Home Heating Cost Calculator: How Much Does It Cost to Run Your Heating Per Hour?

Almost nobody knows what their heating costs per hour. They know what the quarterly bill is, usually with a grimace, but the per-hour figure, which is the number that would actually change how people behave, is almost never visible.

A gas central heating system for a typical UK semi-detached home costs somewhere between 60p and £1.20 per hour to run. Electric radiators cost far more. Heat pumps much less per unit of heat delivered. But the exact figure for your home depends on your system, your energy rate, your boiler’s age and efficiency, how well-insulated your walls and loft are, and how many rooms you are actually heating versus how many are warm because nobody remembered to turn a valve.

This calculator shows the per-hour figure for your specific setup, alongside the daily, monthly, and annual cost, and what each of those numbers looks like once the behavioural patterns that inflate most heating bills are factored in.

Who Is This Calculator For?

It is for anyone who wants to understand what their heating actually costs rather than just receiving a quarterly bill and accepting the number. Most useful if you are:

• Someone who has no idea what their heating costs per hour and wants to know the number that would actually change their day-to-day decisions, the calculator shows this prominently in the live ticker at the top of the heating section
• Anyone trying to reduce their heating bill without making the house uncomfortable, the room-by-room breakdown shows exactly which spaces are costing most, and the thermostat panel shows what each degree of reduction saves annually
• Someone on electric heating: electric radiators and storage heaters cost far more per hour than gas, and the gap is wider than most people on electric realise until they see the figure in black and white
• Anyone who has wondered whether it is cheaper to leave the heating on all day or turn it off when they go out, the calculator has a specific comparison for this built in, and the answer differs by heating type
• Someone considering a heat pump who wants to compare the running cost of their current system against a heat pump alternative with realistic inputs rather than generic estimates
• Anyone who heats rooms they’re not using and wants to see what that costs annually, selecting only the rooms you actually use shows the wasted cost directly.

Who Is This Calculator Not Suitable For?

• Anyone wanting precise figures from their energy meter or smart meter. The calculator models your heating cost based on your inputs and UK average heat loss parameters. For a precise measurement of actual energy consumed, your smart meter’s in-home display or your energy supplier’s app is the right tool. This calculator gives you a realistic estimate for planning and comparison purposes, not a meter reading.
• Anyone looking for advice on specific boiler models, heat pump installations, or insulation quotes. This is a cost modelling tool. It does not assess the condition of your specific system or building. For installation quotes or technical surveys, a registered heating engineer or an EPC assessor is the right starting point.

How to Use the Home Heating Cost Calculator

Start with the heating system section. Select your heating type, this is the single most important input because it determines both the energy rate logic and the efficiency calculation. Set your energy rate per kWh: the current UK approximate averages are around 7p for gas and 24p for electricity, but your actual rate may be higher or lower depending on your tariff. The calculator adjusts automatically for heat pump efficiency (applying a CoP of approximately 3) and boiler efficiency losses for gas and oil systems.

Set the thermostat, the hours your heating runs per day, the days per week, and the months per year. The live ticker underneath immediately shows the per-hour and per-day cost as you adjust, alongside the live saving from dropping the thermostat by one degree, which updates in real time as you change the temperature setting.

The room selector in the second section is where the calculation gets specific. All rooms start as unselected. Click to add the rooms you regularly heat, and the calculator shows both the per-room-per-hour cost and the annual cost for each room. If you have whole-house heating switched on but only select the rooms you actually use, the wasted cost panel shows exactly what is being spent on spaces nobody is sitting in.

The home characteristics section covers floor area, insulation, glazing, and draught severity, all of which affect the heat loss calculation and therefore the running cost. The behavioural questions shape the multiplier that shows what the bill tends to be versus what the thermostat and hours settings alone would suggest.

How Much Does Heating Cost Per Hour in the UK?

This is the most searched heating question in the UK every winter, and the answer varies more than most people realise.

Gas central heating is the cheapest common option for whole-house heating. A typical UK gas boiler outputs 8 to 12kW. At around 7p per kWh and 85% efficiency, that works out to roughly 65p to 99p per hour of running time. For a typical UK home running the heating for six hours a day, the daily gas cost is approximately £3.90 to £5.94.

Electric radiators are much more expensive per hour. A single 2kW electric radiator costs around 48p per hour at 24p per kWh. A home with six electric radiators running together costs approximately £2.88 per hour, three to four times the gas equivalent for the same heat output. Over six heating hours per day, the daily cost is £17.28.

