on its minimum setting of 3.2 kW.

It tends to cycle on and off too frequently, which causes excessive soot buildup and shortens the life of the igniter element.

It is more economical (and quiet) to use our two 0.9 kW input / 2.8 kW output reverse cycle aircon/air source heat pump units when the outside temperature is above about 8 - 10ºC.

The only snag is that neither heating system operates when the electricity supply is cut.

Fortunately we are in a small town, not out in the wilderness, power cuts do not usually last too long, and we can run a petrol driven generator in the garage to provide power for lights plus the pellet stove.

EDIT: We were reminded of how effective our insulation is last week, when we stayed in a studio apartment in the mountains in S. Spain.

The days were mild, with temperatures around 18º, but dropped to 5º or lower at night.

The apartment had a huge radiator, with a slightly smaller one in the bathroom, fed from an oil-fired boiler.

These would have been enough to heat our entire house, but in the uninsulated building, they were barely adequate, and the floors were extremely cold.

I don't think there is much chance of slowing global warming when the majority are not even aware of the benefits of simply insulating their houses, let alone reducing the use of fossil fuel in oversized vehicles and home heating.

[suein56]

Idun wrote : For us, it was more economical than buying wood, as where we lived it was always expensive, we used 7.5 tonnes every year ( remember that was only from Oct/Nov to April) and often it was getting on for £90 a tonne, and even buying in bulk was not that much cheaper.

Crikey .. considering that you are talking about years and years ago I find your costs exceptionally high. 7.5 tonnes of your wood equates to approx 15m3 today. At approx 100€ a m3 at today's value that would mean a bill of 1500€ for 6 months wood heating .. I know where you lived but I am still in shock.

It's no surprise that you were happy to change to town gas.

[suein56]

Congrats to Norman for halving his fuel bill .. can't be bad ☺

[idun]

Yes, Sue, it was a substantial amount every year. When we had our house built the builders wanted to put in electric radiators, and we had two put in, in two bedrooms and that was it. Our Turbo Fonte wood chiminee heated three radiators and we had a warm home.

Our neighbours used the same builder and took the electric radiator heating and their bills were higher than our wood cost and normal electricity cost. Makes you think doesn't it.

They soon got a chiminee.

The strange thing was that in our first appartment in a city, which was not well insulated, (our house was), all we had was one storage radiator and that was not expensive to run, and heated well. it looked and would have been old though, and I did look at modern versions, but everyone told me that they were no good AND frankly in comparison, felt flimsy. No idea when the appt was built, but that thing must have been in there donkey's years.

We did have forests in our village where we could have a plot assigned and take the wood and clear the forest. HOWEVER, the two we took over the years were so steep on the mountain side  and access lousy. We needed friends help, with tractors and all sorts. But there was a price to be paid for that,  as the french paysans in our village, were very aware of the value of such favours. And were more than repaid. What with us buying good chain saws etc and repaying favours and an accident in the wood too, husband said no more, not worth it.

[Théière]

[quote user="suein56"]Crikey .. considering that you are talking about years and years ago I find your costs exceptionally high. 7.5 tonnes of your wood equates to approx 15m3 today. At approx 100€ a m3 at today's value that would mean a bill of 1500€ for 6 months wood heating .. I know where you lived but I am still in shock.

It's no surprise that you were happy to change to town gas.[/quote]

My relatives use about the same as Idun, their hopelessly inefficient insert is just trying to heat up France. It leaks so much heat up the chimney they have to burn so much wood to get the place warm.

They would save money buying a new efficient insert and would recoup the cost in about two winters. It would also save some of the forest for the rest of us! 

[idun]

Oh I have encountered homes with lousy wood burners. I cannot be doing with that. We had several friends with lousy chiminees. One used to have huge radiators on, as well as their fire burning, imagine the cost, oil heating and wood, where we lived!

I have mentioned these poor wood burners before.

Would our wood burner have used less wood, IF we had not had radiators, large ones, taking heat from it??? I often wondered, BUT, if  we had gone for a traditional wood burner,we would have still needed to pay for heating in the areas where the water filled radiators were, so maybe cost wise it would have been just the same. And I loved the heat.......... everyone said it was toooo hot, but it was lovely in cold alpine winters. And because ours worked so well, I have no idea why those we knew with fires that did not heat well, could be satisfied with theirs.

And if we were invited, we just made sure we wrapped up warm.