Is gas heating worth it?

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sxz

569 posts

Ultimate Geek
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Topic # 142712 21-Mar-2014 13:46

My wife and I are considering installing a gas heater into our old decommissioned open-fire. We have gas piped to the house, but its currently disconnected as we have no appliances using it.

We are also toying with doing away with the old hot water cylinder and going for an infinity gas system.

100m2 house, one bathroom, so our requirements are minimal.

I'm told gas is more efficient then electricity, especially the infinity system, however, lines charges to have the gas piped to our house are about $1 per day which I would have thought negates any benefit - our power bill over summer has only been about $80 per month...

1. What are you experiences?
2. Do you think a gas fire is efficient?
3. Do you find a gas fire heats the house well?
4. Do you think infinity hot water is efficient?
5. Do you think infinity hot water provides enough pressure/heating?
6. In your experience do the savings from gas = to more than the lines charges the gas company charge?

Shot guys, cheers

MikeB4

Departed
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Uber Geek
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Reply # 1010609 21-Mar-2014 14:22

The advisory sites say that if you have reticulated gas to your home then flued gas heating is the most cost effective. As for Infinity water heaters we have one and it provides almost instant hot water without worrying about running out. A word of caution though, they do have big burners
so if one likes long showers it will cost a bit, if you limit your shower length to say around 7 minutes they don't cost much.

Mike
Retired IT Manager.
The views stated in my posts are my personal views and not that of any other organisation.

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geoffwnz

379 posts

Ultimate Geek
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Reply # 1010664 21-Mar-2014 15:40

We've got a very similar setup, approx 100m2 house, 1 bathroom, installed gas flame effect heater into open fireplace and replaced HWC with Infinity system.
Only difference was that we went with bottled gas (no existing gas connection although it's available in the street).
Gets rid of the line charges and the bottle rental is less than the line charges for the year.
Over Summer 1 bottle will last 8 weeks or more.
During Winter prior to fully insulating the house we could use up a bottle in 2 weeks. Now it's fully insulated the bottles last about a month during winter as we don't need to use the heater as much. Used to fire it up on full for an hour to generate heat then drop it down to low for the remainder of the evening. Now we go on full for an hour then turn it completely off for the rest of the evening.

Gas fire will chew through the gas if you use it a lot.
Due to the layout of our house it mainly heats only the living area and we don't really bother trying to get it to heat the hallway and bedrooms as such.
Infinity hot water seems to be quite efficient, particularly the always available aspect.
Pressure is more or less mains pressure hot. We used to have to pick between heat or pressure.
Didn't go on line gas for the reason of line charges.

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