New Central heating or move house?

[Heatingsystemwoes]

AIBU to think that it would be easier to move house than have an entire new central heating system installed? Boiler, radiators, pipes, tanks etc.

My DH thinks not, I think yes, it would be easier and cheaper to just sell up and buy somewhere with a decent system in place.

We have a small 3 bed house on an old one pipe system. Apparently it needs converting to a two pipe system which means concrete floors dug up and floorboards/carpets taken up.

Has anyone done this and still lived in the house whilst work took place?
How long did it take, how much was it? Did you have to replace all carpets/hard flooring?

Talk me down. I’m panicking!

We had ours done a fortnight ago - the radiators could be kept but everything else had to go (boiler, old tanks, pumps, pipes...) and they also changed our shower as we were moving to a combi boiler and our original was gravity fed and wouldn't have coped. Like others we've got concrete floors so the pipes come down from above. Total cost just over £4k for 3 bed house.

We did move out for the 4 days it took, but only because we've got a toddler and we're concerned about keeping her safe - we'd have coped for a few days without heating /hot water. No need to pack everything away, carpets all replaced neatly and we've just got a bit of painting to do where pipes have moved.

Don't panic, it'll be OK.

Price wise, our house is larger than many, and I think we paid about £6k for all the radiators and pipework, we didn’t need a new boiler though. So I think £5k overall would do for a standard 3 bed house (much of the cost in ours was actually copper pipe, and labour). Most houses probably have >10 radiators; we have 18 so that’s quite a big difference in fitting time.

One big factor in price will be radiator type: if you go for fancy column rads it will push the price dramatically. We bought all our rads for about £1200; it would have been an additional £3-4k for column rads

People are talking about boilers - surely gas boilers are being phased out and replaced with heat pumps and heat exchangers (personally I can't really see this working for a decade or two) but that is the gov policy. Though I guess you will still need the radiators and pipes.

Thanks cake and Flev!
It is really helpful to hear about what others have done. It doesn’t sound half as bad as I imagined. It will be interesting to get quotes to see how much they vary.
We have local heating engineers along with ex British Gas installers coming to quote.
I wonder if the ex BG ones will quote BG prices (which some posters have said are expensive?) I will soon find out!

Forgot to say my dad price include a new combi boiler
Basically his house had no heating and a old style emersion water tank

We’ve just had ours done and it was nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be. Just took the kids out during the day to get out of the way of the workmen. If you have an electric shower you will still have hot water.

We just had this done in January. It took them less than 8 hours to do it all.

Yes it was a pain the backside moving all the furniture and what not but it was worth it. I managed to keep all my carpets, they just peeled them back (we have no wooden floors.)

We now have a combi boiler (no need for a separate hot water tank)

Reading this is making me wonder if I should be getting the heating done before the new bedroom floor is installed - which we were planning on doing next week!

(We have an old back boiler but a new mega flow - I thought they’d just replace the boiler. Would really like to avoid new floors, especially installing them whilst we have a puppy who still has accidents!)

I forgot to add, check to see if you are eligible for any boiler replacement schemes. Thankfully we were and it was done for very little. It does involve a couple of surveys but you usually get an answer pretty quick.

^it’s more the upheaval. I am imagining an absolutely trashed house.
If I have to pack up every room and re-floor/ re-decorate everywhere (which is what I imagined)^

You're really letting your imagination run away with the impact of having heating installed.

If your current system is really outdated, it's probably best to scrap it and start again, rather than 'converting' so regard it as a new install.

We're in a similar situation in that we have concrete floors downstairs and wooden ones upstairs. We had no central heating at all when we bought this house and it took about a day and a half to install (2 bed) and nothing had to be packed away, the installers just moved things around to gain access and took up and replaced carpets as they needed.

We do have pipes running down from upstairs, these are in the corners of the room and boxed in, so fairly unobtrusive. I would recommend looking into nice boxing for any horizontal pipework, you can get some that looks just like normal skirting boards with cut outs to fit over pipes to hide them, that seems like the best solution.

@bungaloid

Maybe a bit too early but eventually gas powered heating and water will disappear, if I was putting whole new system in I'd potentially consider a heat pump if possible. Pretty expensive I think though.

My builder BIL says exactly that: in a few years, all new houses will have air or ground source heat pumps and no central heating.

He's thinking of doing it on the next one they build or renovate for themselves. He reckons that in 10 years time, central heating will be seen as a disadvantage when people come to sell.

@MrsMonkeyBear

I forgot to add, check to see if you are eligible for any boiler replacement schemes. Thankfully we were and it was done for very little. It does involve a couple of surveys but you usually get an answer pretty quick.

I wish we were! We don’t claim any of the benefits listed unfortunately but don’t have spare cash. We will have to get a loan 😓

@BarbaraofSeville

^it’s more the upheaval. I am imagining an absolutely trashed house. If I have to pack up every room and re-floor/ re-decorate everywhere (which is what I imagined)^

You're really letting your imagination run away with the impact of having heating installed.

If your current system is really outdated, it's probably best to scrap it and start again, rather than 'converting' so regard it as a new install.

We're in a similar situation in that we have concrete floors downstairs and wooden ones upstairs. We had no central heating at all when we bought this house and it took about a day and a half to install (2 bed) and nothing had to be packed away, the installers just moved things around to gain access and took up and replaced carpets as they needed.

We do have pipes running down from upstairs, these are in the corners of the room and boxed in, so fairly unobtrusive. I would recommend looking into nice boxing for any horizontal pipework, you can get some that looks just like normal skirting boards with cut outs to fit over pipes to hide them, that seems like the best solution.

Thank you! I will ask about skirting and boxing in definitely! 👍🏻

My house would require too much insulation - being a single skinned 1930s house - if there’s a decrease in my house value because of the heating system then that’s fine. It’s not like it will be new or shiny heating system at that stage anyway & I bet it will need replacing even if I got a heat exchanger today. For example i plan on living with 30 year old fitted wardrobes & old bathroom etc& will leave the lovely handmade kitchen which would be 40 years by then installed when we do sell it won’t be as a “show home.”

Replacing the boiler i see as replacing the flat roof - do it before it starts breaking/ leaking in the middle of winter!

We had an 80's storage heating system and water tank removed 2 years ago, combi boiler and shiny new CH installed for £6000. All the other quotes were £7-9000. It took 2 or 3 days....cant quite recall. We have concrete floors so downstairs the pipes are along skirting/dropped from above. Upstairs they rolled the carpets back and the pipes are underneath the floorboards as usual. Still havent got round to boxing the pipes in so if you can afford it get that done at the same time. Ours is a smallish 3 bed semi and we are in the north. 9 radiators. It really wasnt bad at all! DH stayed elsewhere with the toddler and I was on long shifts so only home to sleep. Far cheaper and less inconvenience than moving house!

Replacing the boiler i see as replacing the flat roof - do it before it starts breaking/ leaking in the middle of winter!

I think that’s the plan. DH doesn’t want to move yet and if we did we would be leaving an old system which would bring down the price.