Alternative to gas central heating

[Iwantabreakfastpantry]

We have a large Victoria semi - very high ceilings (>3m), no buildings on our detached side so it’s quite exposed to the winds.

We are renovating and extending our kitchen, insulating the top floor (3 storey).
We will probably will need to replace our boiler but is there an alternative to gas we should be considering esp given the 2030 aim to reduce the country’s carbon footprint?

Our house is generally very cold esp the back kitchen living area because of the large external walls, lean-to-conservatory and poor heating.
Therefore, we are very keen for a warm toasty home - currently, I wear leggings, trousers, vest top, base layer, jumper and a blanket shawl to keep warm during the winter and that’s with the heating on for most of the day when in plus electric heater on intermittently.

Bit of info on what we are insulating the rest of the house in case anyone wants to know:
The stairs run along the external wall so none of the rooms have more than 1x external wall. Cavity insulation is not possible for the external wall - not sure what the solution is for that. Not keen on rendering the external wall as it doesn’t look particularly good (currently have brickwork).
The top floor rooms are in the roof and so reflect the temperature outside so do need insulating.

Heat pump?

No point in a heat pump unless the house is well insulated.

Just been reading the heat pump thread. I don’t think our house will have enough insulation to make a heat pump effective unless we raze it and rebuild.

We are planning on wet UFH for the refurbished kitchen/living area - does that have to run from the boiler? Can it from other sources (not sure what though)

UFH is great for any areas where you have tiles - such as kitchen/ dining areas. I highly recommend it. But yes, it is usually run using a boiler in the same way as radiators.

I have a 1930s Semi. It had an all electric boiler put in before we bought it about 7 years ago - all normal radiators but the boiler is electric. It is expensive to run so we have started the process for solar panels. We have been estimated that this will reduce our energy bills by around 75% 🤞

Our attached neighbour has a heat pump - their house isnt really suitable for it so it hasn't made much of a difference for them.

As it is victorian you can probably unblock the fireplaces and burn coal.

You can even bury coal under the garden for when the ban on buying it inevitably comes.

@Quail15

I have a 1930s Semi. It had an all electric boiler put in before we bought it about 7 years ago - all normal radiators but the boiler is electric. It is expensive to run so we have started the process for solar panels. We have been estimated that this will reduce our energy bills by around 75% 🤞

Our attached neighbour has a heat pump - their house isnt really suitable for it so it hasn't made much of a difference for them.

How much does it cost to get solar panels installed? We'd love to do that, but put off by the cost.

Foam backed plasterboard would make a difference to your single skin walls. The staircase could prove to be an obstacle but not impossible.

Do you have space for internal insulation for the external wall? Tbh I’d want to do it regardless of heating method if it’s a possibility.

Internal insulation on the ground floor might cause issues with damp depending on what your damp proofing is like as older houses often need to ventilate some moisture through the insides of walls to stop the walls getting damp.

I would insulate under the floors on the ground/lowest level and then install wet under floor heating in the rest of the house. You can get spreading plates which can be installed under suspended floors so you can do upstairs too and they will work under carpet , although obviously not as well. Wet underloor heating is designed to be left on almost constantly and run at a much lower temp than radiators. Also once installed you can heat the water by a variety of different method which can be changed whenever you need. Electric, gshp, ashp, solar, pellet boiler, wood burner etc... You need space for a pressurised hot water tank and the manifold to link the heating pipes up.

@hallwaypaint
We had a quote this morning for £6500 for 14 panels. I don't think they could fit 14 panels on our roof due to a large chimney so it should be a bit less than that. It is a lot of money (and we will most likely put some of it on a credit card) but our electricity bill is approx £2500 per year so hopefully in 4 -5 years they will have paid for themselves 🤞
My parents have just agreed to have 20 panels fitted (10 on the back and 10 on the front of their east/west facing house) at a cost of £10,000 - they have a wide but not very deep house - so lots of roof space. They have been told that they will cover all their electricity plus should earn around £600 a year by putting electricity back into the national grid. I'm not sure how accurate that is but it sounds good.

