Looking at a house with storage heaters and electric cooker, looks like no gas but box outside. How awkward to change?

[CrapBag]

Obviously I'd want central heating put in but how does the water heat up at the moment?

Sorry for dumb question but I've never had a house that didn't have gas or central heating.

How much of a ball ache will it all be to get it changed?

I imagine there is an immersion heater for the hot water. Will cost a bit to have a new boiler, cooker and radiators installed and gas connected, but perfectly doable if there is gas in the area.

We don't have gas in our village so have a similar set-up, but also have a log burner and open fire, and run a gas hob off bottled gas. It's not the end of the world! If you have to live with electric heating for a while make sure you can get economy 7 or preferably 10 electric tariff.

Any ideas what it would cost to have a central heating system installed?

I know there is gas on that road and definitely a gas box on the outside of the house, just no gas inside.

If there's a gas box on the side of the house, this shouldn't be too bad, depending on when the pipe was last used. In one house I had, the gas engineers were able to insert a new liner inside the existing tube for safety. In another house, there was no gas from the pipe in the road to the house. It was fairly straightforward to get the gas people (depends on your area, SGN here) to lay a new connecting pipe to the house. Three years ago this was about 1000 pounds.

The new boiler and central heating system will slightly depend on how many rooms, and therefore radiators you want. Get quotes from people like British Gas, and any recommended local tradespeople. For a combi boiler and seven radiators, my average quote in the pricey south was seven thousand. I took this and the pipeline quote off my offer price for the house, and had the offer accepted.

With luck and co-ordination, it took a day to lay the pipe, another day for someone to come and install the meter, and two days to install the boiler and all radiators and pipe work. Good luck!

As a very rough estimate i'd reckon about £5k. Obviously depends on spec of boiler, size of house etc.