Heat pumps are the most efficient electric heating option by a large margin. Because they move heat rather than generate it, a well-installed heat pump delivers roughly three units of heat for every unit of electricity consumed, a coefficient of performance (CoP) of around 3. At 24p per kWh, the effective cost per kWh of useful heat is around 8p, making heat pumps roughly similar to gas on running cost despite the higher electricity rate.

Oil and LPG sit roughly between gas and electric in running cost, with prices that fluctuate more than gas or electricity and depend heavily on when the tank was last filled.

The calculator adjusts for all of these automatically when you select your system type, which is why the heating type dropdown has the largest single effect on the output.

Is It Cheaper to Leave the Heating On All Day or Turn It Off When You Go Out?

This is probably the most misunderstood heating question in the UK, and the answer genuinely depends on what type of system you have.

For gas and oil heating: turn it off when you leave. The argument for leaving gas heating on low all day, that it costs more to heat a cold house back up than to maintain a steady temperature, is largely a myth for gas systems. Gas boilers heat homes back up to temperature in 20 to 30 minutes, and the energy consumed during reheat is far less than the energy consumed maintaining temperature continuously for eight to ten hours while nobody is home. The Energy Saving Trust and the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers both confirm that responsive heating on a timer is cheaper than continuous low-level heating for gas systems.

For heat pumps: it is more complicated. Heat pumps are the genuine exception to this rule. They operate most efficiently at low, steady temperatures and least efficiently when cycling on and off a lot to raise the temperature sharply. For a well-insulated home with a heat pump, maintaining a constant lower temperature, rather than allowing the house to cool completely and then reheating, can be more efficient. The optimal strategy depends on the specific system and the building’s heat retention, which is why the calculator provides a system-specific comparison rather than a single answer.

For electric radiators: turn them off. Electric systems heat up quickly and there is no efficiency argument for running them when nobody is in the room. Timers and thermostatic controls that operate each radiator independently, rather than a single central thermostat, are the most effective way to control electric heating costs.

The calculator’s on/off comparison panel gives the answer for your specific system type based on your inputs, so you get the right answer for your home rather than a generic one.

The Thermostat Degree Nobody Talks About

Reducing the thermostat by one degree is one of the most cited energy saving measures in the UK. It is also one of the most underestimated in terms of what it actually delivers.

The standard figure from energy advisers is approximately 8% to 10% of the heating portion of your bill saved per degree of reduction. On a £1,000 annual heating cost, one degree saves £80 to £100. On a £1,500 bill, it saves £120 to £150. Two degrees saves double that.

The reason most households do not do this is thermal comfort, the house feels slightly cooler and the instinct is to turn it back up. The simple changes that make this sustainable are: adding a layer of clothing (a jumper reduces the felt temperature need by roughly 2°C), using a heated blanket or electric throw during sitting periods, and ensuring the rooms you actually occupy are genuinely warm while those you are not in are kept at a lower temperature through TRVs.

The calculator shows the 1°C saving figure live in the heating section ticker, updating as you move the thermostat slider. For most UK households the number is larger than expected, which is what makes it the most attention-getting output in the tool.

The Room You Are Not In: How Much Heating Unused Spaces Costs

This is one of the most common and least-examined sources of excess heating expenditure in UK homes.

When a gas boiler fires, it heats the whole system. If the spare bedroom has a radiator with no thermostatic valve and the heating is on, the spare bedroom gets warm whether anyone is sleeping in it or not. The energy used to heat that room is genuinely wasted, nobody benefits from it, it contributes nothing to comfort, and it costs exactly the same per hour as heating the living room where the family is actually sitting.

For a typical four-bedroom semi-detached home, the spare bedroom might represent 8% to 12% of the total heated floor area. On a £1,200 annual heating bill, that is £96 to £144 per year spent warming a room that sits empty most of the time.

Thermostatic radiator valves fix this. Fitting a TRV to the spare bedroom radiator, which costs around £15 to £30 per radiator to fit yourself, lets you set that room to frost protection level (around 7°C) rather than the full thermostat temperature. The radiator stays off unless the room would genuinely freeze, and the heat that would have gone there goes nowhere, saving it entirely.

The room selector in the calculator makes this visible directly. Select only the rooms you regularly occupy and the wasted cost panel shows what is being spent on the rest, annually, in a single figure. For most households with multiple bedrooms, the number tends to be in the range of £80 to £250 per year.

Electric Heating vs Gas: The Price Gap Most People Underestimate

The cost difference between electric and gas heating is wider than most people on electric heating have ever calculated, and it is much wider than it feels when you are adjusting a thermostat or switching on a radiator.

