Which central heating system to install

[mrssmith]

Hi,

Does anyone have any advice on the most economical central heating system to install which is the least damaging to the environment? We currently have a 1950's solid fuel rayburn which feeds one radiator in one bedroom of our cottage and warms the second bedroom by it's pipes leading to the hot water tank. We have a woodburning stove in the living room. The rayburn gussles coal, it costs approximately £60 per month just ticking over and we have the extra wood cost for the living room, although this is only lit when very cold.

We want to update the heating system in the most economical and environmentally friendly way possible. We are trying to make our cottage as green as we can and are considering solar panels and possibly wind turbine when we can afford them (hopefully they will have gone down in price by the time we are ready to buy!)

many thanks

Charlotte

 

[Penners]

Apart from thermal underwear, probably the most environmentally acceptable form of heating is wood burning. Wood is a renewable resource, and even if a tree runs its full life-span, its carbon content will eventually be returned to the atmosphere anyway, when it rots. You are simply hastening this process when you burn it.

You can get woodburners that incorporate a water jacket, to run a central and water heating system.

 

[thiambal]

This is going to depend very much on what you mean by economical and how much you want to chop about and change your house (i.e. running new pipes, installing radiators, adding insulation.

The most economical heating system (i.e. costing you least in fuel) is going to mean harnessing the sun to heat water - but I understand only really pratical if you have a south facing roof or lots of land, a modern consensing boiler and thoroughly insulating your house. However, this is going mean quite a considerable outlay up front and potentially many years to re-coup the cost.

If you go for a consensing boiler you need to think about where the condensate will drain and where the flue will go - how will the affect your house?. It would be worth investigating thoroughly as cheaper boilers are very limited on how long the flue can be, whether is can have bends and how long it can be. At the more extentive end of the market they are much more adaptable and perhaps a flue could even be run up a chimney.

Then there is also the question of damage to the environment which you are keen to avoid. Although the you could heat your house more efficiently there is an environmental impact of taking out a functioning system and throwing it away. I do not know how the extraction, storage, movement of natural gas compares in environmental terms to your current coal usage (you expect it to be better but worth checking - and in terms of financial cost - gas it likely to increase in price and have to be transported further in the future). You could of course buy your gas on a green tariff where the supplier is doing something (often dubious) to ofset the carbon emisions.

Sorry, no particular answers - but lots of questions to ask before deciding on a solution.

 

[Penners]

Thiambal is right, of course. In my response, I didn't think to mention non-combustion forms of heating, such as solar panels, wind generators, ground heat exchangers, and so on.

As he says, however, these do involve a high capital cost and long payback period for you. The benefit to the planet is more immediate.

 

[Nemesis]

Do ensure that your loft insulation is adequate as this can make a tremendous difference (Thermafleece isn't the cheapest but it is good).

If you can consider ground source heat pump stuff, here's a useful link:

http://www.iceenergy.co.uk/?ID=google&add=A&gclid=CP38l4mWlIgCFRxhMAodA0Ti_w


The prob is, I agree, start up costs, although maybe in the longer term it will save money.

We have a both a water course and a bit of land, but if you have neither then it may be worth looking at

http://www.iceenergy.co.uk/air.asp


It would be interesting to find out more, as we have solid fuel heating and I agree it's not the most ecofriendly.

I wonder actually if the Rayburn costs are fairly low if you compare with other heating fuels? And you do get the ability to dry washing, and cook with it, although slow cooking things are better than wanting rapid results food I agree.

 

[Penners]

I wonder actually if the Rayburn costs are fairly low if you compare with other heating fuels?

From the sound of it, Mrs Smith's Rayburn is the type that only cooks and heats water (plus one heat-leak radiator). So using this as a central heating source may not be an option.

 

[Nemesis]

I know - but it does tend to keep the place warm as well, as with our solid fuel boiler. That heats the kitchen and the flue runs between two walls upstairs so that takes the chill off. The heat soak rad is in the bathroom, which is always warm.

We have few and small rads (supplemented by the stove in the evening) as really larger rads would be difficult to site. I'm interested on heat pump technology as a replacement though.

