Installing new central heating system - which is best?

[Penners]

What is - on the surface - completely illogical is my overwhelming habit to come into our existing kitchen and stand in front of the old Rayburn whether it's actually on or not

Oh, you're certainly not alone there.

I can only suppose that it becomes a habit to regard that spot as the focal point of the room, and therefore the natural place for the Master Of The House to stand and address the staff.

 

[Flyfisher]

A few comments to make a bit more sense of my figures . . .

Yes, heating only would make a big difference. I can't easily split out the CH and DHW costs from my figures.

Your 'new boiler' figures make more sense if they include new rads as well.

I can understand the GSHP dilemma as it's obviously much better to lay the underfloor piping while other works are going. But I do wonder what will happen to GSHP economics over the next 10 years as, presumably, technology advances and demand increases.

If I was relaying flooring slabs (which I'm not) I'd certainly be tempted to install suitable pipes for a possible future GSHP system but I'm afraid that mains gas now beckons for me. Still, who knows how the relative economics will change over the next 10 years - except for all fuels to get far more expensive.

 

[Flyfisher]

What is - on the surface - completely illogical is my overwhelming habit to come into our existing kitchen and stand in front of the old Rayburn whether it's actually on or not

Oh, you're certainly not alone there.

Phew, that's a relief - I thought it was just me!
Same thing with the fireplace in the main room, whether alight or not.

 

[GK]

I just fitted a high-spec oil condensing boiler and a big bunded tank for £2700. Base for tank extra. This is part of a system that can be heated with wood as well.

We had an LPG system that came with the property but the tank belonged to the supplier, so we were unable to shop around for a different gas supply.

Regarding oil, I called about half a dozen suppliers for 2,500 litres of heating oil. They all gave their price but only one of them bothered to say that any quantity of oil over 2,300 litres would attract vat at 17.5%, anything below that was considered domestic and would be 5%.

 

[Penners]

any quantity of oil over 2,300 litres would attract vat at 17.5%, anything below that was considered domestic and would be 5%.

I should question that, G. I buy oil in 2500 - 3000 litre consignments every year, and I only ever pay 5% VAT.

So long as the oil is obviously for domestic use, I don't think there's any stipulation about quantity (although a tanker-full might raise a few eyebrows!).

 

[Liz Fry]

I am in a "similar" pondry ... sort of..........in that I`m trying to decide between the two types but do not have any ties to an existing system.

We are about to (within a week or two) about to purchase an old cottage... which we will spend the next couple of months gutting. GSHP are out of our price range so we are left with the option to put in gas or oil. I keep hearing conflicting info about which to go for.

As an overview:

the house will be a shell,
the property sits in an acre, so storage space is not an issue. However the property does sit near its boundary with the main road - I`m unsure the current rules about siting of oil/gas tanks near this side of the property)
The cottage itself has 3 bedrooms (one to be turned to an upstairs bathroom) and 1 reception room on the ground floor + kitchen.
Heat emittors will most likely be in the form of radiator (for now............. until we can put the extension on the property in five years or so and most likely put UFH in that bit when we have some money to spare.).

Rumours I have heard include: oil is cheapest to run however installation costs are greater than LPG, efficiency of oil condensing/combis are not particularly good (someone quoted me that they drop to 40% efficiency shortly after a service.................?)

We would like the gas hob on the cooker...but will consider using bottles to run this if we go for the oil option.

Let me just add that this is an area I don`t know much about...........yet....so please forgive me if I have said something daft. I would just like to be forearmed with information before I start inviting the trades in for quotes, info etc!

many thanks

liz

PS the property comes under Mendip Council (although not in an AONB)

 

[ljn]

Hhas anyone looked into using solar pannels to provvide electricity for a ground heat pump?

 

[Penners]

oil is cheapest to run however installation costs are greater than LPG.....We would like the gas hob on the cooker...but will consider using bottles to run this if we go for the oil option.

Liz - the prices of all fuels have been so volatile in the last year or so that I really don't know what is currently cheapest - or whether it will stay that way. But I would recommend you to look very carefully at the relative installation costs of oil and LPG. Since an LPG tank is a pressure vessel, it may be more a fair bit expensive than an oil tank. I also think that LPG may be substantially more expensive than "town" gas, as a fuel.

And using bottled gas for cooking may equally be an expensive decision.

As I said, I'm not fully up-to-date with the relative costs, but I do urge you to do careful research, with quotes, before you make your decision.

 

[Nemesis]

which we will spend the next couple of months gutting.

???

 

[Penners]

Hmmm - that word slipped past me.

