Gas appliance and controls questions welcome.

Hi there, close call but dependent on many factors.

The first and most decisive factor is where the electricity is sourced from:

If it's from renewables, then the net cost of the electricity will probably be less than the comparison fuel of oil.

However, I suspect you're referring to electricity from the network in your comparison.

So, you've focussed on the running costs and I'm assuming ignoring the capital costs and other sunk costs that may be involved.

Consider the maintenance - oil will be much higher maintenance than electricity, oil is an inferior choice to LPG in this respect.

Maintenance on an oil appliance maybe budget £250 per annum.

The costs of the fuel are likely to be more volatile with oil, and assuming that the current trend of rising oil prices and the emergence of renewables and/or nuclear etc. continue, the favour may be to electric.

On balance, it's difficult to say, but I would probably prefer to go with electric as capital costs would be less, there would be no odours or oil in the house, there would be no tank outside the house that would require maintenance also, and you could power the electric aga with a renewable source if in the future you decided to.

Oil would be noisier also, as well as the inconvenience of more regular maintenance.