 

[mrssmith]

There is so much food for thought on this topic isn't there? Thank you for all your suggestions. We do have just a rayburn which runs one tiny radiator in our bedroom. This is too small for the room. The coming winter will probably tell us how efficient our current heating is. We moved into our cottage in March this year and it was freezing! The house had been empty for at least a month and we are high up here. The walls are solid stone and we have flagstones so a month of no heating in snowy weather you can imagine how cold it was. So it felt like the rayburn was not enough, we needed an extra electric heater in our bedroom.

Added to this was the complication of a radon fan blasting icy air from our attic onto the landing. We currently have this switched off and are measuring the level of radon in the house. If the results are too high we will probably have to have a floor pump fitted downstairs as I cannot imagine living with that icy air and dust from the attic again!

The rayburn that we have is in a very sorry state, but it does work. If we decided to keep it long term we would need to have it restored in some way, although I would still be left with the guilty concience in burning coal!

My practical head tells me we should replace the woodburner with a multifuel burner with boiler in the living room. The aim being to burn wood unless we wanted the fire to stay in overnight so the minimum amount of coal would be burnt. But then now having the rayburn lit, I love having the warm stove in the kitchen. This has made me begin to think maybe an electric Esse and fitting solar panels/wind generator. We do have a south facing garden which is 200ft long so ground heating would possibly be an option and solar panels. Hubbie and I are happy with the initial outlay on renewable energy as we are planning to stay here indefinately. If we did move I'm sure we could recoup our money by it adding value to the property.

Sorry for this very long ramble, there is so much to think about. Condensing boilers I know nothing about, what do they run on?

If anyone is still reading this after such a lengthy essay then I take my hat off to you!

 

[mrssmith]

Also many thanks Nemesis for those links I will check them out.

 

[gsport george]

There are a number of "clean burn" wood (and multi fuel) stoves that are MUCH more efficient than the simple boxes. The one I am planning on fitting is the Dunsley Heat Yorkshire stove. Being much more efficient my expectation is that we wont have to feed it THAT often.

For the bulk of the heating we have fitted a condensing combi boiler (natural gas) which is pretty good, but as mentione above, the condensate drain is quite a headache to route since it all has to be steadily downhill.

My HOPE is that in 5-10 years there will be a good choice of wood-chip-powered "combined heat and power" boilers.

Though it is looking increasingly like thin-film phototvoltaic solar panels will be cheap enough to make a heat-pump a better bet before then...

George

 

[Mark]

My 2d

If you want to go with combustion technology then a pellet burning stove will be your best bet. can provide hot water and heating - not sure if anyone does one you can cook on ? Boilers in ordinary multifuel stoves really knock back the heat output.

I wouldnt touch wind or pv solar - too expensive, not continual, all sort of issues with payback periods, etc.

solar water can be combined with ground source heat pump to keep the return ratio up at max and/or used with a conventional hot water tank.

GSHP seems to be getting very good write ups, you can do it on small sites either with boreholes or the buried radiator things from ice.

 

[Sal]

could the rayburn be converted to oil or gas? do you have mains gas?

what about a backboiler for the woodburner?

Teh firs port of call is insulation as Nemesis said. I would, (and plan to when money allows) look at solar panels for hot water.. a back boiler on your woodburner..
the wind turbines like B&Q are selling are getting a fair slating in some quarters - the suggestion being that they would take longer to pay for themselves then the lifespan of the machine, and that it would shake the mortar out of your walls with vibrations. i have no idea if either are true - but I would certainly want to see one in action before purchase..

 

[Penners]

This has made me begin to think maybe an electric Esse and fitting solar panels/wind generator. We do have a south facing garden which is 200ft long so ground heating would possibly be an option and solar panels. Hubbie and I are happy with the initial outlay on renewable energy as we are planning to stay here indefinately. If we did move I'm sure we could recoup our money by it adding value to the property.

