Looking for help,i have just took seasonal pitch but have to pay for electricity which is 13 pence per unit would it be cheaper to heat caravan with gas any ideas help appreciated
Just taken a look at that thread. When we had a caravan years ago (1975 - 1990) very few sites had electric and it was generally on a meter. Our caravan didn't have it at all. We were quite surprised when we returned to caravanning in 2013 and found the meters had gone! Haven't seen a site with meters on since. Electricity is usually included these days, which is why we usually take a convector heater with us if we are likely to need heating. We have a gas heater, but why use it if we are paying for electricity anyway?
We were also surprised to find that the method of charging had changed quite a bit too. We had been used to sites where they charged for a pitch, and what you put on it and how many people was up to you, providing you didn't have more people than your unit was designed for.
Quote: Originally posted by moorlander999 on 01/5/2019
I didn't think that sites could ''re-sell'' electricity...I thought they had to be a registered utility ?
They can re-sell electricity, but there are regulations as to how much they can charge for it, which is why I suspect most sites these days don't charge for it directly. They just have pitches without electric or pitches with. The pitches with electricity being more expensive of course. That gets round the legislation, as they aren't selling electricity as such. Just a "facility".
If they were to meter and sell the electricity by the kilowatt they would be energy suppliers just like British Gas etc.
The consumers (caravanners) would also have to have the right to choose which supplier they wished to use. That would be very difficult to manage on a caravan site.
Quote: Originally posted by Doll3r on 16/10/2022
Hi
We have just got a seasonal pitch and we are paying 20p a unit is electric still cheaper to heat the van in the winter
Thanks
That is surprisingly cheap probably as the site is in contract to a supplier however when their contract ends expect a huge jump in the price.
Perhaps not such a straightforward question as first appearances would suggest, the cost of gas per kW/h is easy to calculate, BUT the consumption of gas versus electricity is dependent on the individual appliances in the van. Quite often fridge and heating have a higher comparative consumption (and power output) on gas than electricity, it's probably to do with ensuring the appliances are compatible with limitations of EHU supplies.
There are lots of conflicting conversion figures of a litre of Propane to kWh out on the WWW, I've taken FloGas's figures of 7.08 kWh (https://www.flogas.co.uk/frequently-asked-questions/gas-conversions). Taking a typical cost of a 6Kg Propane refill as £37, that works out at £0.87 per kWh (or unit, to compare with electricity) (£37/6 = £6.17/Kg, £6.17/7.08 = £0.87/kWh). The bigger the gas cylinder, the less the cost per Kg of gas, so a 13Kg cylinder would be £0.64/kWh.
Not sure we've seen any price increases for LPG yet, that may be still to come and would obviously change the figures to an even more unfavourable rate! It's still looking like electricity is by far the cheapest energy source compared to smaller (portable) Propane cylinders.
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Topic: CARAVAN HEATING, Gas or Electric
via mobile 30/4/2019 at 8:22am
