New c/h boiler.... running costs?

[Rod Jones]

Our oil fired boiler has just expired, and before we leap out and replace it like for like, I wonder what conventional wisdom is regarding types of boilers and comparative running costs betwee oil, LPG and electricity.

And are there any grants available? (We live in Limousin).

Any info will be gratefully received!

[Patf]

Not exactly grants, but you used to get a tax rebate on certain types of eco-friendly boilers. We had a gas boiler installed, and received a nice cheque from the impots. Can't remember the percentage of cost, it could have been a VAT refund.

I have a feeling this might have stopped now?

As for which type - the price of gas has gone up about 50% in the last 10 years. I believe the price of oil has also rocketed. Don't know about electricity.

The cheapest is said to be solid fuel, especially if you have your own source of wood. But very labour-intensive.

[dave21478]

With the way oil prices are going, I wouldnt even consider an oil or gas boiler now. Electric or an alternative like ground or air source heat pumps, combined with some solar. Initial investment will be more, but I would guess the long term would show decent savings.

If you have access to trees and the physical ability to cut firewood, then that would be a good choice too.

[Rod Jones]

We're in a village location with a small garden so not much scope for solar or ground source heat pumps.

I gather the air source heat pumps only produce 'warm' water. I can see the advantages in a new-build for (say) under floor heating, but I'm not sure there's much benefit for us.

So I suspect it'll come down to a choice beteen an electric boiler or replacement oil boiler, but I'm not sure of the relative merits of each. (I assume what's good advice for the UK doesn't necessarily apply in France)

[Quillan]

[quote user="Rod Jones"]Our oil fired boiler has just expired, and before we leap out and replace it like for like, I wonder what conventional wisdom is regarding types of boilers and comparative running costs between oil, LPG and electricity. And are there any grants available? (We live in Limousin). Any info will be gratefully received![/quote]

It's a big question and really needs a bit of information mainly does the boiler make hot water and run the heating system or does it just do one of these i.e. heating system?

We do not have town gas and the house has always had electric heating supplemented by a massive log burner. The electric heaters were quite 'high tech' in their day being a combination of convection and storage (but not night storage). Over the years they have developed faults with components failing and I have not been able to get them fixed.

What I have decided to do is go the air source reversible inverter air conditioning route. Now when you talk about air or ground source the units have what is called a COP figure or Coefficient of Performance to use the full name. These can vary quite a bit and the bigger the COP number the more you will pay. What the COP figure is, roughly, is how much heat (or cooling) you get in kw compared to the amount of electricity used. For instance the units I bought from Brico depot cost 399 Euros each plus another 100 Euros for pre-gassed pipes plus some money for the external mounting brackets, lets say all in with all the bits and bob's (screws,drill bit etc) 450 Euros each plus the cost of installing which you can do yourself, it's very easy. The COP figure for the units I bought are 3.8 which is quite good, that means for every 1kw of electricity I use per unit I get 3.8kw of heat or cold air out. My old system burnt 2kw of electricity and I got 2kw of heat out. I looked at other makes like Panasonic, Toshiba etc and whilst they gave COP figures of 4.2 or more they were nearly double the price. If you look at GSHP (Ground Source Heat Pumps) then you can get a COP figure of up to 6 although the normal COP is around 4.0 to 4.6. The cost of such a unit by a well known manufacturer will be around 6,500 Euros in France and then there is the cost of installing, your talking digging trenches in the garden down to 2.5M (minimum recommended) or 3.0M, laying piping then you have the inside to deal with which is ripping up the floor and installing underfloor heating tubing etc. The average cost of a complete install would be approximately (according the the Energy Saving Trust) anywhere between £9,000 and £17,000 plus all the upheaval during installation. If you were building a new house it is something I would seriously look at but because your not I wouldn't bother.

For me it's the reversible clim and I have had it for about two and a half years now and having compared electric bills I would say I am saving about 35% each year which means the savings every year roughly pay for one unit or just under which I think is pretty good. How that would compare to gas or oil I can't say as I have not used either in France and have no data to compare with. The only possible negative is that you have to stop your self from turning the things on in the summer when it's really hot to cool down, we have once or twice but as I tell Mrs Q we managed before without the clim in summer so we can manage now.

There was a very long thread about this a few years back which I cannot find and another guy (Ulster-rugby I think his name was) went down this route but he seems to have disappeared, I would have loved to have compared figures with him.

 

[Théière]

If you are looking at air source as Q explained, it's not just about COP as marketing people love to stretch the truth, more about the performance at the temperature you want/have. There are units that show good figures until the temp drops, in Scandinavia where they are very popular the units need to work at a lower air temp (down to minus 10-15) so you may be warm in summer (who isn't) but be cold in winter. I was looking at some pool heaters and you don't need to heat the pool in July/Aug you need May & September which gives a completely different scenario and rules out a lot of the units being sold for the purpose. Not that that will stop some people being duped into buying one.

[Chrissie]

If you decide to go with something other than oil, remember to factor in the cost of de-gassing/removing your oil storage tank.

Chrissie (81)