The Cheapest Way to Heat Your Home This Winter

Cost per hour to heat a room

The fair comparison is how much each option costs to put the same amount of heat into a room. Here is roughly 2.5kW of heat, enough for a typical bedroom, office or small living room on a cold day.

Heat pump figure at full output with Haier’s seasonal efficiency of about 3.6. Once a room is warm the unit throttles back, so the real hourly cost is usually lower. Boiler figures assume 90% (gas) and 85% (oil, LPG) efficiency. Storage heaters depend on your off-peak rate. See the full cost-per-kWh comparison for the working.

Cheap to buy is not cheap to run

With winter coming, a £30 fan heater or oil-filled radiator looks like the cheap option. It is cheap to buy. But every plug-in electric heater, whatever the type, turns one unit of electricity into one unit of heat. A 2kW heater left on for five hours a day costs about £2.63 a day, or roughly £80 a month.

A heat pump moves heat in from the outside air instead of making it, so it gives around 3 to 4 units of heat for every unit of electricity. Same room, same warmth, about a quarter of the running cost.

What it adds up to over a winter

Take one room kept warm with 2kW of heat for 8 hours a day over a 150-day heating season, about 2,400kWh of heat:

• Plug-in electric heaters: about £630
• Gas central heating (that room’s share): about £215
• Air to air heat pump: about £175

Swapping plug-in heaters for a heat pump saves around £455 a year on that one room. A single room is installed from £1,357, or £1,195 on our limited-time back-to-back offer, so it pays for itself in roughly three winters — and it cools the room in summer too.

Who saves the most

• Homes using plug-in heaters in a cold bedroom, home office, conservatory or garden room. The biggest saving of all. See home office heating, conservatory heating and garden room heating.
• Homes with storage heaters, which use roughly three times the electricity of a heat pump for the same heat. See storage heater replacement.
• Bungalows and older homes where the far rooms never get warm. See bungalow heating.
• Off-gas homes on oil or LPG, where a heat pump is usually cheaper than LPG and level with oil. See oil and LPG alternatives.
• Gas homes that heat the whole house to warm one or two rooms. A heat pump in the room you live in lets you turn the boiler down.

Free and low-cost ways to cut heating bills now

• Heat the room you are in, not the whole house. Close doors to keep the warmth in.
• Block draughts around doors, windows and letterboxes, and close curtains at dusk.
• Turn the boiler flow temperature down to about 55°C on a combi boiler; it often runs more efficiently.
• Check your tariff. If you have storage heaters, make sure you are actually on an off-peak tariff.
• Use a heated throw when sitting still for long periods.

These help with any heating. For a room you use every day, the step change in running cost comes from replacing plug-in or storage heaters with a heat pump.

Local heating installers

MK Air Conditioning is a Haier installer based in Buckingham (MK18). Our F-Gas certified engineers fit air to air heat pumps across Milton Keynes, Buckingham, Bicester, Aylesbury, Bletchley, Towcester, Brackley, Banbury, Northampton, Bedford and the villages around them. See recent installs, including a bungalow in Buckingham and a garden gym in Aylesbury heated for this winter.

Common questions

What is the cheapest way to heat a room this winter?

If you only need to warm yourself, a heated throw or electric blanket is the cheapest option at around 2–3p an hour. To heat the whole room, an air to air heat pump is the cheapest electric option: about 18p an hour for 2.5kW of heat at the October–December 2026 price cap, against about 66p an hour for a plug-in heater giving the same heat.

What is the cheapest electric heater to run?

Every plug-in heater (fan, oil-filled radiator, convector, panel or halogen) turns one unit of electricity into one unit of heat, so they all cost the same per unit of heat: about 26.3p per kWh at the current cap. A 2kW heater costs about 53p an hour at full power. The only electric heating that beats this is a heat pump, which delivers around 3 to 4 units of heat per unit of electricity.

Is a heat pump cheaper to run than gas central heating?

Per unit of heat, an air to air heat pump costs about 7.3p per kWh against about 8.9p for a 90% efficient gas boiler at the October–December 2026 caps, so it is roughly level or slightly cheaper. The bigger saving usually comes from heating only the rooms you are using instead of the whole house.

Are storage heaters cheap to run?

They run on cheaper off-peak electricity, but one unit in gives one unit of heat, and much of the heat escapes during the day when you may not need it. An air to air heat pump uses roughly a third of the electricity for the same heat and only runs when you want it.

How long does a heat pump take to pay for itself compared with electric heaters?

As a rough example, a room heated with a 2kW plug-in heater for 8 hours a day over a 150-day heating season costs about £630 a year at the current cap. A heat pump giving the same heat costs about £175, saving around £455 a year. On a single room installed from £1,357 (or £1,195 on our limited-time back-to-back offer) that is roughly three winters.

Can I get help with the cost of a heat pump?

Qualifying home heat pump installations are 0% VAT until 31 March 2027, and MK Air Conditioning is not VAT registered, so no VAT is added. Klarna Pay in 3 is available on installations up to £2,000. The government Boiler Upgrade Scheme grant covers air to water systems, not air to air.