The mere mention of the word smart meter, has me rolling around laughing! Billions have been wasted on these devices & still 2 million of them remain inoperative. My father changed to a cheaper tariff with a new supplier & the smart meter would no longer work. Suppliers think I'm going to pay to power the thing on & allow it to use my Wi-Fi signal so that they can save millions & pay directors millions in interest free loans & bonuses!
@@nigelsmith6413 we are still using the same amount of power with or without it,it's just going to tell you in £'s how much BUT is that like now with a non smart but digital one ????
What about 1 bag of coal next to your tv .. then during the adverts and if you're felling cold just pick it up over your shoulder and walk back and fourth then you'll be sweating 😅😅😅
I have central heating but it is now to expensive to have on all winter like I used to. House temp was down to 7 c at the coldest point of last winter and not much above 10/12c during day. I just wrap up in loads of clothes during the day. Of a night to stop condensation building up on my bedroom walls I have a thermostatically controlled oil heater which I have on medium during the night. Although my bed has two duvet's and two fleece throws on it as well, I also have a small electric blanket. Coronary heart disease medication thins my blood and makes me quite cold otherwise. Ah getting old is such fun in this country. I wonder what temp Richie Sunack's indoor heated pool is at the moment!
It's also the fault of all the people who rushed to buy the British Gas 'Ask Sid' shares in the late 80s. That was the start of privatisation of our utilities, and now we are all paying the price. Sunak is just the current cheerleader for it.
Good on you Bill, don't forget the good old fashioned hot water bottle ! cheap and very effective. I recommend a dehumidifier in the winter months , even if it's just run for a couple of hours a day helps with condensation.
When prices first went through the roof, I did an experiment so that I didn't have to worry about being able to afford the bill. I have a 1 bedroom bungalow.... I put the central heating on 19 for 2 hours in the morning and 6 hours over the course of the day (wasn't warm, just took the chill off) and using the smart meters, I could see that the total amount spent for that day (inc Electric) was £13 something, for 1 DAY.... So I went out that day and bought a Zanussi Oil Filled Rad, I turned the central heating off and just used the Rad in the 1 room I was in (bedroom). I left it on for 24 hours (got too hot at about 24 degs) and the total cost for gas and electric for that day was £7 something, so since then, I just use the oil rad, no Gas (apart from hot water and cooking). I look forward to a day where I can go back to putting the Central heating on without having to worry, but I don't think that day will ever come, shareholders need their payouts right ???
NOT TRUE.....my bedroom is 20 square metres and as I said before, it heats it up to around 23 to 24 degs now. You just have to get the right rad I guess. @@bikusmoto59
Thought I'd answered this at the time of posting, but it didn't go through by the looks of things....That isn't true, my room that I use it in is 4m by 4.2m, so I'd say medium size and the temp when using the oil heater is usually between 20 and 24degrees in the entire room, not just my legs ! @@bikusmoto59
Hello Al remember when i asked you a few years ago about BTU and room sizes the previous owners had removed most of the pipes / radiators and had plug in heaters it cost a fortune. Since then i put in new radiators it was a significant saving on the bills and warmer. Thankyou
Guys just put your heating on for about an hour before bed and maybe 30 minutes in the morning, all other times use an electric over blanket, very cheap to run - I use the blanket straight on top of me and add a throw over it, gets lovely and toasty and only needs to be on a low to medium setting. We have a wood burning stove but even that proves costly to run all the time. Also about 3 loose layers of clothing help - so long sleeved cotton t shirt or vest (thermal ones are best) then a jumper then a gilet or a fleece top, make the last layer the loosest one x
I swapped my 3kw. Oil. Filled radiator with three towel rails with 750w total electric heating elements and the difference is incredible. it's the new "ceramic disc "heating elements. Great topic very little facts around
@@dereton33 I doubt that you can go gas free to avoid the standing charge ? my understanding is that If you are connected to gas mains you have to pay standing charges even if you don't have any gas appliances? please correct me if I'm wrong, I have 1 gas fire, and manage all the electric heating/water on wifi systems. I have a portable oil electric heater which I sometimes use as a booster if needed when the temp really drops for a sustained period of time, and I agree it pumps out heat very quickly, and i think that is its advantage, it gets a cold room comfortable in a short space of time.
Interesting topic, I've only depended on oil filled electric rads when I lived in a bungalow with only an oil boiler. At worst in winter it was £300 in oil a month, the electric rads in that case where definitely cheaper. It was an really old oil boiler though, engineer said was 40% efficient. These days I rely on the gas central heating in a terrace house, there's a difference being end of terrace though with a gable exposed to the wind and cold. A good friends heating central heating system failed about a year ago, I lent him 2 of my old oil filled rads and he's happily using them to heat the house. Because of the high temp he maintains, I doubt very much that it's cheaper, but he's loathed to pay £1000 to get the central heating system repaired.
