Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Property/DIY

Join our Property forum for renovation, DIY, and house selling advice.

Flip

1 2 3

Original poster

What heating would you put in? No gas

56 replies

Cartref30 · 25/10/2021 08:53

I know this thread has been done to death but we have lived in our house for 7 months now and still don’t have an answer!

We have old storage heaters on economy 7, and a modern log burner for back up. I’m not going to debate the log burner - that is staying as back up.

My question is around our main source. We hate the storage heaters - having to think about whether they should be on the night before, running out of heat by 3pm, dangerously hot to touch etc. However they do work well and all we would gain from changing to new ones would be more control. What would you do?!

A) air source - we feel like this would be silly. 1900s cottage, never going to be insulated enough. Could be wrong.

B) stay as we are until renewable options develop

C) install oil - seems crazy in this day and age but is it?

D) change to new storage heaters slowly for purely aesthetic and controllable reasons

Any other ideas welcome!

OP posts:

TobyHouseMan · 25/10/2021 11:35

A heat pump can only really work with a well-insulated house and even then you may be disappointed. See www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10121865/JOHN-HUMPHRYS-heat-pump-left-cold-Im-hot-bothered-PM.html

I HATE storage heaters - I lived with them a few years and whatever I did I either ended up too hot to too cold. But what I always got was a large electric bill!

A modern oil boiler is efficient and reliable. Much cheaper than LPG and Electricity to run.

If you are concerned for the environment then the very best thing you can do long-term is insulate your house. The more you do, the less energy you use every year.

If it were me in your situation I'd install oil and insulate. Also put in smart heating so you only heat the parts of your house you need to, when you need to.

Siouxtse1 · 25/10/2021 11:43

We had the type of log burner that connected to a back boiler, so could power a central heating system as well. You had to be in to put the heating on though because the log burner had to be on. And an immersion system to heat water for the summer.

We opted for a log burner that we could add a secondary system through the tank, so you can run the heating/water from solar/ground source systems too. The installation is obviously a bit more expensive as you can't just use a regular gas safe engineer/plumber. People that sell these types of log burners (Stovax is relatively inexpensive for example) can usually provide a list of tradespeople that are able to install these and deal with any buildings regulations paperwork that might be necessary.

Mydogisagentleman · 25/10/2021 11:51

Me and DH have recently had this conversation.
Our house is 15 years old and has the original gas boiler.
The boiler was serviced a couple of weeks ago and is apparently showing its age.
The plumber suggested electric fired heating. New boiler and radiators filled with gel that pretty much plug into the sockets.

Original poster

Cartref30 · 25/10/2021 13:02

@Mydogisagentleman that’s interesting, I think we’d be worse off going to electric heating rather than storage as we would lose the ability to make the most of the cheaper overnight rate we have, which I imagine would make it very expensive.

OP posts:

Original poster

Cartref30 · 25/10/2021 13:04

@TobyHouseMan thank you, that’s useful. We are currently upping the insulation in the loft massively. We’re getting the downstairs completely renovated next year, and will be investigating any other insulation we can add at that point whilst not encouraging damp… such a balance in an old house!

My heart says insulate insulate insulate and add oil, even if we got 10 years of useable heat before having to change I think I’d be grateful. But it just goes against everything you think at this point in terms of affordability & existence of oil and obviously the impact on climate. So difficult!

OP posts:

parietal · 25/10/2021 16:28

do you have space for WarmStone which is a 'heat battery' - you warm it overnight with cheap electric and then use the heat as needed in the day.

underfloor electric heating can also be good because you only need it on a little to warm things up.

MatildaIThink · 25/10/2021 16:32

You need to work out how well insulated the home can actually be, that will impact a lot of your choices. Is ground source an option as it is better than air source?

Nemesia · 25/10/2021 16:43

We were in a similar position but had Fisher radiators (storage but didn't run on cheap nighttime tariff). First winter we froze as it was costing upwards of £100 week to moderately heat the house. We installed oil heating and it has been amazing!
We did research everything (including wind power, air source and ground source heat pumps) but like you, our house didn't have a high enough EPC rating to qualify for any loans or feed in tarrifs.

Original poster

Cartref30 · 25/10/2021 16:54

@Nemesia I think we might end up going the same way! Our epc was f I think when we moved in!

OP posts:

Nemesia · 25/10/2021 16:59

Honestly, it's the best thing we did. Don't get me wrong, oil is expensive at the moment, but even in the depth of winter we max out at approx 100 litres of oil per week. And most importantly, the house is warm and the water is hot!

