How much things have changed in 12 months. In January and February 2021 we were going through a cold winter and our air source heat pump was cost-effectively keeping us warm. Things then started to unravel in the energy world, and over the course of 2021 our electricity tariff has gone up from 11p/kWh to 22p/kWh, and things could get even worse come April when the price cap is revisited. This tariff explosion cannot be overstated because it has taken heat pumps from being cost-effective to being way more expensive to run than oil boilers, raising fresh issues about sustainability.
Let’s get some context before we start. In January 2021, we consumed 2,231 kWh of electricity (just for the air source heat pump) which is a staggering average of 72kWh per day. At 11p/kWh (which is what we were paying at the time) our heating cost us £245 that month. At 22p/kWh we would have paid £490 – for us, this is not financially sustainable so we’ve started looking at alternatives.
Going bivalent: air source heat pump and HVO
Since announcing that we are trialling a biofuel called HVO (hydrotreated vegetable oil) to assist our heat pump this winter we’ve received some interesting comments, emails and messages from people questioning our decision. Apart from the merits of converting waste cooking oil and fats into a heating fuel source that cuts emissions by 88% over kerosene, let’s break things down further.
HVO derived from waste cooking oil and fat has a verified carbon emission factor of 0.036kg/kWh, compared to 0.298kg/kWh for kerosene. This is based on the latest edition of the government’s Standard Assessment Procedure for Energy Rating of Dwellings (SAP 10.2).
So let’s compare heating apples with apples – as I write and construct this post I have no idea what the outcome of this exercise will be.
I started by pulling the CO2 data from the national grid for where we live for January 2 and 4, 2022. Our electricity usage, per kWh, on January 2 was emitting 182g CO2/kWh. The second of January was an extremely windy and blustery day which is reflected in the graphic below (the one on the left).
Looking at the data for January 4 (the image on the right), the carbon intensity was 331g CO2/kWh. This probably had something to do with people going back to work after the festive season break and the fact that there was very little wind contribution with the grid leaning heavily on gas.
So I wanted to see how our bivalent system running the air source heat pump and HVO boiler compared to just running our heat pump by itself.
On January 2, 2022, our average ambient temperature was 8.4C – our air source heat pump consumed 9.70kWh of electricity and our ‘booster’ used 43.20kWh (more on that in a minute). To try and match things up, I time travelled to a similar day in terms of outdoor temperature. On April 16, 2021, our average ambient temperate was 8.5C and our air source heat pump used 39kWh of electricity to heat our property.
Based on this data, I assumed that on a day like April 16, 2021, where just the heat pump was used, we consumed 39kWh of electricity for our central heating. On a similar day in January 2, 2022, we used 9.7kWh for our heat pump, with the rest supplemented by the HVO boiler. For all intents and purposes this is a like-for-like comparison.
To work out our HVO usage, there’s a bit of a complicated calculation which we won’t get into here, but ultimately the 43.20kWh consumed by our ‘booster’ equates to 149kWh of HVO generated heat. This released 5.3kg of CO2. This figure, plus the 9.7kWh in electricity means that on January 2, our CO2 contribution was about 7kg.
As nothing more than an interesting comparison, if we’d been using kerosene instead of the HVO that would have emitted a staggering 44.5kg of CO2.
By comparison, the 39kWh used by our heat pump emitted approximately 7.8kg of CO2 from grid electricity back on April 16, 2021. On a windy day, such as January 2, 2022, that would have equated to around 7kg of CO2 emitted and a whopping 13kg on a day with little or no wind like January 4, 2022.
As I’ve been typing and working things, an interesting picture has been unfolding. On days when there’s an abundance of wind, our air source heat pump running solo emits pretty much the same amount of CO2 as our bivalent system (running HVO). We describe how we set things up and talk about the HVO in more detail in this YouTube video.
Purely from a CO2 emissions perspective, one thing has become apparent relating to our system. When there’s a lot of wind and solar, the bivalent system matches CO2 emissions against a heat pump running by itself. But when renewable energy on the grid drops below 50% (which is far more often than I thought) and gas has to prop it up, our bivalent system releases fewer CO2 emissions.
