Gas V Electricity for heating water?

dools

Hi All,

Just got a gas bill for €200. Have'nt had the heat on at all for 2 months. We use the gas (timer) for 30 mins in morning and 30 mins in evening for heating the water.

We also have an immersion with a timer that we could run off the electricity instead, but are unsure which is best - ESB or Gas.

Have tried to compare costs per unit for Bord Gais and ESB but am not sure if a direct comparison is viable. Gas is charged per Kw and ESB is charged per unit - anyone know what constitutes an ESB Unit? Have no idea if one method is more economical than the other.

Any light ye can shed is appreciated. I hate the fact that there is no transparancy for comaprison

Dools

10-10-20

Dools, mine was high also this month, but I attributed this to the fact that the previous bill was estimated.
A unit of Gas has more heating value than a monetary unit of electricity, but bear in mind that losses from the efficiency of the boiler and the pipes and cylinder will decrease this whether gas or electricity.

Hoagy

dools wrote:

Have tried to compare costs per unit for Bord Gais and ESB but am not sure if a direct comparison is viable. Gas is charged per Kw and ESB is charged per unit - anyone know what constitutes an ESB Unit?

The unit for electricity is the Kilowatt Hour, KWh, I thought Gas was the same?

dools

Tks guys.

10-10-20 We renovated our house last summer and got a new heating system in - rads, boiler,etc. We went for a condenser boiler as we reckoned they are more efficient but appreciate there is a heat loss inherent in any system.

Our bills too are estimated. There were 6 in the family that we bought the house from - one of them being the mother's mother who was at home all day and so am sure their gas bills were high. Bord Gais are estimating our bills (this bill was €200, last bill was €400) and I'm concerned that they are basing them on the family of 6 rather than just the 2 of us that have been there for the past year. We keep dialling in our actual reading to their automated system in the hope that they adjust their estimates, esp since we've been there a year, but they keep sending us a revised bill with the original estimated reading (even though we have updated them with the actual). Am so sick of it :mad:

Aside from all of this, we were just wondering if it is more effiecient (read: cheaper) for us to heat just the water using the ESB rather than the gas for these warmer months when the heat will not be on. We have no idea...

Hoagy, thanks for that - did'nt know if they used the same unit measurement...

Think we might try using the ESB for the water and see how the bills pan out. Any other input/advice welcome...

Cheers, Dools

10-10-20

Don't change over to electric... it does less work for the same amount of gas.
Look at this page for example: http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/gas.html
Even though they are using US prices, see that in all cases gas is less expensive to perform the same function as electricity.

dools

ok - have found some info on Bord Gais and ESB site about their costings (used basic domestic bands) :

Standing Charge P.A / Unit Cost (KWh)
Bord Gais 308.58 / 4.091c
ESB 87.60 / 14.35c

Therefore, if you use 3000 (our gas bill was 3417 units) units per bi-monthly bill the differences would be

Bord Gais 308.58 + (€0.04091 x 3000) x 6 (bills) = €1044.96
ESB 87.60 + (€0.1435 x 3000) x 6 (bills) = €2670.60

Am I way off the mark here? Can I even compare the number if units used i.e. does it take less units to heat the water using ESB than Gas? Am I boring you readers to death??

Dools

dools

10-10-20 thanks for that. Our posts overlapped. Can't get into that site as it is firewalled in work ('Unsuitable content')

Hmmmmm.......may just persevere with Bord Gais and get the cnuts to sort out our estimated bills. They are way off the mark...I just can't be doing with paying €400 for a bill (estimated or not) for 2 of us who are out of the house Mon-Fri and most weekends

Cheers Mate

Dools

Reyman

The cost of heating your water by electricity assuming 1 hour per day and 2kw element (sink setting). Would be roughly €2x0.14x60 = €18 for two months.

It's hard to do this calculation for Gas because it's inherently very ineffficient to turn on the gas for short periods and heat up the boiler and all the water in the pipes before heating the water via a looped element.

My guess is that for short periods gas and electricity are around the same cost and anyway €9 a month is not worth worrying about

Gairdin nua

Folks,
I am renovating thre house I moved to, living in a rural environment which is not on the mains gas supply and have electricity for cooking and heating but wondered at advisability of also installing a gas hob which will necessitate a large refillable tank out the back. Does anybody have experience of gas as an addition to electricity for domestic use and is it any more ecnomical? Althoiugh rural we are very rarely blighted by power cuts except in extreme weather.
Gratefully Gairdin nua

Egass13

Gairdin nua wrote: »

Folks,
I am renovating thre house I moved to, living in a rural environment which is not on the mains gas supply and have electricity for cooking and heating but wondered at advisability of also installing a gas hob which will necessitate a large refillable tank out the back. Does anybody have experience of gas as an addition to electricity for domestic use and is it any more ecnomical? Althoiugh rural we are very rarely blighted by power cuts except in extreme weather.
Gratefully Gairdin nua

You could just run your hob off bottled gas , no need for a bulk storage tank

slimjimmc

10-10-20 wrote: »

Don't change over to electric... it does less work for the same amount of gas.
Look at this page for example: http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/gas.html
Even though they are using US prices, see that in all cases gas is less expensive to perform the same function as electricity.

Irish prices here, but the trend is the same, gas is cheaper per unit but as already mentioned there are inefficiencies in running boilers for short periods
http://www.seai.ie/Publications/Statistics_Publications/Fuel_Cost_Comparison/

Gairdin nua wrote: »

Folks,
I am renovating thre house I moved to, living in a rural environment which is not on the mains gas supply and have electricity for cooking and heating but wondered at advisability of also installing a gas hob which will necessitate a large refillable tank out the back. Does anybody have experience of gas as an addition to electricity for domestic use and is it any more ecnomical? Althoiugh rural we are very rarely blighted by power cuts except in extreme weather.
Gratefully Gairdin nua

As mentioned you could just use bottled gas and avoid the hassle of installing a bulk tank. However as the SEAI link shows, both bulk/bottled LPG is cheaper than electricity and bulk LPG is much cheaper than bottled LPG.
The problem with bottled LPG is that it tends to go out half way through the Sunday roast when the nearest stockist is 10 mile away :P.

Egass13

The problem with bottled LPG is that it tends to go out half way through the Sunday roast when the nearest stockist is 10 mile away :P.[/quote]

That's not so much a problem with bottled gas, as it is with the owner of the bottled gas !