Fred James

Unless you have a free supply of wood, a wood burner costs even more than electricity.

Decent wood can cost up to 100 euros a cubic metre.

The cheapest form of electric heating, as Twyntub says, is an aircon unit.

Lionda

We have a wood burner - and a free supply of wood open the top of the wood burner and it's perfect for baking jacket potatoes

twyntub

Good house design is the best place to start, but difficult to retro-fit. Excellent insulation means that a house will stay cool in summer and hot in winter, just like a Thermos flask.

Sadly, the UK falls way behind most of Northern Europe on insulation, and Spain falls way behind the UK!

Walk into a modern house in, say, Switzerland - and even though it's 10 degrees below outside, you can safely put your hand on a radiator and find it's just 'warm' - so small is the heat required to maintain a comfortable temperature.

With regards the storage heater idea - a 'typical' storage heater will heat bricks until they are at the point of glowing. Your solar system will be fine for a little domestic hot water - but the lower delta-T means you'd probably need an awful lot of stored water for overnight heat.

bil

Well, I figure if the heat runs in during the day, then it will be warmed in advance, and the whole room can act partly as a storage heater in its own right.

If you made a container up with pipes running in a bed of sand, how much heat energy could be stored?

At the very least I figure I can give us all free hot showers, even if it's only when the sun shines.

Mitzyboy

We get a wheelbarrow of olive wood for €15, and orange wood for €10. This seems to last us the best part of a month as we dont put it on until 7 pm.

I think I mentioned earlier in the thread, what I save on electricity I may pay out in logs but its much nicer having the log fire burning.

I think I made an error in judging my electricity over a month in winter. I'll be interested to see what it costs me over the year, as hopefully my leccy / log bill will drop in a few months

bil

Well, sensible use of a woodburner does eke the wood out, far more than using it on an open fire.

If you do burn on an open fire, don't use a grate, but burn the wood on an ash bed.

Personally I find it very hard to believe that electricity would work out cheaper than a wood burner. I must admit I'm in love with ours. I cook baked sweet potatoes in its oven, and casseroles on the top.

twyntub

It's all down to delta-T really. Because it's a low delta-T you need a high surface area in order to transfer heat from the water to the sand, and then again from the sand back again. Plus it will need to be kept insulated!

You could use something other than water... perhaps kerosene?

Mitzyboy

I dont think it is probably bil ....... its all swings and roundabouts.
But at least I'm seeing something for my money as well as feeling it

jdr

Why not burn all the pallets that are left about ?

twyntub

And the tyres... and all the other crap that's left lying around... in fact just have an incinerator in your garden and a tunnel dug underneath the local bin to feed it

jdr

We used to burn anything on ours in the UK, I think we are the ones that caused global warming. ;-))

couchpotato

There was an earlier quote of bottle gas going up in Spain to just over 12 euros. a similar bottle in the Uk is now £23.50. We use bottle gas for cooking and water and have a portable gas fire for those cooler evenings in winter .

Oh.....forgot to mention got a supply of thick sweaters as well!

Back in the Uk our oil bill is £90 per month and electricity around £75 so in our experience Spain is certainly no dearer than the Uk but as our average daytime temperature is around 17 degrees currently and 10 at night can't really compare with the cold of the Southern part of Uk let alone up north where it is generally much colder.

jo-ann

I think you will find a bottle of gas is now 13 euros, at least it is where we live, its almost doubled in price in 4 years!!!!!!

bil

Well, my energy bills here in the UK are quite high. I haven't lived continuously in Spain for long enough to compare the general costs of living. All I can say is that my neighbour in Spain can get by on 200 euros a week for EVERYTHING.

Here in the UK, I need three times that, and that's without running a car!

Lynn R

Back in the UK we were paying 49 pounds a month for gas and electricity, and the last year we were there (2006) it was so cold that we had to have our central heatiing on in August.

2007 was our first full year in Spain. We use gas for cooking and a portable gas heater in winter, and we bought a total of 4 gas bottles throughout the whole year - about 48€ in total. We only needed to use the gas heater for a couple of hours at night, for 2-3 months of the year all together.

We have never had an electricity bill of more than 59€ for two months. We use electricity for heating water (with the water heater on a timer), a bathroom heater which gets used just whilst I take a shower on the coldest days, a small electric fan heater which gets used in the bedroom whilst I get ready for bed in the coldest months, and all the usual electric appliances - kettle, microwave, fridge/freezer, washing machine (only ever used with cold water, it works just as well provided you use liquid detergent not powder), TV, stereo, 2 Sky boxes which are on 24/7, hairdryer, etc. We don't have a tumble dryer, air conditioning or a pool.

Our house is a traditional townhouse with very thick walls which seems to stay reasonably cool in summer and not too freezing in wiinter. Last summer the daytime temperature in the house never rose above 28C and so far this winter the indoor temperature hasn't gone below 16C - from memory in winter 2006 it went down to 14C on a few days. The house is detached so has windows on all 4 sides, in summer we keep all the windows open with the persianas down, just close the windows and shutters on the south facing side in the afternoons and open them again when the sun goes down, and in winter the windows are open from about 10am until the sun goes down.

So gas/electric costs are much, much cheaper for us in Spain than they were in the UK.