As an additional point on CO2, we also generated 6.7kWh and 9.7kWh in solar PV for January 2 and 4, respectively, offsetting our daytime electricity consumption for general usage.
Running costs
Now that we have a better idea about CO2 emissions and environmental sustainability, let’s take a look at financial sustainability, using the same data.
Given the state of energy prices in the UK, the tariff for our region is 22p/kWh with E.ON Next, up from 11p/kWh this time last year with Symbio. 39kWh, running the heat pump exclusively, at this new rate would cost us around £8.58/day to heat our property.
Using our bivalent system, we would pay £2.10/day for the electricity (9.7kWh). Prior to the energy crisis, HVO was priced at £1/litre, and this price has risen to £1.30/litre. The rate is loaded with government levies, duties and taxes. At £1.30, we’d be paying around £18 for the fuel per day, so the heating would be around £20/day, which is just crazy, making it much more expensive to run than the heat pump.
If the government was to drop related duties and levies, and bring the HVO more in line with the price of kerosene (which is a massive emitter of CO2 as we pointed out above) we should be paying around 50p/litre. What this would mean is that the price should drop to around £7/day, a total of £9/day, which again is very close to being in line with the electricity option at 22p/kWh to run the heat pump.
The scary thing, however, is that all signs are pointing to electricity tariffs going up again in April, with some experts hinting that tariffs will hit 35p/kWh – at those kinds of levels, running heat pumps is going to be insanely expensive and unaffordable for us as a household. Using our data in this post, the pure heat pump option at 35p/KwH would now cost £13.65/pay for 39kWh of heat.
I probably don’t need to point out that I’ve used a mild day (8.5C) for our example where we’re not using huge amounts of electricity. On February 11, 2021, when we had our coldest day hitting -6C and averaging -2.6C, we consumed 94.7kWh of electricity. At the time (at 11p/kWh) we paid £10.50 for our heating that day. Today, at 22p/Kw that would have cost us £21 for one day, and if tariffs hit 35p/kWh, it would have cost us £33.
Let me repeat that and let it sink it. £33 for heating, for one day. For us, that’s food and groceries for at least five days. It’s madness. We had six days in February 2021 where we exceed the 90kWh/day mark. What happens if we have a freezing cold, sub-zero winter? Are we really prepared to pay around £1,000 for heating for just one month? We certainly aren’t because we can’t afford that, and the energy we’re pulling from the grid isn’t even that green to justify the costs.
This is not an anti heat pump posts. We’re just sharing our experience and concerns, and as consumers and homeowners we need options. For us, that may just have to be juggling solar PV (which is heating our hot water during the day via the iBoost), our air source heat pump, a biofuel like HVO and our wood burning stoves, and figuring out what’s most cost-effective and environmentally-friendly to do.
Quite honestly, it’s an extremely worrying time, and we’re really hoping that the government can get its act together and figure out how they can protect households from having to chose between heating and eating, and they need to accelerate the rollout of more green energy sources.
Please leave a comment below letting us know how you’re heating your home this winter, what it’s costing you and whether you have any concerns.
The way its going with energy prices I’m glad we stuck to burning wood and planting trees 🙂 I will mention our solar water heater again though as this can provide 300 litres of 50c water in the winter if the sun is shining even in sub zero temperatures, and looking at your figures you are spending a lot of money heating water up.
We’ve got an iBoost on our system which does divert surplus solar production to heat our hot water. For us, our heating is going to have to become a balance of ASHP, HVO, solar PV and wood burning stoves.
I was intrigued how much power is required to heat 300 litters of water from 15-60c, and you would need a little over 15Kwh. Whilst I know you are getting some heat from your ASHP so it wouldn’t be so much, it still means that a solar water heater would probably pay for itself in 2 or 3 years and then contribute to reducing costs.
When i made enquiries locally about ASHP the suppliers almost insist that you have solar water installed as part f the package, so I’m guessing there must be something in it. It might be worth a closer look.
