We have our caravan on the drive at home at the moment and whilst it's not heated all of the time I do sometimes like to get a bit of peace from the rabble and read my book in there and I also like to be warm!
Given the price increase of electricity am I better off running the alde heating off the gas bottle?
I have no idea as we always use EHU so I've never questioned it before but as I can see my smart meter whirring around I thought I'd ask the experts!
We have a local gas dealer and we've just bought a gas bottle for £25 (with a £40 deposit) - he's fallen out with Calor but he's only about a mile away from us so really handy so we didn't mind paying the deposit for an easy life.
Any thoughts gratefully received!!
Many thanks
You could actually work this out. Your Alde manual should state gas use at grams/hr so from that you can work out cost compared kw/hr cost of electric. Ie if you run heating on mains at 2kw then you are using 2kw/hr.
I would guess though mains use will still be cheaper than bottled gas use particularly if you are using 6kg bottle.
Working with generally available figures and making a few assumptions.
6Kg Calor Propane cylinder refill circa £25 = £4.17/Kg. Electricity per kWh at new 2022 rates, average = £0.28
Alde Compact 3020 HE system.
Low setting gas 3.3Kw output = 245g/h consumption
High setting gas 5.5Kw output = 405g/h consumption
Low setting electric 2.1kW = 2.1kWh consumption
High setting electric 3.15kW = 3.15kWh consumption
Low setting would use £1.02 of gas per hour, or £0.59 of electricity.
High setting would use £1.69 of gas per hour, or £0.88 of electricity.
That of course is a totally theoretical running cost, assuming system runs continuously, whereas in reality it's likely the thermostat would trip the system in and out as required to maintain set temp, so not an actual per hour running cost, only a comparative figure. Of course there is a 12v usage of power for both gas and electric use, for pumps and control system etc. which will add slightly to the mains electric demand/cost.
So gas use is somewhere between 1.7 times and 1.9 times more expensive than electricity depending on settings. Not quite a like for like comparison in terms of heating perhaps, as the minimum gas power nearly equals the maximum electric power, but a fair usage cost comparison on min and max settings for either power source! For a more realistic figure, it's 1.2 times more expensive on gas for a comparable heating performance (there will be some wasted gas heat going out the flue which I haven't factored in, so perhaps 1.5 is more reasonable guess!).
Conclusion, Electric use is cheaper with a 6Kg cylinder. Of course if you used a larger Propane cylinder, then the cost per Kg of gas falls significantly to around £3/Kg for a 13Kg cylinder and even cheaper the bigger the cylinder, where for a huge 47Kg cylinder at £2.02/Kg it's much cheaper than electricity.
You do need to consider that the cylinder needs replacing from time to time, and heating gobbles gas, so worse case with the heating running flat out (it's more likely to be tripping in and out on the thermostat and so using less gas, therefore extending cylinder life in real world usage), on low setting you'd get around 24 hours use out of a full 6Kg cylinder, and on high around 14 hours.
Quote: Originally posted by Monty15 on 02/4/2022
Working with generally available figures and making a few assumptions.
6Kg Calor Propane cylinder refill circa £25 = £4.17/Kg. Electricity per kWh at new 2022 rates, average = £0.28
Alde Compact 3020 HE system.
Low setting gas 3.3Kw output = 245g/h consumption
High setting gas 5.5Kw output = 405g/h consumption
Low setting electric 2.1kW = 2.1kWh consumption
High setting electric 3.15kW = 3.15kWh consumption
Not sure of those figures are correct, but they do not look the same as the figures ALDE gave me when we went to the premises for our continuous flow. Where are there setting for high and low gas?
The settings for electric are definitely not correct as on all of the Compact 3020 HE models they are equipped with two 230 V electric elements with a maximum output of 3150w. Output element (2 or 3 kW): 230-240 V~: 1 × 1050 W + 1 × 2100 W.
Quote: Originally posted by Monty15 on 02/4/2022
Working with generally available figures and making a few assumptions.
6Kg Calor Propane cylinder refill circa £25 = £4.17/Kg. Electricity per kWh at new 2022 rates, average = £0.28
Alde Compact 3020 HE system.
Low setting gas 3.3Kw output = 245g/h consumption
High setting gas 5.5Kw output = 405g/h consumption
Low setting electric 2.1kW = 2.1kWh consumption
High setting electric 3.15kW = 3.15kWh consumption
Not sure of those figures are correct, but they do not look the same as the figures ALDE gave me when we went to the premises for our continuous flow. Where are there setting for high and low gas?
The settings for electric are definitely not correct as on all of the Compact 3020 HE models they are equipped with two 230 V electric elements with a maximum output of 3150w. Output element (2 or 3 kW): 230-240 V~: 1 × 1050 W + 1 × 2100 W.
Are they not exactly the figures I've quoted? I left out the Butane gas figures as irrelevant, and simplified the terminology.
The figures were taken from the same source you put link too.
I took Output 1 to be Low, and Output 2 to be High, similar to the system used on my caravan's Truma Combi system. Happy to be corrected, but can't see the error, the difference between Low and High (or Output 1 and 2) on electric is indeed using a single 2.1kW (2100W) element or boosted with second 1.05kW (1050W) element to give 3.15kW (3150W) total, as stated for power, but without the element detail which serves no useful purpose in the calculations.
If I am wrong, please do correct me, never above having my errors pointed out, and happy to adjust calculations as necessary to give true answer to OP question.
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Topic: Cost of caravan heating
via mobile 01/4/2022 at 6:26pm
