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Comment by stuaxo

13 hours ago

What did you heat with before?

Electric resistive heating, which is the main power source here (all hydro, until recently). Plus a wood stove in case of power cuts. We used that one quite a bit during cold spells before the heatpump came along. Now not much at all.

Certainly not gas or oil, which are still cheaper to heat with than heat pumps.

  • Oil heating has usually been the most expensive way to heat in the UK, on par with resistive-electric.

  • Hm? Around here oil was never been in the same (low) order of magnitude. Those who installed oil heaters many decades ago regretted it quickly. And it's been illegal to use them for a couple of decades as well now. Gas has never been an option in my region, there's no infrastructure for that. We have used gas in Japan until now, but even that we'll be phasing out (I live in two places)

  • Modern heat pumps are cheaper than oil for heating just about everywhere. They're cheaper than natural gas in most places, unless electricity prices where you live are particularly high.