Electric vs Gas - is it a deal breaker?

VonLuck

I've been recently looking at some properties to buy and I'm noticing a lot of apartments which have electric heating. I've read a bit on this forum about them and people tend to have negative thoughts on them i.e. inefficient, hard to control (storage heaters mainly), 'dry' heat produced etc.

If you were looking to purchase, would you completely rule out electric heating over GFCH? There are some nice properties I've been looking at and the only thing holding me back is the heating system. The BER rating seems to be reasonable as well.

TheChizler

Electric heaters are 100% efficient, unless you mean financially efficient in which case they're fairly expensive to run in comparison to gas. The heat is just as 'dry' as a gas powered central heating system too. The fact that the BER is ok kind of offsets that problem though, if its well insulated you won't have to use much expensive electricity to heat it, so potentially much better than a low BER property with gas.

Atlantic Dawn

I've yet to meet someone who has a good word to say about them, that said none of the apartments they were in would have had anything like an A rating.

K.Flyer

I lived in an apartment with electric storage heating for a few years NEVER AGAIN.
No amount of fiddling or adjustments got it to operate in a satisfactory way.
As far as my own experience goes, it's a total turn on the heel and gone. If I am looking, first thing I check in the ad is to see the type of radiators, if it's electric heating then it's zero interest from me.

Samuel T. Cogley

They were grand in my apartment.

PhoenixParker

I've had good and bad experiences with them.

In the good experiences the apartments were well orientated (caught a lot of sun) and had few external walls (apartments/stairwells to the sides and above/below).

In the bad experiences the apartments were less well orientated and had more outside walls. With the bad experiences I did feel that if I'd actually owned the place I could have made a massive difference by upgrading the heaters and internally insulating the place.

On balance they wouldn't be a deal breaker.

r93kaey5p2izun

Lived with electric storage heaters for a year in student residence in UCD and they were shockingly poor. Never again. The coldest I've ever been in my life. It's a deal breaker for me. I'm looking to buy in the near future and have already ruled out a particular housing development for this reason.

VonLuck

I was wondering - is there going to be a push away from gas heating from a climate change perspective? I assume if renewables increase for grid supply, the cost per kwh might as well?

ted1

VonLuck wrote: »

I was wondering - is there going to be a push away from gas heating from a climate change perspective? I assume if renewables increase for grid supply, the cost per kwh might as well?

There is. Heat pumps are taking over.

Del2005

PhoenixParker wrote: »

I've had good and bad experiences with them.

In the good experiences the apartments were well orientated (caught a lot of sun) and had few external walls (apartments/stairwells to the sides and above/below).

In the bad experiences the apartments were less well orientated and had more outside walls. With the bad experiences I did feel that if I'd actually owned the place I could have made a massive difference by upgrading the heaters and internally insulating the place.

On balance they wouldn't be a deal breaker.

I've good orientation and not many external walls and find storage heaters useless. I had 30C one day, can't open a window or door as you loose the heat, and still had to use the fan heater later that night. If you work during the day then you have a lovely warm empty property and not warm enough when occupied.

Cookie_Monster

We've an electrically heated central air system in our place and it's great. It's only 18 months old though so probably not comparable to the likes of storage heaters etc which are old hat and rubbish IMO.

riclad

I would go for an apartment that has gas heating unless the apartment
is less than 5 years old or significantly cheaper than other apartments .
In most area,s theres plenty of apartments for sale .
I would expect an apartment on the outside edge of a building to be more expensive in terms of annual heating cost,s ,
but you need to check the ber rating too .
Blocks with lifts and large underground parking tend to have higher service charges than say a small 4 storey apartment block that has no lifts ,just stairs .

ercork

Generally people don't have positive experiences of storage heaters. They keep a property lovely and warm during the morning and afternoon but by 6 or 7 pm (when most people want heating) they have lost most of the heat and you will need to use an additional heat source - plug-in radiator, fan heater, etc. Also, they are not very controllable so it can be difficult to respond to days when the weather is not as forecast.

For this reason I would replace them with on-demand electric heaters. These will give you the same level of comfort and control as gas heating, but will cost significantly more to operate due to the high unit cost of electricity. It is difficult to say precisely but I would estimate the costs could be as much as double, i.e., if a property needed €300 of gas to make it through the winter, the same property would cost about €600 to heat with electricity. That's a fair difference but probably not a deal breaker for most people. Also, the smaller and better insulated a property is, the less heating will be required and the lower this differential will be.

One last thing, a BER is not a measure of insulation levels, it is an estimate of how much it will cost to heat a property over a year. So you could have two apartments which are identical from the point of view of insulation, windows, etc. but one is heated by gas and the other by electricity. The gas heated apt might have a BER of B2 while the electric one could have a BER of D3.