to replace economy7 heater with GFCH

[HaggisBurger]

… ok probably the most boring AIBU ever. But I own a rental flat with a business partner. It was very old economy 7 rads one of which had broken. It’s £1.5k to replace! And no guarantee that the others won’t break too over time.
For £3.5k I can install a boiler and normal rads and my tenants will be nice and cosy ….

My bus partner says we shouldn’t do this. That has boilers are going to be illegal in a few years (kind of like diesel cars) and that it won’t actually improve capital value.

Anyone know more about this issue?

There are many years before gas boilers will be outlawed. Gas is cheaper than electricity. I'd replace if its a possibility. Do you have gas into the premises? Would the meter not need to be changed too if its economy 7?

Yes there is now gas to the block which there wasn’t when we bought it. Yes it will need a new meter that the gas board will put in when they connect up the supply.

Current plans are about restricting the installation of new gas boilers from 2025 or so. There will be a substantial amount of time between that date and the complete phasing out of gas as an option to heat boilers.

There's a new generation of hydrogen ready gas boilers that might be worth researching but honestly you'd probably be doing work that will need to be undone in a decade or so because your property is already electricity heated which is the long term goal for government/energy providers.

I'm leaning towards agreeing with your business partner to be honest.

You might consider getting the system specified so it could work with a heat pump, even if you go with gas for now. Then you have the option to upgrade to a heat pump in the future without having to replace all the radiators.

We have electric storage heaters, the heat comes out all day even if we're not in and our house is stone cold by the evening plus they are expensive compared to gas, I would never live in a house with them again (mains gas isn't available). We have stoves to make up for the crappy heaters. I don't know where all the electricity is going to come from for all the cars and heating systems if everything is going to go electric in the future, we'll need to produce a lot more.

I'm not keen on heat pumps either, I read a lot of people on blogs saying they don't heat their house as much as they want and they're not cheap like they thought. I want a place with GCH and I'd imagine it will change to hydrogen at some point but that will be a while yet.

Anyone I know who has Economy 7 has hated it - they say the house is really cold in the evenings when they need heat. For the sake of your tenants, I'd switch to gas. A gas boiler should last 15 years or so; by that time there will be more economical options.

I’d say go for the GCH. There’s no gas where I live and I actually miss my storage heaters! The older ones were a nightmare but the newer ones were great and we had heat of an evening. Instead of these miserable electric heaters we have now which are far more expensive than the storage heaters.

When you say old how old? If one has gone, the others are likely to follow in the next few years

I’d go gas. I wouldn’t rent a flat heated the economy 7 heaters

My mum has storage heaters and her house is always warm. I'd replace the heater.

Flats with GCH are much easier to let than storage heaters (all other things being equal). How would it affect the EPC?

I have e7 electric storage heaters and a hot water tank . They are not as expensive to buy as you are being told . Check on line , usually 4 hundred ish . I love them . They take a bit of getting used to , always have the 'room temp' at least one number lower than the 'input' , I've had mine for 30 years , no maintenance , just starting to need to replace them now . You will have to go electric in a few years , we all will , I couldn't afford to heat my home with gas . If your property is very large you will need quite a few heaters . Mines a small but not tiny one bed flat , perfect and very cheap for me . Wouldn't want gas ever . I guess it's just what I'm used to , pay approx 20 pence day unit rate and 10 pence night unit rate per kw . Much cheaper than gas for hot water as tank never fully empties so water is never heating up from stone cold , heating water from stone cold with gas is very expensive . Full tank of hot water eve ry day , not turned it off ever . Love it .I'm on disability benefits so I'm not rich and can afford to be warm and have hot water every day , spend about forty quid a month in summer and about eighty in winter .

Gas is cheaper than electricity. My water doesn't go stone cold in its cylinder either as its insulated. Its on a timer to heat a couple of times a day and that gives plenty of hot water for my needs (the odd bath and to wash a few dishes as we have a dishwasher that's cold fill). I think you have a few misconceptions about gas @LouKelly

My daughter's gas boiler went wrong and needed replacing and it had to be replaced with an electric one as the gas regulations regarding flues had changed since her block was built less than 10 years previously. Subsequently all the flats in her building had to be changed over to electric boilers. She was lucky that is a housing Association property so she didn't have to foot the bill.

I would be very wary of installing gas in a flat now that currently doesn't have a supply as regulations are changing all the time in buildings due to the fallout from Grenfell.