Gas or Electric fire

My friend as just had her Gas fire condemed and is now having to get a new one.
The problem is it's so old with the new regulations the hole at the back of the fire as got to be made bigger.
The cost will be about £250
Plus the cost of the new gas fire and the fitting etc.
Would it be so much more to run an electric fire as a back up to gas central heating and cutting out the building and fitting costs?

 

Thank you.
I didn't realise you had to have a special electric socket.
I thought you just plugged them in a normal one.
:o
I suppose it's like an electric cooker.

Thanks again .
I'll have a word with her.
But I'm almost sure she hasn't got a special fire plug socket, why would she?

 

My mistake sorry :dh:

 

I have no idea but those electric fan heaters use loads of electricity but don't know how similar they are :cnfs:

 

There are gas fires out there were 70% + of the heat goes into the room in fact there is one on this site which doesn't need a flue and 100% of the heat goes in the room.http://www.gasfires.net/
Iwould go for the gas fire optin with the threatened power cuts at least you would have one source of heat.

 

Thats a good idea Walnut. One I didn't think of. Imagine if the power were out for days u could freeze

 

Lyn - you can calculate the costs. Look at your bills and subtract the cost per Kwh of gas from the cost per kwh of electricity. That will be the extra cost per hour of a single bar electric fire over gas (assuming you get all the heat from the gas). You must look at the main tariff not the tariff for the first few units.

In my case, Electricity costs 11.48 and gas 2.89. So the extra is 8.59 pence per hour. I pay the same rate for all my units, so my figures may be a bit different from yours. If you run a single bar (1 Kwh) for 1 hour a day, 1 day in the month, and 1 month a year, the extra cost will be 8.59 pence.

Now multiply this figure up by your actual usage. This could be a two bar fire (ie 2 Kwh) run it for 4 hours a day, 30 days in a month, 4 months of the year, the extra cost will be £82.46 per year.

 

Thanks everyone, I'll pass it on to her.
She hasn't got a fire at all at the moment , just a hole in the wall.

About the power cuts.
We would also have no heat .
I'm sure our gas is worked by the electric.
I'm not sure if it can be lit by hand never tried.
I no the gas central heating is out because of the pump.

I didn't even no about any cuts.

What are they going to throw at us next.:(

 

We have a woodburner as backup to the oil central heating in the event of a power cut. It is a nice form of heat and wood can be free. We use the little electric halogen heaters for a bit of instant heat but I don't know how economical they are.

 

Movable Oil filled electric radiators are the business as a top up in a cold room. They are thermostatically operated and work well if combined with a plug in timer switch.

 

Regards flueless gas fires.... Basicly dont touch them..... If the combustion mecanism breaks you risk carbon monoxide poisoning. Have a search on the plumbers forum on the screwfix site. There have been deaths caused by them, If you already have one fit a carbon monoxide detector.

Personally id go electric, there is a gas fire in my house but I never use it as it makes a horrible smell being used iregularly due to it burning off the dust etc.

 

^^^ +1

Not worth the risk. We had one in our student house. Even if we could have afforded to use it, we wouldn't have.