That’s a fair point Eddy. We do about 10-12kWh of electricity per day to heat our hot water using the heat pump by itself, which is aided by the iBoost when there’s sunshine around. I’ve made a mental note to look into solar water heaters this summer because it’ll definitely help, and we can divert the iBoost to the buffer store on the central heating. This’ll be my summer heating project and I also want to look into small, home wind turbines.
I’ve always pondered a heat source pump but when you compare the cost of my gas heating of roughly £4 a day on a very cold day versus your potential £33 it is hard to stack up without solar and or wind power to reduce the cost and keep it green. Even if you switched to a completely green tarif it is still eye watering!
Thanks for your comments. Electricity and gas tariffs are intertwined and you may see a significant increase in your gas bill when your existing plan comes to an end.
The irony about green tariffs is that the electricity you’ll use still won’t be green and much of it will sill come from gas power stations when the wind in the UK isn’t blowing – green tariffs are certificates/tokens electricity providers buy to certify the ‘greenness’ of energy. Jon Fletcher from Big Clean Switch explains this very well in this interview: https://renewableheatinghub.co.uk/explaining-the-2021-energy-crisis-in-the-uk
Morning MARS. Ouch, feeling yor pain re the astronomical cost of your power.
Regarding some of your comments on the amount of renewable power being generated I’ve attached a link to the N.G . Demand figures which in the last 3 months shows that yes 50% renewable is a struggle, but as can be seen from the current generation / supply data most winter days struggle to achieve 20% and then look at at how much coal is being used!!!!!!
You’ve previously mentioned your average COP, but do you know what the winter day COP is. Looking at your heat demand, it would seem to imply that it’s probably a good deal below 2?
Just had our December bill in and we are averaging around £5.80 per day for heating/ hot water and general electricity usage.
It’s true gas is likely to increase come the April CAP adjustment, but even a 50% increase will still see us only paying 6p kwh.
I worked in the Gas Industry in the distribution side of the business for 38 years and its become increasingly obvious that the countries energy policy is broken.
The desire to switch to a largely electricity powered system just will not work. Aside from the lack constraints on generation ( only likely to worsen as more nuclear power plants close) there are constraints on the transmission and distribution networks. The proposed switch would require the vast majority of the cables to be upgraded.
Keep the posts coming. It’ll be interesting the situation in a couple of weeks if we get some real winter weather and how your system copes then.
Thanks for taking the time to leave such an interesting comment Iain, and we’ll definitely keep the updates coming. Thanks for the support.
No Problems Mars. Been looking at peak gas demand which 200+ Gwh. Given current generation is a little over 40 gwh, its a big stretch to provide the necessary power to replace gas. The road transport sector would require around 60 gwh to convert to all electric. Its a bit of a ruff calculation but gives an indication of the scale of the problem. Interestingly a new offshore wind farm has been announced offshore here near the River Tay, but although prep work is starting it’ll be 10 before first power.
What’s interesting in the whole conversation on renewable is the lack of focus on producing Natural Gas from Sewage and farm waste. Here in Tayside there are around 8 such installations . One farm only is able to supply the towns of Wormit, Newport and Tayport. We need to ask why this isn’t being pushed more. Iain
I agree about the power infrastructure. When we moved into our old farm house, I took the rather simplistic view that we would bin our ancient oil boiler and move to electric flow boilers running on a green tariff. When I did the basic calculations, I realised that our 100A supply was inadequate. When I contacted UKPN to ask about an upgrade to a 3-phase supply, they said that the nearby transformer was too old and I would have to pay the £15k to have it replaced. When I then asked about a second 100A cable instead, they simply said it “wasn’t policy” to install a second power cable to one property. Looking back, I think we dodged a bullet, as the costs of running such a simple electric heating system would have been astronomical. However the limitations of the existing electricity network remain.
All of us on this site are “doing our bit” by trying to minimise our impact and use greener fuels to supplement our requirements for heat and electricity but even us with our knowledge are finding it increasingly hard to justify the costs and then what really makes me uncertain for the future is how is the entire country going to replace those fossil fuels ? unless Billions upon billions is invested now and continuing way into the future I cant see how it can ever work ! Im not a defeatist Im just a realist !
