Do you love your heating?

[rosMumQ]

So I do not!! I recently moved to a house with LPG gas heating, no combi-boiler, an oil aga (that doesn't heat water) and a log burner (that doesn't heat water). I'm used to natural gas and combi-boilers. This place is soooo expensive to heat...which means as it turns nippy, I'm loathed to put the heating on. I will need to save to make any changes but I know there are lots of options out there - does anyone love their heating and want to recommend??

We've moved from thectraditional gas ch with a he tank and a timer and over ride button to a house with combi boiler. In fact we've had 11 houses with this system in 22 years (forces married quarters)

Give me my tank back please.

Bought our own house. Have a combi they said. It will be great they said. I am sick to death of washing my hands in cold water.
We've had 8 different boiler people out. All tell us our 3yo boiler is above spec for our home so should give us water no problem. There is no faults with it at all. Its one of the top brands. Wezare yold by every singke one of them its an excellent boiler. We live in a 1970s 3 bed semi so not a big house by any means.

I am suck of how long it takes for he to come through the tap. I go to the loo and want to wash my hands. I'm paying to heat the water the minute I turn that tap on. I hear the boiler fire up. Yet I can sing happy birthdayc3 times before any actual like warm tepid water starts to come through and I'm on the 4th round of Happy Birthday before I get decent warm/hot water yo wash my hands in.
Same with the bath. I can rinse it our thoroughly but still need to wait begore i dare put the plug in otherwise it's inches deep in tepid water before hot goes in.
I can turn on the shower, Have a wee and even pop downstairs to put the kettle on whilst it warms ip enough yo climb in.
We must just send gallons of cold water down the drain unused every day.

One blessing is that we are on water rates not a meter.

Combos are FUCKING shit imo. Never ever again.

Ihaventgottimeforthis, sounds like a bit of a miserable existence!

For any old house that's never going to be built to modern standards of efficiency & air-tightness, I'd always insist on fitting some form of proper fossil fuel powered heating for a baseline - gas/LPG/oil etc, & top up with wood burners or whatever you fancy.

All other alternatives either cost a fortune to install, or a fortune to run, & may or may not be as effective as pulling a jumper over your head & breathing in it to keep warm!

Oops sorry I went off about my he rather than the heat.

We upgraded our radiators for new double ones and always went for the max recommended or slightly up for size than recommended and now find our house is toasty when needed. Except in the shit extension which just remains cold always.

In contrast to a PP I love our wood pellet boiler. I think it works for us in part because we're in a really well insulated house. Never had an issue with not being able to leave the heating ticking over when away because the house never gets cold enough that it would fire up. We never heat the house at night.

What I really like is that the boiler itself functions as a room heater (it has a glass door so you can see the flame) so on winter mornings we put just the hot water on - then there is hot water for the day, it heats the bathroom radiators and the room we have breakfast in, and no need to heat the rest of the house.

I would say though that it's not for you if you'd have trouble heaving bags of pellets about! But we only put a couple in every few days.

That was me @FreezerBird our house is massive and very old. The heat escapes quickly and I'm always cold event though we have cavity wall amd loft insulation.

I do love the look of the pellet burner and it gives off a lot of heat too which is lovely. But for the size of house we have the burner is wrong.

Ah I must say I'm making it sound worse than it is! Upside is we got a six bed detached edwardian villa within spitting distance of the beach in Cornwall for 240K, I'm willing to put up with cold feet for a long time for that! I love my house really

I also think how bad can it be really - I grew up in a house with ice on the inside of my bedroom window.
I'm a fervent believer in our immune systems needing to experience the cold - it makes it easier to bear

ihavent do you know how much your combined oil/ashp boiler cost? Def something id be interested in if it’s going to save some money and reduce oil usage

We moved to an oldish (approx 150 years) house last year, with a 30+ year old oil boiler and Aga that did the water. There wasn't anywhere for alternative cooking to be able to switch it off in summer (you could switch the water over, so that wasn't a problem), and we were burning so much oil keeping the Aga on, it was frightening.

In the end, we installed a new, efficient boiler (moved it outside as well, so freed up space in the utility room), and removed the Aga altogether. From having to fill the oil tank every 5 weeks, I had it filled just when the Aga was removed, and we'd only used half in nearly 6 months (granted over the spring/summer months, but SO much slower than before, the Aga clearly had a drinking problem).

We installed a couple of new double radiators in the dining room to replace the lost Aga heat, and they've been great.

We looked at a variety of things, and nothing really worked unless we were doing a house renovation, tearing up floors etc. We looked at wood pellets, but we would have basically had to lose our massive garage to the system, and as said by PPs, been all over it to keep it regularly topped up. No gas in our village, a £330k charge (yes really) to get a connection, oil cheaper than LPG.

Longer term, hopefully options will improve, maybe by the time we need to replace the boiler again...

But no regrets on losing the Aga at all.

Ghislaine the nuos plus was about £1200 I think.
We run it just off electricity so having the ASHP is a massive help.
I reckon we thought it was roughly a 3 yr payback vs a regular boiler. Fab.

If I was being hard-nosed we really should get rid of our Aga too, its quite inefficient.
But I love the look of it a d the fact it's been in this house for 70 years, the dog & cat love it too, I dry clothes on it over winter (we don't have a tumbledryer), I cook in it, it keeps the kettle warm & i love to warm my hands & bum on it after a dog walk. It's my indulgence.