At current UK rates: approximately 7p per kWh for gas and 24p for electricity, the raw energy cost ratio is roughly 3.4 to 1. Once boiler efficiency losses are factored in for gas (reducing effective efficiency to around 85%), the real ratio for useful heat delivered is closer to 2.8 to 1. A home spending £800 per year on gas central heating would typically spend £2,240 to run the equivalent electric radiator coverage.

For people on electric heating, which includes a large proportion of UK flats and properties without a gas connection, this premium is unavoidable without a system change. The most effective interventions for electric heating users within the existing system are: ensuring every radiator has an individual thermostat so rooms can be independently controlled; using programmable or smart controls so rooms are only heated when occupied; and using supplemental direct heating (a portable electric heater in the room you are in) rather than heating the whole property for the benefit of one person.

The calculator handles the efficiency adjustment automatically when electric is selected, so the cost-per-hour figure reflects what you are actually paying for the heat you are getting, not just the raw energy consumption.

Gas Boiler Efficiency: What the Percentage on Your Boiler Actually Means

Most people with a gas boiler have never looked at the efficiency rating and would not know where to find it. It matters for running cost.

A modern condensing gas boiler achieves around 90% to 94% efficiency, meaning 90 to 94 pence of every pound spent on gas actually becomes heat in your home. The remainder escapes as waste heat in the flue.

An older non-condensing boiler might achieve 65% to 75% efficiency. On a £1,000 annual heating bill, the difference between 70% and 90% efficiency is roughly £220 in wasted energy per year, the same heat output for much less gas in the efficient system.

Boilers aged more than fifteen to twenty years are almost certainly non-condensing and running at well below optimal efficiency. A new condensing boiler typically costs £2,000 to £3,500 to supply and install. At a saving of £200 to £300 per year from improved efficiency, the payback period is roughly seven to twelve years, long, but the boiler needs replacing at that age anyway, so the efficiency gain is effectively free when replacement was already due.

The calculator’s efficiency slider lets you model the difference directly, set it to 70% to see what the bill looks like on an old boiler, then to 92% to see the potential saving from upgrading.

Insulation: The Multiplier Nobody Calculates

Insulation affects heating cost in a way that compounds with every other saving. A better-insulated home needs less heat to reach the same temperature, runs the heating for fewer hours, and retains warmth longer when the system is switched off.

Loft insulation is the highest-return insulation measure available to most UK homeowners. A property with no loft insulation loses roughly 25% of its heat through the roof. Adding 270mm of mineral wool insulation, the standard recommendation, costs around £300 to £500 for a typical semi-detached and saves £150 to £250 per year. The payback period is typically two to three years, making it one of the best financial returns available in a home.

Cavity wall insulation addresses heat loss through uninsulated cavity walls, which account for around 35% of heat loss in a typical UK cavity wall home. The cost is £400 to £800 for installation and the annual saving is typically £200 to £400 depending on the property size and current heating spend.

Draft-proofing, sealing gaps around windows, doors, letterboxes, and floorboards, costs almost nothing in materials and can reduce heating bills by 5% to 15% depending on how draughty the property currently is. The draught severity slider in the calculator applies a multiplier of up to 22% additional cost for a very draughty home, which makes the potential saving from draft-proofing visible in the annual figure.

Five Ways to Reduce Your Heating Bill Without Freezing

• Drop the thermostat by one degree and add a layer. The maths is simple: one degree saves 8–10% of the heating portion of your annual bill, which for most UK households is £60 to £150 per year. A good quality thermal base layer or a decent fleece costs £20 to £40 and lasts years. The financial return on that jumper, measured against the heating saving, is extraordinary. Our home appliance deals also cover electric throws and heated blankets that make lower room temperatures entirely comfortable for sitting still.
• Fit thermostatic radiator valves on unused rooms. TRVs on spare bedrooms, rarely-used dining rooms, and hallways set to frost protection level remove the heat waste from those spaces entirely. The calculator shows exactly what this would save based on your inputs. Our home accessories deals cover smart TRVs and heating controls from UK retailers.
• Use a timer rather than leaving the heating on. For gas and oil systems, a timer set to heat the home 30 minutes before you arrive and switch off when you leave costs less than leaving heating on at a low temperature. If you do not have a programmable timer or smart thermostat already, fitting one costs £100 to £250 and typically saves that amount within the first heating season.
• Check your curtains and blinds. Up to 25% of heat is lost through windows. Thermal-lined curtains closed after dark reduce this, the difference between single-pane-equivalent heat loss and a well-curtained window is meaningful. Our curtains and blinds deals cover retailers selling thermal curtains and lined blinds across a range of budgets.
• Check Savzz before buying any heating-related products. Whether you are looking at a smart thermostat, TRVs, a heated blanket, thermal bedding, or draught excluders, our home appliance deals and home accessories vouchers cover the products that reduce what you need to spend on heating in the first place. Checking Savzz before buying takes thirty seconds.