Mars, Great post and exactly the reason why I decided to postpone my heatpump install, I simply could not make the numbers work, not only for the actual install of a heatpump but also the cost of matching the heatpump up to an efficient heating system which for heat pumps the only viable option is underfloor heating. That cost alone is large and then the actual cost of running it is also large, now you can potentially offset that by having solar PV to provide some of the electric needed to power it especially in the cold months but thats mostly in the time when their is the least amount of solar production. A ground source heat pump may make it a tad more viable but air source heat pumps are in the real world just going to cost a lot of money in electrical use. Heatpump companies keep going on about how efficient they are with a COP of 3.5 but unless you match it up to slightly larger radiators or underfloor heating and then ensure its balanced to give you that optimal rating it really is a costly exercise. As you clearly state, hoping that the Government get more involved with this is really the best option but they have completely failed in that process and I dont see them coming up with any viable options. What is amazing to see is if the entire nation turns towards these more environmentally green options rather than gas or oil and everyone gets a Heatpump, its is going to put a HUGE demand on our electricity requirement for the UK and we currently barely meet our existing requirement !! The numbers dont match up, the solutions being pushed dont match up and their virtually is no incentive to move away from traditional heating options when the greener options would require an individual households upfront budget spend in the thousands if not tens of thousands for potentially an then even higher ongoing monthly spends on electricity usage. The payback for these options would begin to run into the rates much higher than what is suggested and potentially far in excess of 25 years ! In a summary what is being done by the UK government to promote green energy use is completely flawed and if its not improved when it comes to all those cut of dates for using fossil fuels they are going to have to back track as where is the replacement option and do they think people are just going to put up with almost their entire household budget being used just to keep their house warm !!
Great to hear from you again Bob, and I hope that you’ve had a good start to the year. There are no easy decisions to be made when it comes to renewable heating, with a lot to deliberate and factor into the decision-making process. Hopefully, there will be further advancements in the months and years to come that will make it easier and more affordable.
Oops hit send too quick. Attached are the live stats.
https://grid.iamkate.com/
First of all, thank you to both of you for your posts, which I’ve been reading over the last year or so with great interest. I think I came across you while we were researching heat pumps and really needed more real-life detail, rather than just the data, which of course is very important. I’ve been struck by the relevance to our experience of your posts on such a wide range of topics. We’re in our late 60s now and our aim is to live in as environmentally sustainable a way as possible.
We moved into our 19th century stone house last November, just as another lockdown started. It’s a sprawling building consisting of the original house, later linked to a converted barn, both with later 20th century additions. The state of insulation is poor to non-existent and most ceilings are vaulted. Over the years I’d looked into heat pumps and always noticed the brief mention of the fact that there’d be an increase in electricity consumption, so once we’d moved into a property fuelled by oil, I wanted to find out how much it would increase – you can see why I’ve found your posts so interesting!
Personal circumstances led to being able to fund the following:-
17.5KW ASHP, 6.2KW solar pv and just recently, a 13.5KW battery. As you can imagine, we are in those early throes of enjoying watching readings on all the apps. There are also 2 multi-fuel stoves for the rooms we’d sit in.
We have been with a fixed tariff with Octopus for 10 months, which enables us to charge the battery for 4 hours at 5p between 00.30 and 04.30, which gives us a few hours of heating, sometimes this is used up by 08.30 but today, the sun is shining and at 9.21 the solar pv is already generating 1.2KW, so we are using nothing from the grid and simultaneously the battery is also recharging at 0.9KW and is now 25% recharged. Unfortunately we haven’t had many days of clear weather since the battery was installed mid-December, but it is interesting to get a sense of the potential of the set-up as a whole and we look forward to the next 9 months or so. Hoping that the extremely high cost on many cloudy, cold winter days will be offset by the solar pv and battery most of the rest of the year.
Like you Mars, we kept the oil boiler just because it was only three years old and we intended to use it in case the heat pump broke down or wasn’t working well enough, but annoyingly the system has been set to go over to the oil boiler at 0 degrees C , which clearly is not unusual 750 feet up in the hills, so we’ve got to sort that out so that we can decide when to use it.