Even with a heat pump which produces 4kw heat from 1kw of electricity, gas is *still* cheaper. Even of you assume your boiler is loosing 15% of the heat throught the exhaust.... its still cheaper.
Electric only makes sense for a super insulated small proprety. It is lower installation cost and practically zero maintenance cost. However, if people are looking for the wrost of all worlds there are electric heat pumps.
Hi.Off topic.. But I sent you a message in your video about the Magniclean.. Do you think it matters if it is installed downstairs beside the boiler or upstairs beside the hot water tank. Thanks
I think the idea is that having it right beside the boiler it protects the boiler from the muck in the pipes and extends its working life. Five years ago we had a new Vaillant gas boiler, it came with a 3 year guarantee but because we also had a Magnaclean installed at the same time, Vaillant automatically increases the guarantee period to 10 years.
Quite a few variables on this one, possibly too many to give a definitive answer that will suit everyone. My tuppence-worth would be to experiment to find what suits your own individual circumstances.
An interesting comparison. I have gas central heating, but, now with the price rises, I only put it on for an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening. I use a 3 bar halogen electric heater in my sitting room, which quickly heats up the room and doesn't cost much to run. I bought a sheep's wool duvet which is lovely and warm and no need for an electric blanket, and I avoid condensation by keeping the bedroom window open a bit all the time. It's criminal that we have to make these choices though. It should be a human right to be able to stay comfortably warm for free or at a low cost.
I have a small oil heater for my extension (Garage size room) It was so cold the rads wouldn't get hot enough, so bought an oil heater, left it running over night and by morning it was about 20 degrees perfect temp, but suddenly started leaking Small drops randomly, so am wondering if there is anything better and cheaper to run?
I don't have central heating in my one bed flat ...i have that warm air heating but i found that expensive plus it was making me ill....so i've got an oil filled heater in the front room and the bedroom....i don't have a smart meter ...i refuse to have one ...i have a key meter (it was here when i moved in over 12 years ago) and i can see exactly what i'm using by checking that lol...i've had the oil filled heaters a long time....they have lasted well, heats up the room nice and are definitely cheap to run...even in these times of cost of living crisis of electric companies overcharging us with their ridiculous price hikes!! Always good to see you Al x hope you both been keeping well...and warm!! x
An interesting one, I live in very rural Germany. we have 2 1500 litre tanks for heating oil (basically red diesel) we fill up maybe once every 2.5 to 3 years. currently it costs around 100 euros per 100 litres. The house is around 120 years old with big thick (1 metre plus) walls, we have 9 radiators in the house and winter temps are always 0 or below for the winter months. There has been a push to move to natural gas but our boiler is quite new so we can keep it, plus we get the bonus of still seeing a chimney sweep once a year. I would imagine this is still cheaper to run than most UK heating bills?
during the cold times, i've been trying to keep my radiator on for only an hour or at least till it feels warm enough to turn it off. recent gas cost £192 :( i'm wondering if oil radiator could be a cheaper options. maybe someone can share their monthly rates comparison? either that or doing natural body heat by doing push ups and squads! :D
Those oil heaters are great as a back up, but mine is has two settings of 1.5 kWh or 3 kwh per hour. Now that's going to be expensive at 84 pence an hour on hottest. Either way there will be a big fat turkey on the Christmas table for the energy supplier.
You only have to look at the cost per kwh for gas & electricity & gas wins every time. Fit TRV's on every radiator except the room you spend most time in & have the thermostat in that room. What I really want is a heating control which can be programmed to head individual rooms as required (why heat the bedroom between 08:00 & 23:00?). Yeah, I know you can get battery powered TRV's where the time can be set but people say the batteries last no time - why not a mains powered distribution manifold?
If not too cold. Central heating on for 1 hr. I use a hot water bottle and a blanket. I'm out at work during day. If i need it on I'll keep heating on , but normally I'm fine.
I'm using Dimplex oil free electric rads here. Looks the same but no oil. I brought a new Delonghi oil rad a few years back and it leaked oil all over the carpet after being on for a few hours new out the box. So no more oil rads in carpeted areas now anyway. Just got an older smaller Dimplex oil job in the kitchen that does the job. Key is to insulate and stop drafts to minimise heat loss. A well maintained gas central heating system is cheaper to run if you want a warm house over all. Or a heat pump conversion that been properly designed for the building & installed. £7500 grant helps with that one at the moment.
