Installing new central heating system - which is best?

[MdB]

Going back to the original post, radiators that never warm up are indicative of a water system that isn't balanced correctly.

Another possibility is that the radiators haven't been bled properly. This is very obvious as the bottom of the radiator gets hot whilst the top doesn't.

 

[DaveBrigg]

The comments about being able to make do with less heat are very true.

We have a wood pellet stove that I've mentioned in previous threads. We've given up on burning pellets for the moment, partly because of trhe cost and partly because that part of the boiler has stopped working properly. It now provides hot water and heating by burning logs. We have an electric shower for the mornings, when the water temperature has dropped, small electric heaters for when its' not worth running the full central heating, and a hob that runs on bottled gas. (A half full bottle came with the house, and lasted nearly a year. Two full bottles cost £36)
The main disadvantage is having to go to the garage to add more wood every hour or so, and the time it takes to heat the water. If the tank gets cold, it's a couple of hours before the heating can be used. On the plus side, on a really cold month we spend £120 on wood, while a friend with a similar sized house is now getting through £200 of oil in the same time. We could have had the burner in a shed next to the house, but the wall would have had to have been demolished to allow the water tank to be fitted.

I can't see wood ever being a significant source of power. Our wood is the 'scrap' from local tree surgeons, and the winter month's supply would fill roughly a dozen 1 cubic metre bags. Multiply that by a few hundred houses, and Lincolnshire would soon start running out of trees.

 

[worms]

Lincolnshire would soon start running out of trees.

I quite agree the energy source has to be appropriate to the area and somewhere like Lincolnshire is probably far too important to agricultural production to be turned to energy production (I've never been there so I don't know the scope for the two to co-exist). However in many other parts of the country, the potential for better use of the wood fuel resource is much greater. The UK is by far the least forested country in Europe and perhaps if it hadn't been for the Sitka spruce era, we might have developed the mixed birch/pine/oak forests that would by now be providing huge amounts of sustainable fire-wood in a similar way to the forests in the rest of Europe (how much I envy the wood stacks around the houses in rural France!). It may be down to land ownership patterns but I would argue that apart from a few notable exceptions we have never managed our native woodlands properly in UK.

 

[Lime]

It may be down to land ownership patterns but I would argue that apart from a few notable exceptions we have never managed our native woodlands properly in UK.

I think you will find we burnt them all.

 

[skier-hughes]

Going back to the original post, radiators that never warm up are indicative of a water system that isn't balanced correctly.

Or like ours fitting a rayburn capable of 8 radiators and fitting 19 radiators, some of which are so large it's the equivalent of trying to run about 25 rads, so there just isn't enough heat coming from the rayburn to heat them up.

We are looking at a wood burner boiler with a large water tank accumulator, we burn wood from our local shed supplier, ok burns quicker but costs nothing, in fact one summer he paid us to take the wood!!

 

[Lime]

With regard to my post concerning balancing radiators, it is true that air in a radiator or too many radiators can produce similar cold radiators.
However air in a radiator is indicative of chemical corrosion within the system (or a leak) and an inhibitor in the water would stop the gas forming.
Also too many radiators on an undersized boiler will stress the boiler but balanced radiators will still make an improvement both in comfort and economy.

The point I was making was that without balanced radiators, no matter how precise the initial financial calculations may be, a great deal of extra expense will be incurred together with a loss of comfort.
That applies to all systems whether they be well designed, home-grown or evolved topsy style.