As far as increased electricity costs go, I think we’ll just have to cut our coats according to the cloth, if that’s the right saying. Once we’d experienced no power at all for a few days during storm Arwen it helped us focus on what’s absolutely necessary – and having one warm room and a tank of hot water would have been luxury then – and maybe a camping stove to boil a kettle!
In the meantime, on with the attempts to improve the insulation – the ceiling of the largest room has been done, but it took a year to get to that point, so it’s going to be a slow job.
Thanks for the detailed comment Di, and it certainly sounds like you’re making some bold and sensible decisions. We would love it if you could join our forums and share your progress which will hopefully motivate other homeowners to go down a similar route: https://renewableheatinghub.co.uk/forums
Over 7 years ago we had to ponder whether to move away from an oil boiler to an ASHP, unfortunately no gas in our road . After works carried out on our bungalow we were caught with having to re site and replace the oil storage tank we had as it did not comply with the regulations of the time. With oil on an upwards climb, the high cost of a new bunded tank and ground works/foundations for the tank it was found to be cheaper to install a 16Kwh ASHP. The quarterly payment from the government for the ASHP also helped the decision at the time.
If we were having to make the same decision now, with the increase in electric prices to date and threatened increases for the future, we would probably have stayed with oil.
Hopefully electric prices will be brought down as fast as gas prices when this gas shortage has sorted itself out.
Thanks for sharing Mark and you’re definitely not along – a lot of homeowners with heat pumps share your sentiments, and we’re all hoping that the tariffs go down next year.
Hi there, we moved into our brand new 5 bedroom house on the 10th December, Panasonic heat source pump and new house spec insulation.
So no supplement from the government.
We are averaging about £10 per day for all our electricity use.
If the government are serious about getting people to moved away from gas/oil, when will they move the green supplements off of electricity to the less green sources.
It might just be me but it all seems upside down.
Maybe they collect more money/ tax this way.
Keep up the good work.
I’ve got to ask, what’s the state of the insulation of your house? Are you improving it?
I was very close to pressing the button on an ASHP just over a year ago.
At the time, and based on electricity pricing back then, it was still going to be more expensive to run than oil. But with the Govt grant to soften the installation cost it seemed like a viable option to help the planet.
In the end we didn’t go with an ASHP because the survey concluded that we would need twin units, a 3 phase electric supply and most of the radiators changing. That took the cost way above the maximum available grant and I just couldn’t justify the expenditure in the interests of going green.
So we ended up replacing our old and inefficient 35 year old oil boiler with a new, high efficiency model. In addition we had the heating/hot water pipework updated to a more modern “S” plan system. This has saved us close to 30% in kerosene costs.
With the change in electricity pricing, I am SO glad we made the decision not to go ASHP.
Reading with interest the discussion on HVO. If the Govt wants to help rural dwellers with older properties not best suited to ASHP/GSHP, then surely based on your numbers Mars, they should be actively promoting this fuel.
I would happily convert from Kero to HVO tomorrow if the cost gap could be significantly reduced. Our Grant Vortex boiler is already HVO friendly, so if the price was right, why not?!
I meant to add that I have also written to my local MP, using the template from the futurereadyfuel.info website, asking that he raises the issue over HVO cost with the relevant department.
It seems like a no brainer to replace kerosene with HVO if the tax/duty issues can be addressed. And I am sure with economies of scale the price would fall with volume. (assuming there is an adequate volume of waste vegetable oil to feed the production process).
Also as kerosene is the main fuel for the aviation industry there is presumably a massive amount of effort going on behind the scenes to come up with a cost effective greener alternative.
I fully agree, and thanks for writing to your MP. We’ve done the same.
As mentioned in my earlier reply, the UK is considering brining in HVO from the United Stares who have massive supplies given their fast food industry and this fuel would be cheaper at source price than the EU supply. The EU supply is also limited, and can only supply a certain number of homes, not all of them. The US supply would alleviate this issue.
It really is a no-brainer Tony, but sadly politics enter the equation. This kind of fuel has been earmarked for some transportation uses, but we’re hoping that the government reduces the levies on heating because this’ll be a significant win if we can drop carbon emissions in about 1.5 million homes that are burning kerosene. There’s also talk of an alternate supply of HVO from the USA which may also bring costs down.