Original poster

Cartref30 · 25/10/2021 17:08

@Nemesia we definitely need to look into it more. As part of our downstairs renovation the idea of wet underfloor heating has been put to us, because it will be a big L shaped space. I’m assuming (possibly naively!) that it might even be possible to have that powered by oil currently then air source in the future if we ever get to that point.
Our main focus definitely has to be insulation to reduce whatever we are using. We’ve taken loft from 0 on one section and 100mm on another to 270mm. Fixed many broken windows and replacing some thin patio doors. Hopefully that’ll all help!

OP posts:

Upsky · 25/10/2021 17:19

We've had oil for 30 years and recently replaced the boiler.
It's no different to gas from the way it heats the house. Cost is variable but much cheaper than electricity.
With a good size tank you can fill up when prices are lower.
We have a multi fuel stove (which I hate with a passion) with a back boiler. So it can top up the hot water or run some radiators.
Under floor electric heating absolutely eats electricity. You may as well burn £10 notes to keep warm.

Original poster

Cartref30 · 25/10/2021 17:23

@Upsky brilliant thank you. If the previous owners who had lived here 30 years had put oil in we wouldn’t even question it!
The underfloor heating that had been suggested was wet - so powered by gas / oil / airsource - whatever your normal supply was. I haven’t looked into it more yet though so radiators may well be better for us!

OP posts:

PigletJohn · 25/10/2021 20:38

@Mydogisagentleman

Me and DH have recently had this conversation. Our house is 15 years old and has the original gas boiler. The boiler was serviced a couple of weeks ago and is apparently showing its age. The plumber suggested electric fired heating. New boiler and radiators filled with gel that pretty much plug into the sockets.

Energy from electricity costs around five times as much as energy from gas.

I wonder why he recommended it.

15 years old is a modern, efficient, condensing boiler. What does "showing its age" mean?

tilder · 25/10/2021 20:49

We had this dilema a few years ago. We ended up with oil. Again. With max insulation and heavy curtains on doors and windows. We use 1/3 of the oil we used to.

There is no real alternative at the moment for us. We looked at wood pellet, LPG, GSHP, solar, electric. Most not possible because our house is listed or turned out to be not so eco.

Things are changing rapidly though and in a few years there will be more options.

CombatBarbie · 25/10/2021 20:50

We Are in a no gas area. We are on oil and it works well for us just now, tank sits hidden at rear of house. Our house is over 200yrs old so are taking all the walls back and putting insulated plasterboard over it (as much as the original walls are gorgeous). We have done 80% of upstairs and already noticed a huge difference. The oil heating is set to 18 and we put the wood burner on to keep the downstairs temperature warm.

We have looked at air source but we are still debating it, I'm keeping an eye on oil prices over winter which will determine our decision.

Asdf12345 · 25/10/2021 20:57

Oil.

pinkhousesarebest · 25/10/2021 21:00

We also have oil and have just replaced our boiler. Our plumber said that in a house like ours ( big, old, draughty), it was the only viable option.

user1493494961 · 25/10/2021 21:14

Oil.

thegcatsmother · 26/10/2021 07:11

Oil. My range will have to be pried out of my kitchen by force. We have no mains gas, so an oil fired range which does ch, hw and to cook on works for us. We have a wood burner in one sitting room and an open fire in a different room. We could up the insulation in the attics, but I am wary of over insulating, as older houses like ours were designed to breathe. I don't want to cause mould and damp.

Justcannotbearsed · 26/10/2021 07:11

We stuck with oil. Big old house with thick stone walls and single glazing we can’t afford to replace yet. 2 years time new windows.

We’ve put underfloor heating in part of downstairs, wet, it’ll run off anything.

We Put more loft insulation in. Lots of it.

I do think irs daft that modern houses are being built without ashp.

Justcannotbearsed · 26/10/2021 07:12

We’ve got a woodburner too. It’s modern and we only burn kiln dried wood.

SmartCar · 26/10/2021 07:15

You could replace you storage heaters with these. I have them and they are pretty good. Set the heat you want and it heats to that. www.heatershop.co.uk/rointe-kyros-kri0990rad3

Original poster

Cartref30 · 26/10/2021 07:26

@Justcannotbearsed yes I agree regarding new / modern housing, ashp would definitely be the way I would go in this case but I just can’t see it being effective in our house.

@thegcatsmother it’s such a balance isn’t it! I think this is the route we will take

@SmartCar I could be wrong, but I think they would end up costing us a lot more. The storage heaters are a pain, but at least they use the cheaper rate overnight!

Thank you so much everyone, we need to make the decision before renovating downstairs next year so time to get some quotes I think!

OP posts:

Dodgygeezer · 26/10/2021 07:34

Biomass?

Flip

1 2 3