Stoves, heat pumps or boilers? These are the best heating systems

BarcelonaWith the drop in autumn temperatures, most Catalan households have either already had to turn on the heating and stoves, or are about to do so. Faced with the rise in electricity and gas bills, however, now is a good time to consider which are the best systems to heat a home with the minimum possible consumption.

In this sense, a report by the Organization of Consumers and Users (OCU) published last week shows which systems are the most efficient in terms of energy consumption when in operation, but also during installation. In this aspect, every home is a world of its own and heat pump systems are the most effective for reducing bills, but at the same time, they are the most expensive to install, quite the opposite of the more traditional systems such as oil boiler heating and electric stoves.

The OCU study takes as a model a 90-square-meter home located in a municipality in climate zone D, which in the case of Catalonia is equivalent to most of the inland regions, such as those of Ponent, Central Catalonia, and the Pre-Pyrenees. The High Pyrenees area is colder (zone E), while the pre-coastal and coastal areas of Barcelona and Girona are zone C, which is warmer, and even more so the Tarragona coast, which is zone B.

Therefore, consumption calculations may vary depending on how cold it is in each municipality, taking into account that the majority of the Catalan population lives in areas located in zone C, that is, with higher average temperatures. The cost of installation, however, does not usually change as much, although large cities—especially Barcelona—tend to have higher prices.

Boiler or stoves

The difference between boilers –or radiators– and heaters is that the latter emit heat directly, while the former are used to heat water that travels through a closed circuit with radiators distributed throughout all the rooms of the house. Many new homes are already built with heating systems incorporated, but not all, and many old buildings do not have them. Installing a heating system in an already built apartment or house can have a very high cost, since it is necessary to run metal pipes everywhere. Thus, it is possible that, in apartments without installation, the easiest and cheapest thing is to opt for systems that do not require such work.

That said, boilers can present another problem, especially the older ones, which is energy inefficiency: "60% of the popular gas boilers installed in the European Union are inefficient, either because they are old or because they have not received proper maintenance over the years," assures the OCU.

This explains the appearance on the market of new systems, especially those that heat through the air, especially in new construction buildings.

Between 185 and 747 euros on the bill

Looking at consumption, having an air-to-air heat pump –the same one that can be used in summer as air conditioning– allows for an annual usage cost of 185 euros, the lowest of all options. The installation and the device cost about 2,640 euros, which means it is amortized within about four years compared to the most expensive option, which is electric heaters and heating with an oil boiler.

Aerothermal energy –that is, an air-to-water heat pump– is the second cheapest option, according to OCU calculations, with an annual cost of 270 euros. Despite this, the most expensive part is the installation of the system, which climbs to 10,700 euros, well above the rest of the options. This makes it the system that takes the longest to pay for itself compared to electric radiators and oil boilers: about 23 years.

These two systems are precisely among the most common in Catalan homes, but they are also the ones with the highest annual cost. In the case of heating with an oil boiler, consumers can pay about 747 euros each year for its use, to which must be added about 2,150 euros more to be paid at once, which is the average cost of the device. As for electric radiators, the total number of radiators to heat a 90-square-meter home has an average cost of 2,200 euros and their consumption over a year can increase the electricity bill by about 747 euros.

Another very common system throughout the country is natural gas heating, which cuts energy consumption down to 256 euros per year, significantly lower than radiators and oil heating. Compared to these systems, it is also notable that a natural gas condensing boiler costs on average 2,195 euros, a price very similar to oil boilers. It has the drawback, however, that natural gas piping has not yet reached most municipalities in the country, according to the Catalan Energy Institute (ICAEN).

Between the two extremes are electric storage heaters, which pay for themselves in 17 years, with a cost of 2,600 euros, and reduce the cost to 598 euros, still well above options like heat pumps but lower than electric radiators and oil boilers.

Finally, pellet stoves are also among the intermediate options, with an installation of 1,700 euros amortizable over six years and an annual consumption of 440 euros. One of the main problems with this technology is that the fuel takes up a lot of space and must be transported to the home. This makes it particularly unsuitable for small homes and tall buildings because the bags of pellets must be carried up, a case similar to that of butane gas cylinders.