Heating a home with no gas

[Knitjob]

I łive in an old converted Victorian school building with no gas supply and no likelihood of ever getting a gas supply. We currently have 20 yr old night storage heaters and they don’t give enough heat. We are also struggling to get a dual tariff electricity deal so we pay the same for day and night, making the idea of charging the heaters overnight a bit pointless. Some of the heaters only have an off peak feed so can’t be turned on during the day.

We’ve had a quote for £9k to fit a water filled electric system, that’s for 7 radiators. We are wondering about just upgrading the electric radiators and getting the electricity supply to them changed so we can have them on all day.

But it’s so hard to make a decisions. You have no idea how warm they will actually be until they are in place. Simply replacing with modern electric radiators would be the easiest thing I’m sure but we’re worried they won’t be warm enough or will be too expensive to run.

Is anyone else in the same situation? How do you heat your home?

Put a woodburner in your main room. It will warm up lots of your house so you'll only need peripheral heating elsewhere.

I'm in an old house too, we have a wood burner, a large one downstairs, I'd dispute it heats the whole house.it does that room and at a push downstairs. And unless you have easy access to wood or fuel it's not so cheap to run. Don't get me wrong, I love ours, but I'd never tell someone in an old building that a wood burner in one room will warm their whole house.

Personally if you can afford it I would recommend getting the radiators in, and I'd put a wood burner downstairs so you can heat up stairs when required , and when it's not freezing, just use the wood burner downstairs.

Second the idea of a wood burner/multifuel burner. I would have one if I could but not possible in my (listed) flat. I have storage heaters on E7 and though they are not cheap, they are not the financial disaster some people say they are, neither are they poor in terms of heating if controls are properly used.
Out of interest, why are you struggling to get an Economy 7 meter fitted? Bulb seem happy enough to do it (though I notice it says “when an engineer is available”).
help.bulb.co.uk/hc/en-us/articles/115003610092-Can-I-get-an-Economy-7-meter-fitted-

We don’t have gas. People around here either have oil, which I guess you don’t want, or electric. A neighbour has calor gas for cooking.

Under floor heating is wonderful. I assume your quote is to install the heating and not for finishes to the floors? We have ufh and also a wood burner in one room in a fireplace. I hate them stuck out in the room where children can touch them. They won’t heat much beyond the room unless it’s very open plan but it may be too hot to be next to the fire if you expect this.

Also, we have air source heat pumps for our source of heat. It’s not cheap to install but they are cost effective to run. We have a mix of wet underfloor and radiators. I would make sure your insulation is as good as it can be and, if you have a fireplace, use it for a wood burner. I can recommend life without radiators though. Plus a wood burner if you are in the country.

Have you looked at alternatives such as oil, LPG, solar and heat pump? Electricity is expensive and I'd look at the costs of other fuels/energy sources first.

We have oil, but are going to get heat exchangers when we do our next lot of building work. Friends have two and they work very well.

We are buying a house with an existing wet system by electric boiler. We are going to convert to oil. We have oil in our existing home. I want a combi boiler!!

I think £9k is about right too.

We've built an annex to our house and didn't have a gas supply installed. We had an electric boiler that does exactly the same job as a gas one (and the exact same radiators). I'll try and dog out the invoice but I'm sure it wasn't £9k. 7 radiators including a heated towel rail thi g in the bathroom. Does the hot water too.

Wood burner is not an option. City centre, no-where to store wood, 3 flights up for carrying wood. Would be lovely but not practical. Sorry, I should have said we're in a flat not a whole building. Most of our neighbours are younger and out all day and don't seem to notice the cold so everyone just has the old storage heaters.

Out of interest, why are you struggling to get an Economy 7 meter fitted

I have no idea. It is the most frustrating thing. I have wasted hours of my life trying to speak to the right person at the right electricity company. We have 2 meters but keep being told we can't have different prices on each meter. We keep just being offered a standard tariff.

Our flat is listed too so that limits us a bit. Some of the interiors are also listed so we can't mess about inside too much either.

the person at the call centre is lying to get the call done quickly and meet targets. you need economy 10 or economy 7 at least.

raise a complaint and also try twitter to get someone to listen.

been there!

We used to live in a old stone house with a newly installed electric and water system. It cost a huge amount to run and we ended up moving with a £2000 electric bill. I would NEVER move to a house with electric heating ever again!

OK no expert me but you may have a complex metering system, my neighbour has this and it’s caused her problems. However AFAIK the law now says that suppliers are required to switch you to a normal tariff if so requested, but you might have to pay towards any extra rewiring needed.

forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=5657152

By normal I mean E7 if desired.

Oil filled plug in radiators and heat panels, they can be put on timers, give out an amazing amount of heat and can be moved from room ro room.

We live in a rural setting and use oil, its cheaper for us than electric and is versatile. Other option might be LPG but room needed for tank. Pellet burners woodstoves and heatpumps all possibilities but pros and cons with each. The good thing with oil is its known technology and there are lots oif registers techs about