Ask Our Expert

How do I switch central heating from oil to gas?

Our energy expert says...

Wanting to switch from oil to gas is more common than you’d think and it could well work out to be the cheapest option for you.

However there are significant costs involved in making your house gas-ready and these vary on where exactly you live.

Basically the main cost will be down to whether your house is anywhere near the gas mains.

To find this out you’ll have to ring your local gas distribution network.

If you don’t know the number for your local gas distribution network, you can easily find it on the internet or in the local yellow pages. They are the people you’d ring if you had a gas leak or something so they will probably be quite prominent.

Is this common?

You would imagine that most people are already on a gas network but there is actually quite a high number of people who are not.

For example most hamlets and a lot of villages are not on a network and even some estates on the edges of towns are not on a network.

According to research from Consumer Focus, 36% of rural homes do not have a gas supply, compared with 5% of urban homes (not including London).

In hamlets, 65% of homes do not have a gas supply.

According to Consumer Focus, 4.5 million households in Great Britain are off the mains gas grid and rely on a variety of domestic fuels or electricity to heat their home.

Of these people 1.5m use oil and 150,000 use Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG), the rest will use something like electricity or coal.

How much will it cost to hook up to the mains?

It can be quite complicated if you want to hook up to the mains.

For example, if the mains network is at the end of your drive it will cost around £500 to be connected.

However, the further away you live from the mains, the higher the cost will be to connect.

It can end up costing about £4,000 pounds to be connected.

For example, Wales & West Utilities is the GDN for Wales and the West of England.

Broadly speaking their charges are:

Within 23 miles: £550

Within 1km in an estate of village, where around 80% of residents wish to connect: more than £4,000.

If the mains are at the end of the drive, all the gas company has to do is lay some pipe and you’re away. But if you’re further than that they have to extend the pipeline so it becomes a lot of work for them to do.

Then what?

For anyone who is not on gas but wants to be connected you will need the connection to the grid first of all.

Then you’ll need a new boiler, which will cost approximately £3,000, and a central heating system – radiators etc.

Be warned however that this work will be done separately by a plumber, and financed separately as well. You will not get anyone to do the whole job in one go I’m afraid.

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If you have an energy query please email ourexpert@energychoices.co.uk