Can we perhaps persuade Liz that "sensitively repairing" might be a better approach?

 

[Liz Fry]

Ahh have no fears............ have been reading this forum for quite some time now! By gutting......... I am meaning the plastic wallpaper, the pvc kitchen and all other things that are impairing generally breathability in the place and causing condensation.

Decisions to lime plaster etc etc are already a given!

 

[Liz Fry]

Sorry probably ought to give a bit more info.....

it`s a 150 year old single walled limestone toll house.......... which not only has had an inappropriate render stuck on it...but has been subject to some poor extensions (in modern materials) and the join between the two has been poor leading to a leaky roof and some damp damage inside where the two meet. Surveys have confirmed our suspicion that poor flashings are to blame for some of the damp issues alongside the cracked external render. There doesn`t appear to be a problem with rising damp.

Additional condensation in the house has been put down to lack of breathability in the walls by all the various gumpffff that has been stuck on it. (I`ll post some pics of the inside once we have bought it) The house itself is a state.... hence the need to "gut", and then "sensitively repair".................... I already have Mike Wye on the "to do" list for the lime plaster...........once we get that far! I have to laugh someone suggested that they send me on one of his courses for my 30th birthday present in April............they suggested that the results of which would be around for some time yet for me to appreciate it...aka like jewellery. I laughed......and then said ..yes please!

We are due to complete on the house in a week or two.........and then it is static caravan living with a two year old for a while!

 

[AMc]

I would be surprised if LPG worked out cheaper to install than oil (as mentioned above for storage) but I don't have direct experience. If you have access to mains gas then that is likely to be the cheapest option to fit and run.
FWIW Our oil price jumped from £400 for 1200 litres last year to £440 for 900 litres this year and that's not likely to go down again - LPG is an oil derivitive so the price will go up with oil prices. Our home is 4 bed Georgian cottage, insulated roof, timber double glazing, solid walls and uninslated suspended floors.

Wood pellet boilers are another option - they need a bit more storage space than oil but feed themselves. They cost more but they attact lower VAT and they're sustainable. Unfortunately what I've heard is that their price varies with the oil price as transportation is a major cost
Log boilers are another more esoteric option or just old fashioned stoves if you have the heart for it!



As you sound like you're doing a major refurbishment you will (probably) have to uprate the thermal performance of the house to meet Part L1B of the building regulations. An advantage of using a 'green' heat source in a period property is that it allows you have more leeway with those rules. That means you can keep your period features on uninsulated walls which you may otherwise be under pressure to uprate with internal or external insulation.

The best bet in all cases would be to uprate the insulation where approriate to lower your heating needs regardless of the regulations. Then you can buy a smaller, cheaper boiler, smaller fuel storage tank etc. Making these changes when you're ripping everything out anyway makes more sense than doing the bare minumum and paying more in long term running costs and dealing with a cold, draughty home.

If you think you're going to put underfloor heating in the existing house then consider fitting it throughout at this point even if you run it from a conventional boiler - retro fitting it will be messy and you'll have wasted money on a radiator system you don't keep.

Fingers crossed we will be fitting an air source heat pump to heat the house and renovated Victorian extension (which is getting underfloor heating). This is cheaper to buy than a ground source heat pump (no ground work) but uses the same principals. The running costs are a bit higher but based on the quotes - should be in line with the oil fired boiler we have now - just using electricity from a renewable source (http://www.good-energy.co.uk) not oil.

>And using bottled gas for cooking may equally be an expensive decision.
We have LPG cylinders for the hob and electric ovens. We've used one £30 tank in over a year cooking for 2 adults and one child + entertaining. Make sure you get a double tank installation so you can keep cooking when the bottle runs out and order a replacement at your leisure.

When you buy your cooker be REALLY carefull to buy one with an LPG conversion kit - This replaces parts of the hob to suit the different gas properties. The high streets were hopeless with this and we had to ask the manufacturers and specialist cooker websites if cookers were suitable. Many but not all cookers can be converted and using natural gas jets with LPG is dangerous. The conversion and connection should also be done by a CORGI registered engineer with the relevant qualification so arrange that when you buy the cooker. Ours refused to do the electical connection because he wasn't Building Regulations Part P registered :shock:

 

[biffvernon]

Some interesting calculations - certainly brings attention to the capital cost of some of the central heating systems around today.

We bought two 2kw electric fan heaters for £10 the pair last week from Focus. In the grand scheme of things the capital cost is approximately zero. I notice that we are paying £0.1196 per kWh during the day and £0.0434 at night, from the good folk at Ecotricity.