What Could You Do With the Money Instead?

The average UK household spends around £1,500 to £2,500 per year on energy, with heating making up the largest single portion. For households on electric heating or older gas systems in poorly insulated homes, the figure is higher.

At £1,800 per year on heating, a combination of the changes described above, one degree thermostat reduction, TRVs on unused rooms, draught-proofing, a smart timer, could realistically reduce the bill by £200 to £400 per year without any change to how warm the rooms you actually use feel. Over five years, that saving is £1,000 to £2,000.

The nature of heating is that it feels non-negotiable. You need to be warm and there are not many alternatives. But a large share of most heating bills goes into rooms at temperatures nobody is using, at hours nobody is home, through gaps that cost a few pounds of filler to seal, and above the temperature that would be entirely comfortable with one extra layer. None of those are genuine needs, they are defaults that have never been questioned because the bill arrives quarterly and the connection between a single behaviour and its cost is invisible.

The calculator makes that connection visible. The money it identifies as saveable is real, and most of it is recoverable without any reduction in comfort in the rooms and at the times that matter.

Our home appliance discount codes, bedding and linen deals, and curtains and blinds vouchers cover the products that help retain the heat you do generate, so you spend less generating it in the first place.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does it cost to leave the heating on per hour in the UK?

For gas central heating in a typical UK home, running cost is roughly 60p to £1.20 per hour depending on system size, boiler efficiency, and your gas rate. For electric radiators, the cost is far higher, a home with multiple electric radiators running at the same time costs between £2 and £4 per hour. Heat pumps cost roughly 25p to 50p per hour of useful heat delivered. Use the calculator above for a figure based on your specific system, rate, and home.

Is it cheaper to heat one room or the whole house?

For a single person working from home in one room, heating that room only with a portable electric heater or a single radiator is usually cheaper than running whole-house gas central heating. The crossover point depends on how many people are in the house, how many rooms are being used, and the relative cost of your gas versus electricity. The room‑by‑room selector in the calculator shows the cost per room per year, which makes this comparison easy to understand for your specific situation.

How much does heating cost per day in the UK?

For gas central heating running for six hours per day in a typical UK home, the daily heating cost is approximately £3.50 to £6.00. For electric heating running for the same period, the daily cost is typically £10 to £20 depending on system size. These figures vary a lot with energy rates, boiler efficiency, insulation, and home size. The calculator produces a daily figure specific to your inputs.

Does dropping the thermostat by 1°C really make a difference?

Yes, approximately 8% to 10% of the heating portion of your bill per degree of reduction. For a household spending £1,200 per year on heating, one degree saves roughly £96 to £120 per year. The calculator shows the live 1°C saving figure in the heating ticker, updated as you move the thermostat slider.

Is it worth getting a smart thermostat to reduce heating bills?

For most households, yes. Smart thermostats typically save 10% to 15% on heating bills by learning usage patterns, heating the home only when needed, and allowing remote control so you are not heating an empty property. The calculator applies a 12% saving when the smart thermostat toggle is switched on. At £100 to £250 to install, a smart thermostat typically pays for itself within one to two heating seasons for a household spending £800 or more per year on heating.

How does boiler efficiency affect heating costs?

Significantly. A boiler running at 70% efficiency wastes 30p of every pound spent on gas. A modern condensing boiler at 92% wastes only 8p per pound. On a £1,000 annual heating bill, the difference is £220 per year in wasted energy. The efficiency slider in the calculator lets you model the saving from upgrading directly.

Is electric heating or gas heating cheaper to run?

Gas is cheaper per unit of heat delivered at current UK rates, approximately 8p to 10p per kWh of useful heat for gas versus 24p for electric. The difference is roughly 2.5 to 3 times in favour of gas. Heat pumps narrow this gap a lot by delivering multiple units of heat per unit of electricity consumed. For homes without a gas connection, heat pumps represent the most cost-effective electric heating option available.

Who built this calculator?

The Savzz Home Heating Cost Calculator was built by the team at Savzz.co.uk, a UK discount code and money-saving site. We built it because no existing UK tool shows heating cost per hour in a way that changes how people think about their heating behaviour, most just show an annual estimate without the per-hour figure that connects individual decisions to financial consequences.

This one covers cost per hour, per day, per month, and per year; a room-by-room breakdown with individual room costs; the on/off comparison specific to your system type; the 1°C saving live figure; and the behavioural patterns that push bills above what the settings alone would suggest. It’s free to use: no account, no email, nothing to fill in.