Electric heating
 

Hello,
just wondering if anyone could tell me how an electric heated house compares cost wise to gas or fuel. I just visited a house in the Gers wit elec. heat....nice house but to convert to radiant heat would make it expensive.
With the Gers being fairly warm and the house facing south it shouldn't require too much heat but still....
Thanks

Re: Electric heating
 

How about woodburners? They work very well, and are quite economical.
From what little I know, electric is expensive. Also what level of insulation?

Re: Electric heating
 

We have friends who live in the Gers, it is true that they still eat their meals in the garden in November/December, but come Jan/Feb they have two fires lit for most of the day.

Re: Electric heating
 

warm!! last feb was -15 for a week! At the moment it s cold and several layers of clothes weather... we are VERY frugal with our heating but are prepared to live in a house at 15 - 18°C (max and very rare!) If you want to heat a house well assume heating on as per uk from end of November to end of Feb:)

Re: Electric heating
 

I suspect the OP is like us and hasn't over-wintered in the area. This is one of the main reasons we're coming back to our house at the end of this month (we originally planned to arrive just after Christmas, but couldn't do that). We want to experience living in the place in the coldest part of the year while we can still afford to renovate it as necessary.

Re: Electric heating
 

Always difficult to compare heating and regions where winter is not always a known quantity. A check/search of Gers weather may help (some info posted already). But, I tend to go with Biggsie here regarding a woodburner option. France is keen on wood as a heating source and it is not expensive, in our part. Stove always has a psychological effect when sitting at night. Our flat top means you can roast chestnuts:D. Yum yum.
Our part is a microclimate and winters are not fierce, but a singe woodburner manages to heat us, with one electric radiator in a bathroom on low to take the whoopee factor out of going to the loo at night:lol:.
Agree elec is costly, so any way of cutting cost has to be investigated. Our area uses lots of roof solar power for hot water and I guess pools.
If you can speak with the Marie, or locals if that is possible.

Re: Electric heating
 

Thanks for the messages.
I guess even with a wood burner I will need to do work on the house for exhaust and so on. Although the house is only around 25 years old it's not very good rated in energy efficiencey.
I expected that I need to heat quite a bit during the winter.....i just call the climate warm because where I live it's snow covered since October 22nd.:ohmy:
And I don't like cold houses.
From what I heard the power rates aren't straight forward either, with people using even timers for some electric appliances. The view is very nice but perhaps I keep looking for another house before I spend a lot of money on converting.

Re: Electric heating
 

I'm interested to learn where you live. The Richmond Hill in my location is the one just north of Toronto in Canada. It's -16C outside at the moment but snow since late October? Bloody hell.

Re: Electric heating
 

Well, we live near the town of Olds. Approx 75km north of Calgary. This was a fairly early start of winter and usually we get some strong chinook winds during the winter to warm everything up for a few days at a time. But this year we haven't seen that, on the other hand we havent seen extreme cold this winter either....3 nights of -28 was the coldest. usually the soil starts to freeze up in the first days of November....
The nice thing about winter here is that the days are bright and we can see the rockies from our place.
Biggest problem here is that the spring is so darn late (May). Have seen snowflakes every month of the year except July.

Re: Electric heating
 

How many times have I read that? And of course it's a dry cold. ;)

Do you have some connection to France and Gers in particular or is it just time to move on?

Edit: I knew I'd seen your username somewhere before and on checking your posting history I came across your first post from last September. I'm glad that you're getting close to a decision. Best of luck with it all.

Re: Electric heating
 

We're not far from Gers, about 15 mins and yes it got to -16 last year.

We have a woodburner that does our kitchen/dining room (we move into here for the winter)

We have electric heating in the front room, I had a colleague here so we had to keep this going for longer than normal, and electric heating in the bathroom and 3 bedrooms.

By the end of winter we will have used 400e worth of wood and I think our last leccy bill was about 250e for two months. I expect this to creep up a little. I think in the summer it's about 180e

We also use an oil burner in my office and the hallway that runs at 25e a week! If we don't put it on in the hallway the core of the house gets cold. How I wished we bought a smaller house and one with insulation. We plan to put another wood burner in the hallway.

Re: Electric heating
 

Well 250 euro for 2 month isn't all that bad. But one thing I noticed when we stayed in chambre d"hotes was that the walls of these beautiful restored houses felt damp....in July, and these houses werent located in low shady spots.
Novocastrian, I think it's just time to move on. No special ties to the Gers but we think it's just a great combination of things we are looking for. Although, since I have an app of the "Sud-ouest" journal on my phone I noticed that even in Auch there are a number of thefts lately. The Gers was listed as the area with the 2nd lowest crime rate in France.
There is definitely something to be said about dry cold.....when I was in Auch this November it felt quite chilly in the morning and it was around 0 degrees.....om the other hand, at christmas it was 40 degrees warmer in the Gers than here....

Re: Electric heating
 

Hi,
It is possible, albeit often expensive, to insulate a house once it's been built. Obviously loft insulation, if not already done, is usually an easy option, and not very costly if done DIY. Replacing the windows with proper, serious double-glazed ones makes a real difference. It is also possible to insulate walls from the outside, apparently very effectively, but this also requires a professional. If the house is your résidence principale then tax breaks are available:
http://www.impots.gouv.fr/portal/dgi...tstandard_2571
so there's no reason to despair and wish you hadn't done what you actually did:)
PB

Re: Electric heating
 

thanks for that. Don't think we can insulate the walls as they are solid stone and really it's only the back wall that is exposed. The side walls are attached to other properties and the front is under a covered walkway.
But I am keen to put some down in the loft. But with my poor French (google ;) ) it looks like I need to get pro to do it to get the tax break. I'll tlak to my accountant to find out how I go about it.

The double glazing is a good one. The house is centuries old so we we would want to keep the character. But some friends have just had some windows put in that keep the character. So we will get their number.

Re: Electric heating
 

I'm in the woodburner fan club too.

We have owned our house for over 22 years but until we started coming in the winter we had no idea that Provence could be so cold and that electric radiators and an open fire were just not enough!

A few years ago we had an insert put in the fireplace on the ground floor with ducts opening into the salon (first floor) and our bedroom (second floor). Prior to that we had replaced all our north (Mistral) facing windows with traditional style double glazed ones. When we came to live permanently, 10 years ago, we converted the top floor, a former silkworm farm. We had insulation put into the roof and insulated the north facing walls. For all of this we were able to get a grant. and tax rebates

We had the exsisting electric radiators replaced with storage heaters that work during the heures cruz but give out heat whenever we need it

We use about 6 stères of wood per winter at €60.00 a stère - reduced if we buy the whole lot in one go . The neighbour from whom we get it is happy to store it for us and deliver as and when.

Our electricity bills have nearly halved so we feel that the time, money and effort involved has been worth it

We would have loved solar panels but we are in a "Plus beau village" commune and it is not permitted.

It is worth getting expert advice and estimates and also to ask neighbours.