Hi @Iwantabreakfastpantry some of the utter rubbish here is, well, utter rubbish. There are heat pumps available that are specifically designed for retrofit.

The first place to start is with insulation. So external preferably and if necessary skin with brick to match existing. Next roof and loft, ours is half a meter thick. Next secondary or double glazing. And don't forget under the downstairs floorboards.

If you want good advice try the green building forum (just don't post for advice on baby names).

[quote Quail15]@hallwaypaint
We had a quote this morning for £6500 for 14 panels. I don't think they could fit 14 panels on our roof due to a large chimney so it should be a bit less than that. It is a lot of money (and we will most likely put some of it on a credit card) but our electricity bill is approx £2500 per year so hopefully in 4 -5 years they will have paid for themselves 🤞
My parents have just agreed to have 20 panels fitted (10 on the back and 10 on the front of their east/west facing house) at a cost of £10,000 - they have a wide but not very deep house - so lots of roof space. They have been told that they will cover all their electricity plus should earn around £600 a year by putting electricity back into the national grid. I'm not sure how accurate that is but it sounds good.[/quote]
That's actually less than I was imagining. Thank you.

@Quail15

I have a 1930s Semi. It had an all electric boiler put in before we bought it about 7 years ago - all normal radiators but the boiler is electric. It is expensive to run so we have started the process for solar panels. We have been estimated that this will reduce our energy bills by around 75% 🤞

Our attached neighbour has a heat pump - their house isnt really suitable for it so it hasn't made much of a difference for them.

I don't want to piss on your chips, but I think you will find that your solar panels give less than half the power that a gas boiler can, and only on bright sunny summers days when you don't need it.

Another way to reduce your fuel bills by 75% would be to throw the electric heater in the skip and install a gas boiler (if you can get gas)

nothing else makes financial sense.

@PigletJohn that would be great but there are no gas mains in our village...all the houses have alternative fuel heating of some kind.

The one thing that has reduced our heating cost over the last few years is our large log burner but it's not overly environmentally friendly, so solar panels must be worth a go to try and get our electricity bill down.

Sorry - posted to soon 🙈 solar panels can now come with a storage battery which storage the energy from bright days to use when you need to. Hopefully makes them more useful than they used to be. There aren't many other options for us out in the sticks.

You can get instated plasterboard to put on inside walls...Also UFH but solar fuelled. We have this with boiler backup, it even does our hot water fir showers as well. You will need space for a water tank though.

A lot to think about, it’s all rather mind boggling, potentially very disruptive, very expensive and ultimately maybe ineffective

Thanks everyone

[quote Quail15]@PigletJohn that would be great but there are no gas mains in our village...all the houses have alternative fuel heating of some kind.

The one thing that has reduced our heating cost over the last few years is our large log burner but it's not overly environmentally friendly, so solar panels must be worth a go to try and get our electricity bill down.[/quote]
I think you need to independently construct your business case.

Remember that when greenwashed salesmen speak of a ten-year return, what they mean is that for ten years you will be out of pocket, and after ten years you will be back where you started (ignoring inflation and opportunity costs).

If you have thousands of pounds filling your sock drawer, and nothing to do with it - you have already fully funded your pension, up to the LTA, and your ISA, up to the annual limit, and have a nest egg, an emergency account, £50k on Premium Bonds and don't know else what to do with your spare money, first consider the ten-year return on, say £8k spent on Solar; and £8k invested in a low-cost tracker for ten years.

I have solar, and do not begrudge the money spent, but it is not a profitable investment.

BTW you mention a log burner. Surely a better option is a multifuel stove, which is clean-burning and much more efficient? I used to have one, and it also heated the HW cylinder for no perceptible increase in fuel. I kept a few bags of smokeless fuel in case of severe weather or in case I was unable to bring in wood, for example due to illness. I did get snowed in once.

I have a country-dwelling relation with a really big one that also runs the CH, but she regrets the extra work and inconvenience compared to an equivalent gas boiler. I am sorry you do not have this option.

You will usually get as faster payback on additional insulation, of loft, external walls, and floors.