What the previous posts don't consider (perhaps wisely) is the change in energy prices in the future. The scale of change may make our calculations turn out to be pretty silly. This wiggly line shows West Texas Intermediate crude oil prices traded on New York Mercentile Exchange over the last five months.

At present roughly 40% of our electricity is produced by burning coal and 40% gas, the rest being nuclear and a little hydro, wind and oil. One might imagine a future in which most of our electricity is produced by wind, tidal, tidal stream, wave, with hydro and geothermal from Iceland and solar from North Africa. Unfortunately, given the Powers that Be, one needs quite a lot of imagination.

I wonder whether we use more energy than we really want to because we have central heating systems that switch themselves on at a time we set ages ago and are controlled by a thermostat that was set on the basis of what temperature we once thought would be good. Throughout the house. If we just had little fan heaters that we just switched on in the room we were in, we might end up using less.

 

[Penners]

I wonder whether we use more energy than we really want to because we have central heating systems that switch themselves on at a time we set ages ago and are controlled by a thermostat that was set on the basis of what temperature we once thought would be good. Throughout the house. If we just had little fan heaters that we just switched on in the room we were in, we might end up using less.

I'm pretty sure that's true.

We have central heating on a timer, like most people. This year I have cut down the times that it automatically switches on by an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening, just to see how we feel about it. We don't switch it on at all between 8.30am and 5.30pm, despite the fact that we're here all day. We've been experimenting with the rather old-fashioned advice that used to be given to us elderly folk: "wear layers and heat one room". That's not always possible if Mrs P and I are tiffling about at different ends of the house, but we quite often achieve it.

I've also tried to remain vigilant about the weather, and where a day is mild, I've manually delayed the evening start time of the central heating.

I've been quite surprised at how much we've been able to reduce our central heating usage. I shan't know until the end of the winter exactly how much oil we've saved, but at a wild guess I would say it's around 20%. Against that I will have to offset a probable increase in our electricity bill, where we've been "spot" heating, but I have a gut feeling that the net result will be a saving - in cash and carbon.

 

[middi]

It seems to to me that the trend is : " if you can afford it, have it". Central heating run at maximum, 10 tele's, a few cars, heated swimming pools and as many energy demading hobbies that one can fit in is very acceptable within society. Thank God that most of us are "poor" to afford all, that is the real reason why we still have energy left.

 

[Penners]

that is the real reason why we still have energy left.

Speak for yourself. I've got very little.

Seriously though, I think you're quite right, Middi. If we had all achieved the wealth of, say, Richard Branson, the human race would probably already be close to extinction.

 

[Flyfisher]

We bought two 2kw electric fan heaters for £10 the pair last week from Focus. In the grand scheme of things the capital cost is approximately zero. I notice that we are paying £0.1196 per kWh during the day and £0.0434 at night, from the good folk at Ecotricity.

That's exactly the sort of heating system we've got at the moment, although we're not with Ecotricity (we ought to be really, with all their turbines just a few miles away!). It takes a while to get my study warmed up, well to 62F anyway, but it's very comfortable compared with the rest of the house. I've got one of those fridge thermometers in our bedroom - the ones that indicate 'too hot', 'perfect' and 'too cold'. It's been reading 'perfect' this week, with ice on the inside of the windows on Monday. Still, things are set to warm up later this week.

I wonder whether we use more energy than we really want to because we have central heating systems that switch themselves on at a time we set ages ago and are controlled by a thermostat that was set on the basis of what temperature we once thought would be good. Throughout the house. If we just had little fan heaters that we just switched on in the room we were in, we might end up using less.

I think that's probably true. However, it's also true that having separate fan heaters in each room to switch on and off as we move around is also very inconvenient and not terribly comfortable, which is why I've spent the past couple of days laying the ducting for a new mains gas supply which is (hopefully)being installed tomorrow.

Middi's point about "if you can afford it, have it" is an interesting one and is usually, I guess, the limiting factor in our energy consumption. But if we actively decide to reduce our fossil fuel consumption, even though we might be able to afford to consume more, what should we do with the money saved? Indeed, what can we do with the money saved that wouldn't incur further energy consumption?

 

[biffvernon]

Jevon's Paradox.

 

[Lime]

Going back to the original post, radiators that never warm up are indicative of a water system that isn't balanced correctly.
Radiators have an inlet (flow) and outlet (return) and all should be piped in parallel not series.
The valve on the outlet (on the pipe that remains coldest) should be set and sealed so that it can control the flow of heated water through the radiator in such a way that all radiators (no matter how big or small, near or far) heat up in the same time.
That is a balanced system.
Many people never have it done and that costs a fortune over the years in money and comfort.