Alternatives to GCH?

[Misty9]

With all this wild fluctuation in the energy market at the moment, and needing to replace my closed system vented cylinder boiler, I'm turning to thinking about alternatives to gas fuelled heating.

It's a 3 bed semi, ex LA so solidly built, non cavity walls at least downstairs I think. What are the realistic options for retrofitting? Heat source pump seems really expensive unless you're building a house. Has anyone switched from GCH to renewables? Solar panels are an option, but v expensive since the subsidies were removed.

Any ideas?

We run oil in the central heating and Rayburn (also rather variable price) and also use housecoal.

Heating with electricity requires so much of the stuff that either you will have to generate a vast amount or pay a fortune. Ground source if you can afford the initial capital expenditure seemed the best option when we looked.

Air source heat pump - fitting it to an existing home doesn't need to be a major issue. But often the first priority needs to be improving insulation and efficiency in the home, otherwise you need a much bigger pump to heat it.

If it's already well insulated, modern windows etc already then it may not be a big deal at all. If your radiators are small or old, they may need replacing with larger, more efficient ones for ASHP to work - again, not necessarily a hugely disruptive job.

Look at Heatgeek and find a member company in your area there to ask for advice.

The new subsidies for fitting new ASHP should be confirmed soon but the leaked rumours suggest it could be around 7k so that would reduce your upfront cost.

Using electricity directly in heating is quite inefficient - air source heat pumps extract additional energy from the air.

Coefficient of Performance (COP) is a way of defining how much output of energy results from an input of energy. When an air source heat pump uses 1kW of electricity to run, it has a COP of 3kW. The 3kW is thermal energy (heat).

A gas boiler is a negative COP - for every 1 unit of gas used you get 0.8 heat

Getting the system designed right for your home is crucial to making it work so look for a very experienced company. Heatgeek is a good place to start.

Remember that even with higher gas prices the cost per kWh is still way below that for electricity, so you would need an amazingly efficient system to be cheaper to run.