Recently bought a house that we knew was going to need the heating upgraded that we were treating as a blank slate. We've now had a gas engineer out that said that's for the best, as it turns out the place is even more wonkier than we thought. We've chosen to cap the gas at the meters on the gas engineer's recommendation for now, as the kitchen doesn't need gas, while we figure things out.
He found that behind our gas fire is a coal back boiler and that an old cast iron radiator upstairs in a built in cupboard is a "dump radiator" for it. That same room with the cupboard upstairs has a gas fire radiator (and piping for others in the rest, though the piping is smaller than 'standard these days') and a little electric 'sun lamp' radiator above my height on the wall. The rest of the house is electric storage heaters of varying ages with an Economy 7 electric meter with it. It's basically that the house was upgraded bit by bit over time, but anything that didn't need to come out to do it was left.
For water, there is an electric immersion heater that's not working. We think the fuse has gone as the light next to the boost switch with the fuse isn't lighting, going to try replacing the fuse and seeing what's what later in the week but we may be looking at more repairs/replacement. We've a power shower, so we're really only looking at hot water for sinks for a while. We do plan to later knock through the downstairs WC into the storage unit next to it to make into a big bathroom, but that's a 'someday dream' project that's well behind dealing with renovating the utilities now, but I'm keeping that goal in mind.
So, with this wonky 'blank slate', I'm curious what others would do and if there is anything I should look into while making choices in this. It's a 1950s PRC house, if that makes a difference.
The gas engineer recommended pulling out everything, putting in a combi boiler and gas radiators and putting an electric fire in the living room where the gas fire was since without a gas back boiler, he says no one puts in just gas fires like that anymore. He did say it might be tricky to do in a middle terrace though our current immersion heater is in a cupboard that's against the front outer wall (it couldn't go in the kitchen as that's in the middle of the house with no good way of getting to an outer wall, according to him).
My spouse is more thinking of following several of our neighbours' examples and getting solar panels (something that was a long term plan, but might bring it forward) and upgrading all the electric devices (& sigh at the heating bills), as the electrics were redone only in the last couple of years with additional circuits put in and are mostly fine (a few sockets are in need of looking at & the currently dud immersion heater), having heard our gas piping is 'not standard', he's worried how much disruption and cost that'll be, especially with a concrete house. He does not like the idea of a combi-boiler after our experiences with one in rental. He's been given mixed information by electricians he's talked to (some say that any new electric radiators need to be wired in, others say they can put in a socket for one when removing old storage heaters that some electric heaters just plug into - my spouse likes the latter). He's actually been looking at under sink units for water heating since it will be years before we get around to the bathroom project, though I'm not sure what we would then be best to do with the water tank and immersion heater.
Whether we stick with storage heaters impacts whether we should stay economy 7 - I'm in two minds, especially with 2 adults at night workers and the kids spending more and more time out of the house during the day leaving just me and the appliances that need to run 24/7.
I don't have a strong opinion, I just want something that works well that I can understand enough to have an idea when things go wrong. I kinda like the idea of cleaning up the coal back burner just for decoration/historical interest (there is already a fireplace around it, it's just cleaning what they used to cover it before they put the gas fire in) and having other heating elsewhere in the living room (the gas engineer suggested that as the fireplace isn't centered in the room, it's off to one side), but as my spouse says, I get a 'fondness' for things like that but am often swayed if something else is more practical to the point it saves others effort.