We’ve put together loads of heating comparison tables over the years, with prices per unit of fuel and kWh per unit, but we thought it might be useful to write a blog in practical terms everyone understands. What does each heating fuel cost to run over the course of a year and therefore what is the cheapest way to heat your home?
These cost estimates come from Sutherland tables and are based on the example of space and water heating for a 3 bedroom house in South East England. Bear in mind that the prices of fuels will tend to be vary somewhat across the UK.
Another thing to take into account is sustainability. What is cheap will not necessarily be what is good for the planet!
So lets kick off – what is the cheapest way to heat your home?
The cost of heating your home with electricity (standard tariff)
Electric radiators, DHW cylinder with immersion heater
Assumed 90% off-peak usage.
Annual cost: £1838
Electricity (Economy 7)
If used correctly, Economy 7 can be a cost-effective way to run storage heaters. The cheap rate relies on you charging your heaters at night with energy from coal power plants (which can’t be switched off). This said, Economy 7 will not be around forever, due to the decommissioning of the UK’s coal plants and nuclear power plants – therefore we would probably looks to replace storage heaters with another type of electric heating rather than installing costly like for like replacements that may become redundant in the next few years.
Storage heaters and electric fire, DHW cylinder with immersion heater
Annual cost: £1054
The cost of heating your home with gas (British Gas)
Single tier rate
Gas is generally much the cheapest form of heating, but its cost depends on a number of factors, including your supplier, tariff and boiler.
Condensing boiler, radiators and DHW cylinder
Annual cost: £769
The cost of heating your home with gas (alternative supplier)
Direct debit
Condensing boiler, radiators and DHW cylinder
Annual cost: £766
The cost of heating your home with LPG propane (bulk)
Boiler, radiators and DHW cylinder
Annual cost: £1279
Condensing boiler, radiators and DHW cylinder
Annual cost: £1056
The cost of heating your home with oil
The main thing that makes heating oil different is that it is stored onsite rather than coming from the grid. The price of oil hasn’t changed for a few years now, and is currently quite cheap. This being said, it could change at any minute – and no-one can say how much by .
Boiler, radiators and DHW cylinder
Annual cost: £700
Condensing boiler, radiators and DHW cylinder
Annual cost: £576
The cost of heating your home with a ground source heat pump
Underfloor DHW cylinder with immersion heater
Annual cost: £709
The cost of heating your home with an air source heat pump
Underfloor DHW cylinder with immersion heater
Annual cost: £827
The cost of heating your home with wood pellets
A sustainable fuel burned in a biomass boiler. The amount of carbon dioxide released during combustion was actually absorbed while the tree was growing, so wood pellets are essentially carbon neutral. A biomass boiler works in a similar way to an ordinary boiler, but it is bigger because it has to hold the wood pellets. It’s probably easiest to store these at your property. Maintenance is easy – just empty the ash from time to time and put it on the compost heap.
Pellet boiler, radiator and DHW cylinder
Annual cost: £992
The cost of heating your home with house coal
This one’s pretty straightforward – you probably know how it works. An open fire is a lovely thing in many ways, but coal is a relatively expensive option.
Open fire with back boiler, radiators and DHW cylinder
Annual cost: £1266
The cost of heating your home with anthracite nuts
Anthracite is a hard coal containing relatively pure carbon which burns with relatively little smoke. It has a high heat output and is slightly cheaper to run than house coal, due to its greater efficiency.
Room heater with back boiler, radiators and DHW cylinder
Annual cost: £1143
So what is the cheapest way to heat your home?
Here’s the list of heating fuels, starting with the cheapest:
- Heating oil with condensing boiler
- Heating oil with non-condensing boiler
- Gas (alternative supplier) with condensing boiler
- Ground source heat pump
- Gas (British Gas) with condensing boiler
- Air source heat pump
- Wood pellets
- Economy 7 storage heaters
- LPG propane with condensing boiler
- Anthracite nuts
- House coal
- LPG and non-condensing boiler
- Electric (standard tariff)
This is not an exhaustive list so feel free to get in touch if you have any questions about other forms of heating!
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[…] What is the cheapest central heating system to run? […]
You don’t even mention one of the most cost effective heating systems of all – electric ceiling radiant panels., Experts say, that for equivalent comfort, they use 40% of the energy of an electric convector heater. They are virtually 100% efficient, no noise or fumes, no maintenance, no tuning nor annual servicing. And natures own heat, like the sun.
Great information! It would be good to have an updated version as its nearly 5 years old.if possible.
Many thanks
I heat a 4 bedroom detached house on Coal, over the last 4 years I average a cost of £825 a year. I can’t work out where you get your figures, I used to be on mains gas at an average of £975 a year and the house had damp issues that went away with a solid fuel fire.
If you’ve wood pellet burner try newspaper logs get old newspapers soak then press then into bricks or logs let them dry out till they become hard as iron then burn them cheapest form of fuel or try pest when dried. Try it
heating oil may be the cheapest but there’s no way I’d choose it unless I had no other option – ugly and terrible for the environment!
What about using Air Conditioning for heating? I believe that the best condensing gas boilers are around 90% efficient whilst Air Conditioning will provide heat at a massive 500% efficiency. Personally we have had 3 warm winters without switching our oil boiler on at all. There is of course the additional benefit of cool air in summer which we appreciate is an additional cost but rather nice!. Regarding Domestic Hot Water ours is provided by an Air to water Thermo Dynamic system….. essentially a outdoor refrigeration panel rather like the rear of a fridge or freeze, (working in ‘reverse’ by extracting the heat from the natural airflow across the panel. The differential temperature across the panel makes the system ‘refrigerate’ thus producing heat from the refrigerant gas compressor which is then extracted to heat our water & pumped into the copper cylinder. Only real cost of that is the small amount of electricity to keep things moving around the system… Compressor + water pump.
The efficiency of a Air Conditioning system on Heater mode can’t be above 100%.
Nonsense
A heat pump that runs 15 seer is usually about 10 in Heating mode. I live in Kansas City and it’s just not efficient enough but obviously great Britain is warmer in the winter.
Hes presented the info incorrectly; in a reverse cycle the unit will input approx 5kw heat into the room for 1kw of electrical energythe room used to run it ; the unit is taking available energy from the air & dumoing it into room
Reverse cycle aircon is very expensive to run.
my air source heat pump cost me £890 in 3 weeks electricity…..total rubbish and having it checked out but if they saying its running fine then i am having the lot ripped out and a new oil fired boiler fitted.
Wood burner with Wood from free source…. hunter gatherer style.
Chopping up a fallen tree in return for half the logs etc
They haven’t got the solid fuel burner with back boiler option.
I can heat my home properly (Windows open letting fresh air in) using between 5-10 kg of coal a day depending on ambient temperture our detatched home gets that hot I have to open the windows even when it is freezing outside; coal is £250 a tonne…………