With more freezing cold weather on the way again before February, households up and down the country are bracing for another bout of bitterly cold temperatures. Snow could hit the UK again later this month and even if it doesn’t, cold temperatures and the usual wintry conditions will mean our heating is running day in day out until we get closer to the spring.
Energy bills have gone up as well, with electricity costs in particular shooting up more than 5% in January after the latest Ofgem price cap pushed up electricity bills in particular. And energy supplier Utilita has issued a warning to households trying to keep warm by using electric heaters. The firm says that millions of households are pushing up their bills by using a plug-in heater instead of gas central heating.
While plug-in heaters are convenient – you can move them anywhere in the house and stick them on for a quick burst of heat instead of waiting for your boiler to warm the radiators – this convenience comes at a price.
As part of Utilita’s Power Price List series – which reveals the average running costs of 76 commonly used household electricals – its experts researched how many households with gas central heating still opt for an electric heater, despite the running costs ranging between 3-3.7 times more to heat one room.
It found that a ‘concerning’ 15% of those who opt for a plug-in heater over central heating claimed to do this all winter, opting to leave their central heating off completely.
Dimitrios Stefanoglou, sustainable innovation analyst at Utilita, said: “Around half (51%) of the households that use portable electric heaters said they would struggle to calculate the running costs of a heater versus using gas central heating for one room. So we have done the work for them.
“Plug-in heaters cost significantly more to operate – on average, running an electric portable heater will cost £3 per day, compared to just £0.90 per day for gas central heating. They cost between 3-3.7 times more to run, on average.
“Heating the average living room (17.1m²) with an electric portable heater would cost £400.46, compared to £136.17 a year with a 20-year-old boiler, or £108.65 with a new gas boiler equipped with smart controls.”
Utilita’s Power Price List is a database of the 76 most common household electrical items, revealing their average cost to run and when left in standby mode. The database looks at the impact on the pocket and the planet.
“Electric heaters are power hungry, so switching from gas heating to electric portable heaters will result in an additional 34 kg of CO₂ emissions per living room per year. This translates to each household driving 127 additional miles in a car.
Interested in consumer behaviours, the study also revealed what inspired their purchase of an electric heater. The majority of people either said a family member or friend had encouraged their purchase (39%), or that they had seen a TV advert (35%).”
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