Using HVO is just a smokescreen, it will not save you from the inevitable. You will either have to heat your house less (in your case maybe during the day when you have solar) or insulate your house better.
Anyone out there pinning your hopes on cheap recycled cooking oil should think again. I doubt the Govt is thinking about removing taxes on it, and even if they did the spike in demand would just ramp the price back up again. If you are in this position you need to spend your money on something that will actually work long-term, or risk doing it twice.
Crudely, if electricity is 25p/kwh and assuming an ASHP SCOP of 3.5 (I’m targeting 55 degree flow as its a retrofit), it costs about 7p/KWh to put heat into the house from an ASHP. Oil at 70p/l and assuming 10kwh/l and a boiler efficiency of 90% it costs about 6.5p/KWh to put heat into the house from Oil. I suspect 90% boiler efficiency is optimistic, but I suspect SCOP of 3.5 is optimistic too.
So assuming like for like in terms of how much heat needs to be put into the house, and assuming a SCOP of 3.5, ASHP is currently a bit more expensive, but it will very much depend on fuel prices. Oil has recently been more like 50p on average, last winter it was 40p all winter, and electricity has been more like 15p recently. Oil is also historically much more volatile with doublings in winter not uncommon (can easily be 35p in summer and 70p in winter, so it depends how big your tank is and whether you can buy cheap in summer to last you all winter).
The realised efficiency of the ASHP will depend a lot on the quality of the installation, and I suspect this is where a lot of issues arise. I don’t know how close to a SCOP of 3.5 I would actually end up achieving.
I’m currently in the process of deciding on ASHP/GSHP/hybrid or head in sand hoping a magic better solution will appear in future (how much waste vegetable oil do we as a nation produce verses the amount of kerosene heating oil consumed?).
Hi Mars, now following your page with great interest.
I first discovered the benefit of solar power years ago, after I helped my father attach black hose to the roof of my cousin’s out door unheated swimming pool pump house/changing room. It made quite a difference to the water temperature.
Now 60 years later we are putting all our resources into a change of life style, embarking on a cleaner greener more substantial future, away from it all.
We are purchasing a 200 year old stone built property of 3760sq feet, approximately 600 feet above sea level in a “very isolated” (as described by the local MP), rural area. It has mains water, sewage and electricty.
It is currently heated by an oil fired boiler, two wood burning stoves and a triple fuelled Arga. There is under floor heating to ground floor and radiators to upper floors. New double glazing was fitted four years ago. There is an 18 panel solar array shielded from view by a wooden frame ( a requirement of the national park)
We have been investigating ground source, vertical and horizontal and air sourced heat pumps. I stumbled across your page while looking into HVO as the current the oil fired boiler relatively new and possibly the most affordable heating option for the foreseeable future.
We intend to use the roof of south facing out building for solar water heating. We are also looking into a wind turbine. A generator and battery storage system is on the wish list as the power supply does suffer from interpretations in poor weather, at least two cuts of 24 hours duration in recent storms.
We have a large walled garden, that we will slowly fill with raised beds for growing our own veg and fruit, using a less time consuming no dig method.
I am currently in contact with an EU company that has just released their high efficiency ASHP capable of supplying 60 to 80 degree water temperatures, that could be a game change for ASHP. I suspect this will come with higher electrical demand than conventional ASHPs but with a bigger pay back. Hoping to be an early adopter as long as it will be cheaper to run than the oil system.
There is a significant sustainability grant for the area, probably due to it’s isolation. I believe we may be eligible for some funding for renewable energy and sustainability projects.
Thank your for the details on your page, it is most informative.
Ive got to say the size of electricity usage of your het pump is scary, particularly with the increases in tariffs.
However my experience of using an ASHP is markedly different. I have a 3 bed bungalow with underfloor heating. Its a self build and has very good levels of insulation.
My space heating and hot water are supplied by a 5kW Mitsbishi Ecodan and heat store which I DIY installed. I also have 4kW of solar panels.
I turn my UFH on for a couple of hours in the morning and again in the early evening. The hot water is done between 12:30-14:00 when the sun is at its highest.
