Chris

I chatted with a local authority housing officer a good few years ago about ‘wet electric’ boilers, which he had had installed in some council houses that were off mains gas. They exist, they work, but they’re expensive to run. Some larger houses require a three-phase supply when they have an electric boiler because the boiler by itself can be drawing as much power as a standard single phase domestic supply could handle. Some premises with a big heat demand but where three-phase power was impractical, had smaller boilers installed which proved to be inadequate. They were removed.

I’ve seen them installed in flats and caravans and in those small situations they work ok. But if you’re going to use electricity to heat a house, these days you really ought to be installing a heat pump. A wet electric boiler will draw 10kW of electricity and deliver slightly less than 10 kW of heat to the house. A heat pump will draw 4kW of electricity and deliver 10kW or more in heat. It’s a no-brainer.