We have the central heating on all the time set at 19c as Mum feels the cold (95 yrs old) We used to have a radiator in the big room but over the years it became cooler and cooler (despite balancing and a complete system flush when we had a new boiler five years ago. I've now removed that radiator and replaced it with a similar sized electric ceramic radiator set to 20c (found them on Ideal World TV channel). It bumps the smart meter up into the orange when it switches on but its only drawing power for about twenty minutes and then it shuts off but continues getting hotter for about forty minutes until the cycle starts again. Overall its very economical to run compared to the oil filled ones. We actually have a second one still in its box - tomorrow we are having our solar panels installed - with 4.4kw of free power, No.2 can come 'online' as well!
Utter rubbish, the oil ones aren't cheap, I've got only electric in my property, predominantly storage heaters, old ones too! Used them one winter cost a fortune so never used again, bought a few oil filled electric and they were more expensive! So installed a woodburner! Electricity prices are disgusting, an efficient gas central heating system is cheaper to leave on constantly than stop start! Unfortunately no mainline gas here so.....🤷🏻♂️👍
@@andyjohnston4394 At which point in my comment did I say the oil filled radiators were cheap to run? I said we have a CERAMIC radiator which runs far cheaper than the oil ones!
I live in a 1970's 2 bed bungalow. I have storage heaters. There is no gas in my village. My electricity bill last winter was £140 per week. I tried an electric oil filled rad in the lounge, regardless of cost, it was about as useful as a chocolate fire guard. I am currently installing an oil fire wet system.
We have experimented with running one electric heater in the room we are in vs running the whole central heating system. We find with current prices one room with electric is 60p an hour whereas to run the gas central heating is 80p an hour. Not a good deal to only heat one room in my opinion.
How many rooms do you have in total? I guess it isn't a good deal even if the answer is two rooms, but if you're talking 2 or 3 bedrooms, plus living room, kitchen, bathroom, maybe hallway or something like this, then it becomes a huge difference.
Hi Al, thank you for the information you gave me about a Drayton Activator 3way diverter , I changed the head as you instructed and all is well . I’m now going to have a go at moving and replacing 3 rads on the ground floor of my 3 bed semi , all pipe work to the rads drops from the ceiling joists and all three rads have a drain off although very antiquated, I have a Worcester Bosch Greenstar boiler in the loft which I believe to be called a condensing boiler as a plastic pipe runs to the outside down pipe . There is no small header tank anymore just a large cold water tank that services the cylinder and WC and cold water taps in the bathroom. To drain down the system do I just turn the boiler of and open the drain of valves as your drain down video explains ? . Is this a sealed heating system I have ? Regards, Dermot Kelly .
Those little oil radiators are great little things and do chuck out some heat. We've used one a few times and found them surprisingly good. I have no idea how cost effective they are though. The one thing that does worry me with them is how hot they get and I don't feel safe for my dog being too near them. I would be worried about them with little children too.
I use my oil filled radiators religiously & I have placed a fire guard in front of mine so the dogs & kids don’t get too close even though the kids know to stay away it’s better being safe 😊
@@dereton33 yes exactly. My dad works from home a lot days. So we keep the house at 18-19. And then just in his office is the small electric heater. It's warm in no time.
Old gas central heating boilers were about 60-70% efficient but modern condensing central heating boilers are about 92% efficient depending on your boiler - you will have some energy losses distributing the gas (low viscocity so not a lot). Electric heating you have losses at the generator, losses in transmission (you need to raise the voltage for transmission, pylons loose energy, then you need to reduce the voltage for consumption plus some losses from sub-station to your house) and potentially some EM losses at your electric radiator. The cost of gas is significantly cheaper per kW when compared with electricity. It would be interesting to sit down and work out what those losses are (possibly Google). I would expect gas to be more efficient because it is a primary energy source as opposed to electricity which is a secondary source). That’s my view as a Physicist.
I find my oil filled radiator warms up the room lot faster vs the central gas heating. the oil radiator gets the temp to 22 deg in half hour vs gas heater which takes hours and never even reaches 22. Most it gets to is 18. I have bad insulation which is problematic. The oil radiator does the job given the conditions
I don’t like those oil filled radiators, they take a long time to heat a room. I had a few and got rid of them. All electric space heaters cost the same to run, because they are all almost 100% efficient (almost all electricity used goes into heat, less fan and electronics which is minimal). The best space heater for me is one that warms the room quickly. A far cheaper to use solution is to keep the house cooler and use an electric blanket for watching tv or any stationary activity. Same with sleeping, far cheaper to lower the thermostats and use electric blankets than keep a house warmer. Also, a $5 tube of calk can save hundreds $$$ in heating costs!
All electric heaters are 100pc efficient because all of the energy is converted to heat so it makes no difference which type it is. The only exception is a heat pump where its more than 100% efficient, and that's because its not creating heat its moving it. Typically they are between 3.5 and 4.5x more efficient than an electric heater. But.... gas is still cheaper even after all that.