We also have a wood stove in the living room which we use in the winter evenings although to be fair we like it quite warm and the rooms never drop much below 20 C without using it.
Using the ASHP like this our total electricity usage averages about 8kWh per day in the summer and 15 kWh per day in the winter.
I also worked out that our American style Fridge freezer uses 4kWh per day!!! so that will be going soon.
I can only imagine that the vast variance in heating costs must be down to house size, UFH and critically insulation levels. With those things sorted ASHPs are perfectly capable of economically heating a medium sized house.
The more I watch your videos and read your articles the more headaches I get but they are so helpful. When Kerosene shot over 100p per litre at the end of February it unfortunately coincided with our oil tank being very low. We shut the system down and since then we have relied upon our (marvellous) wood burning stove in the large kitchen/dining area (family room) where we spend much of the day. The door to the adjoining downstairs area is kept cracked open to take the chill off – being careful not to lose too much heat from the family room. The heat from the burner helpfully brings a bit of heat through the ceiling to the main bedroom above. No kids at home now and so just this one bedroom to heat and there is an oil filled radiator in there to boost the heat a bit before bedtime. Same in the lounge which we use in the evenings. We are in Southern England but we have seen some below zero nights and some pretty cold days but, now two months on, the oil boiler has remained silent. We have got by (and have probably saved money over the same period last year!) but would have been a bit of a nightmare if we were trying to heat the whole house! And its not nice in the morning going into a stone cold bathroom!!
The situation has also made us take a serious look at insulation and have made some positive changes to the loft using multifoil. We are now looking at other areas. Also, little things like on sunny days opening blinds in the afternoon when the sun is on the west side of the house where we have 3 windows to the lounge and then closing again as the sun goes down. On sunny days this can add 2 or 3C to the lounge temperature when we enter it in the evening. Little things like that can really help.
Our oil boiler is 23 years old. Reading up, it seems like we can probably get around 10% efficiency increase with a new oil boiler (there’s no chance of connecting to gas grid). Combined with insulation upgrade we are probably looking at 20%+ improvement but of course the oil price has doubled. We are looking at energy costs in the round. We are south facing with large unobstructed roof so Solar PV looks like a no brainer but of course not so much gain in the Winter. However, it is likely that we will go down the route of Tesla Powerwall battery for 13.5kW storage and also electric car. We are also looking at ASHP which is where your videos and articles such as this are so helpful, particularly the costings. I had rather dismissed bivalent as I saw no future in oil but now thinking again. HVO could be a possibility in the future but the premium price is crazy. This afternoon, I am writing to my local MP in order to try and lobby to address this issue. We are in a rural area and there are plenty of people around here who could no way afford to switch to ASHP, or any of the enhancements that I have mentioned above. I suspect that my MP knows little about it. I see that there are some template letters on the web: Home – Future Ready Fuel and I would encourage other heating oil users in the UK to look into this.
Oh, and one other thing for users of wood burners which I am sure many are familiar with. My son-in-law recommended a little fan that sits on the stove top. As the burner heats up above 50C the fan starts up and is self heat driven and pushes the heat across the room. Not sure how this cheap and simple device had previously passed me by but, anyway, it has made a big difference to distribute the heat around. Cost about £25 on Amazon (plenty of different ones available) and my star buy of the Winter!
Thankyou for this information. We are in the process of trying to decide which is the best alternative to kerosene to heat our home, it is really hard to get good information and your article has been very helpful. Given the significant capital cost of changing to heat pumps or electric radiators I think waiting for things to settle down on electricity running costs might be the best option as there seem to be a lot of questions about the real ecological cost of HVO in the long term.
Thanks Sue. I’m curious to know more about the ecological effects. Could you please elaborate?
Great Article! I think that the HVO fuel is a great alternative if the government have plans to reduce its costs. I have occasionally bought some from this HVO renewable diesel provider. Also, I really like how you said that it could help the environment too! 🙂 Thanks for sharing this article with us!
[…] our system the way we did, we greatly reduced our CO2 emissions, and we published our results here. With the current levels of renewables around as part of the UK’s energy mix, electricity is […]