What kind of heating?

[Tisthedamnseason]

We are looking at buying a house that will need a little bit of work. Obviously we'll get someone in to look at the state of things, I was just wondering about people's experiences.

Currently the house has an old boiler supplied by oil. The neighbours have mains gas so my understanding is this would make connecting to the gas supply easier? How much of a disruption is this? Whats the sort of costs we'd be looking at?
Or do we stick with oil? We've never had oil before so don't really know what we're doing, and I think the boiler will need replacing anyway.
Or do we go for a heat pump? Is that better? Would we need new radiators etc?

The rest of the house is in pretty good nick. Will need a new kitchen and new flooring eventually. I'd have made an offer already if I wasn't unsure about the heating situation and costs to change.

To be honest the cost of a gas supply plus boiler would be more than the heat pump, with the 7500 grant from the government.
The heat pump would cost similar to run as the gas, especially with not having an extra standing charge for the gas supply.
Personally I'd skip the gas and go straight for the heat pump assuming you can get it installed in reasonable time.

I believe heat pumps depend on the type of house and what heating systems it has. For example, in an old cottage with small radiators, they are supposed to be inefficient. In more modern houses where there is underfloor heating and good insulation then they are good.
We have oil as there is no mains gas within 4 miles. It's no real bother, we just get it delivered as and when we need it. The price does go up and down depending on external factors but never been unaffordable.

We are on oil as the people who we bought the house from many years ago did not have the gas connected, although it is at the top of the drive. I cannot remember who we contacted, but they wanted us to dig the trench (dig up the drive) to particular specificiations and wanted to charge us £2,500 to fit the gas pipe, then connect it and fit the meter. This was about 15 years ago. The cost will depend on the length of the run of pipe required and will obviously cost more if you want them to dig the trench too. Oil boilers are more expensive than gas boilers and you will likely need a new bunded tank to meet current regulations. We stayed on oil but we do have 2 wood burning stoves, so the oil heating is only on an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening. In summer we hardly use anything just to run the hot water and there are obviously no standing charges. However, if you like to be very warm it could be very expensive without other sources of heat. Perhaps get a quote for the work to be done, a new tank and a new boiler and weigh up the pros and cons cost wise.

Sorry and oil is a bit of a last resort, you have to get it delivered, the price fluctuates a lot, and the tank takes up more space in the garden. Plus a bit harder to service and maintain it all. There can occasionally be issues with theft of oil. But if you already have it fitted and working there's the existing investment.
And regarding heat pumps there's a good chance you'll need bigger radiators, the bigger they are, the more efficient the system is, so the cheaper it is to run. Gas boilers have a similar but much smaller effect.

We have a combi boiler at the moment so I guess I just have a bias towards what I'm used to.
The house is about 30/40 years old, feels warm and well insulated (probate sale so no one living there at the moment, looked round today with no heating on and it wasn't cold). But small-ish radiators and I think bigger ones are better for heat pumps? There's no underfloor heating.

We've had a heat pump fitted in a 1960s house with not great insulation. We had larger radiators fitted throughout to get the best efficiency.

All in all it cost £14k and we used the government grant for £7500.

We absolutely love it and now have no gas and a lovely cosy house which is always 19°c. We could go up to 21 but I don't like it too warm.

I had oil at a previous place , cost a fortune as it was constantly being stolen out of the tank , my partners parents also had a oil tank that they locked to prevent this and the thieves cut the pipe and caused huge amount of damage in spite of them locking it , please be aware of this possibility ( mine south east / there’s south west ) circa 2012 - 2014
the actual system was fine but would never have this again because of theft

What was the installation like in terms of disruption?

@Livedandlearned sorry one more question - this heats your water fine? Does it take long to heat it up?

Installation took 4.5 days, all the radiators and the boiler out and replaced by new rads and some pipes. We needed space to put in all the workings which is up in the attic where the old boiler was.

The heat pump itself is in the back garden. It needs to be a couple of metres from the boundaries of neighbours.

They built a concrete base and underneath has a draining area as the heat pump condenses so the water has to drain away.

The hot water heats at whatever time you set the timer for, which for us is either early afternoon (we have solar panels so on sunny days this would be free to heat) or at night time. The reason for the night time is because the heat pump can't heat the water and the heating at the same time so we chose a time when we wouldn't mind if the heating stopped for a while, usually 30 minutes. There's loads of hot water but we have an electric shower so only use hot water for washing up really.

I used to work in a food place that was refrigerated to 19 degrees, that's not cosy! I think heat pumps would be ok in a modern house with underfloor heating, otherwise I'd be going for gas. PIL have oil because there's no gas in their village, oil can be expensive, but they also have a log burner and an open fire. When they needed to replace their boiler it cost more than a gas equivalent

Tbf we tend to only heat our house to 18/19 anyway.

If the house was 21° I would never be able to sleep but it could easily heat to that, it's just preference.

Do you not turn your heating off at night? Or is the heat pump meant or run continuously?

@iwantabreakfastpantry we keep it on all the time and have TRVs on the radiators so we can make our bedroom cooler at night.

Don't go near a heat pump unless the rest of the house is lined up to deal with it..ie massively insulated and potentially that means floors as well. Also need to make sure it is over specced capacity wise. For example they often recommend 18-22 degrees room temp...well to me that's freezing unless a bedroom but if that's what the system is built to deliver, it will be miserable.

Frankly...and I have friends who have heat pumps, the technology is still developing. I'd hold off