Last Sunday's Sunday Times Home section had an article about Ecofriendly energy sources. Here are some figures from it:-

Source.................... Instal cost...........Saving p.a. ..........Payback time
Solar water...............£2000...................£150....................13 years
Electric (PV)..............£7000...................£150....................7 years
Wind (1kW genny).....£2000...................£200....................10 years
Heat pump................£3000...................£300....................10 years
Biomass system........£4000...................£300....................13 years
Energy saving Lightbulb £5.....................£7........................9 months

Based on the saving per annum, there's something very wrong with their payback time for solar water heating. Nevertheless, I thought these details might interest you.

 

[Anna]

I too am looking for "green" heating and am VERY interested in other folks' findings & experience. I have no answers myself as there are many pros & cons to each system, and most sources of information seem to have vested interests.

Here's our situation & my current thoughts. Our (unlisted) house has:
- a woodburning stove that adequately heats 1 room, but isn't very convenient. If it heated more, then the effort would seem more worthwhile.
- an anthracite stove that isn't functioning well - possibly broken inside (yes I know there's hardly anything to break!), plus its chimney needs attention.
- oil-filled electric heaters. I like these: they're movable, have timers, and have a huge range of output from frost-protection to toasty. But not green
- no central heating. I am no fan of central heating. I'm used to "cold" houses and can't stand a heated bedroom except in the very worst of weather! I hate that you can't move radiators around - a pain in small rooms. Oil and gas are fossil fuels that would have to be delivered by road & stored in one of those horrible tanks which strikes me as hardly green either, despite the efficiency at the consumer end of condensing boilers.
- an electric hot-water cylinder on its last legs. I resent the space this takes up and the fact that you have to heat a whole tank to get usable warm water, when we don't have huge hot water requirements.

To stave off damp, I now reluctantly admit that we need some source of constant low-level heating, perhaps combined with a new method of water heating.
I really don't fancy oil/gas central heating for the reasons above.
We probably have adequate garden for a ground source heat pump, but I'm concerned as to their effectiveness.
I'd love underfloor heating but our ceilings are too low.
I really do like the idea of thin panel electric heaters. They claim to be very cheap to run - presumably because they don't put out much heat? - but then I don't want a lot of heat. To offset the non-greenness (magenta-ness?) of mains electricity, I'd love to have a wind turbine, but would want a simple system: the battery systems sound like hassle, and the B&Q Windsave ones really don't give a huge output.
Does anyone have experience of photovoltaic solar power, especially compared to wind turbines? I understood that the older ones didn't give much output, and that the latest ones are "much better". But I'd be surprised if they gave better output than wind turbines.
Solar water heating might well be practical for us. I'd be interested in anyone's actual experiences of it.

So I guess I want a green efficient movable convenient heating system that takes up very little space! Shouldn't be too hard to find!

I know I need to look much further into several of these options, and we're a couple of months from when we absolutely have to decide. I just thought I'd share my unstructured thoughts as our situation/attitude sounds similar-ish to Mrs Smith. I really sympathise with the difficulty in making a decision!

 

[Mark]

And as for the solar PV - 7 years at £150 doesnt come close to £7K.

 

[Nemesis]

My concern with heat pumps technology is that it may not actually heat rads to a sufficient temperature to keep the place warm. It may be oK with UFH and it may be OK with Scandinavian super insulated houses, but the average UK historic building may prove more difficult. Huge and many rads for example...

 

[Penners]

Sorry, Mark. It was solar PV that I meant.

 

[Mark]

Just been to find this, which covers some of the gshp stuff. I have been too busy to look into it any further (or fit my solar panel - one day...)

http://periodpropertyshop.co.uk/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=6280&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=

 

[worms]

Strikes me that there is no single answer - even at the level of the individual household. To keep installation simple and avoid linking self-generated electricity into the mains, I wonder about Wind turbine/solar PV to generate the electricity to drive a ground-source heat pump, power routed to the pump through batteries/inverter to even out the down-time in generation? Sounds complex and perhaps too many places where there would be a power loss, but none of it would be beyond DIY skills.

 

[MdB]

And as for the solar PV - 7 years at £150 doesnt come close to £7K.

Solar PV is also very non green. I believe 7 years is also something like the time it takes to generate the energy that was used to make the silicon in it in the first place.