Heating Options!! to replace storage heaters

[Limeandsober]

Hi all,

I have my ‘new’ property now and I’m gradually moving in from rented.

The house has storage heaters and is electric only. It is a 1970’s build.

I knew this needed addressing when I purchased but could do with a bit of advice.

Heat pump - I can’t get a grant for this as the property is already all electric. I have heard various feedback on these, none singing the benefits.

Connect to Gas - quoted £5,600 for the connection.

Gas tank - don’t really have the space for this although it could potentially be buried.

Oil - No

Log Burner - OK but doesn’t really address the issue.

It’s warm and lovely now but I’m very aware that it’s going to be freezing in the winter so I need to decide what to do. Any advice appreciated 😎

It’s going to be very expensive no matter what you do.

if the house is storage heaters only then the issue is usually late afternoon /evening as they warm up over night.

you can solve this without changing the whole heating system with electric blankets in bedrooms (they will be cold when you go to bed) and a log burner or other heater in the sitting room.

putting in radiators and a gas boiler or oil boiler will be expensive.

what’s the hot water situation? Immersion heater?

Yes immersion. I did get reduction on the property because of the heating situation, however now I have it it’s deciding what to do!

There is no heating in the bedrooms at all just one storage heater on the stairs and three downstairs.

I moved into an 80s built house with storage heaters 20 years ago in the spring. I immediately had gas central heating installed, although there was a previous gas connection so not too difficult. It was mid- terraced, timber framed with brick on the outside.

Come the winter I rarely turned the radiators on in the bedrooms as it was warm enough just from heating downstairs. And when I had people over for lunch and had had the oven on for an hour, I ended up opening windows to cool the house down as it was so hot!

Depending on the size and type of house, build materials etc. I'd be tempted to leave it until next winter and reassess. You could always get a couple of cheap oil filled radiators as a back up until you know how cold it gets.

So we have GCH but also a logburner and it's amazing how warm the whole house is if we have it on and leave the room doors open. We rarely use the heating until the depth of winter.

Of course, the logburner isn't free - we need to buy seasoned wood and get the system cleaned and serviced annually.

We are situated in the south west and, whilst we get a lot of rain, we don't get such cold temperatures as, say, Scotland. So where you are might depend a bit.

We also have a very well insulated house. What's the insulation like?

Back to GCH - this of course heats our water too.

I thought they were saying gas was going but I don't know what for in replacement? No one I know has a heat pump so that market is hardly booming (for whatever reason). I have one friend with a biomass boiler (uses pellet things) but he's got a huge mansion type place and a farm so plenty of room to have additional gubbins and to play with new ideas. I've no idea how efficient or costly it is. He's never said.

As PP says its good to live in a place for a year first to see what needs doing as a priority.

Heat Pump is the logical option, if you want your house warm all the time, they like to be left on.

You could also consider air to air (air conditioning) which can heat.

What are your other options, are you rural or in a town, has the property got a chimney? Or is there room for a flue? Is it a house or flat? Have you a garden, what sort of size?
Id consider the biomass options and see if any suitable but you'd need somewhere to store a pallet/tonne of wood pellets if you went that route, is there/have you got room for a shed?
I lived in an all electric flat myself, gas not an option so understand why you want to sort this.
also what about oil or lpg although I have no personal experience of either, but those I know who do, don't usually moan about them.
i would agree if you can get a wood burner installed downstairs if you're able to, that could solve most of this anyway. We had one in a 3 bed terrace house, at the front fireplace. I'd light it around 2 in winter, we'd put the heating on for about an hour when the kids had their bath and went to bed, just so their bedroom was warm, then the wood burner did the rest.

£5k ish is about right to connect to a mains service, my neighbour was quoted a few hundred more to connect electric.

if it's an option then I would suck it up and go that route.

Heat pumps are only really efficient if the house meets modern insulation requirements. They also work best with underfloor heating. I have one in a new build property and it’s great but we were advised against having one in the 1960s house we demolished to build it.

I have developed properties previously and would only install mains gas out of all the options unless it’s a new build. I did it in a bungalow renovation and it was relatively simple. People had been put off buying it because it didn’t have gas central heating.

We were in your position 12 years ago
we went through one winter and loved them. So KEPT them.
House is very well insulated and even in winter was WARM all the time.
And no mould anywhere, as house was at a fairly constant temperature (and I like to be warm. )
we had solor pannels put on the roof so now our electric bills are halved.
id see how you go.

Wood burners are available 2nd hand.
Solar Panels can cut down your electricity costs. Don't be restricted to these slick salesmen who offer Solar 'package'. We considered getting a local builder to fix panels and battery from B&Q or Screwfix. They were all on the websites.
Or roof is not at best angle to get the sun, so still thinking.

Storage heaters (NSH) are not always bad but you need to be on the right tariff.

Traditionally they were used with Econ7 which heated them up overnight and gave you a full tank of hot water with the option of a boost if you used it all (not common as the tank was usually huge). The downside with this was that the house was toasty warm during the day but a secondary form of heating might be required on a really cold evening when the NHS were starting to cool down.

Our solution was to switch to Econ10.
5hrs at night, 2.5hrs in the afternoon and 2.5hrs in the evening.
Meant we could turn the NSH input down at night but up during the day, resulted in a nicer temperature which was maintained throughout.
It also meant that a smaller water tank was required as it was repeatedly re-heated, in our case it made for a fantastic airing cupboard.
I checked a couple of years ago and many suppliers still maintained Econ10 while several still offered it to new customers.

We later had gas put in (were having an extension built so had gas run in at the same time) and a combi-boiler with rads fitted. Meant we were going to loose our lovely warm airing cupboard so had a small rad (with no thermostatic valve) put in there.

It's complicated. The thing to remember is not to just focus on the bills, but also the installation cost of the equipment, which sounds like it will be significant if you go for heat pump/mains gas.

Remember with the heat pump you will need a hot water tank as well whereas with mains gas you can get a combi boiler. The water tank can take up a lot of space.

By the time you factor in the gas connection vs. the no grant on the heat pump I would guess you are looking at fairly similar installation costs.

But first I would probably rather than going for gas or heat pump I would insulate the crap out of the house and plug up any heat leaks. Then I would probably run for a winter on an E7 tariff to get an idea of the bills.

A lot of it will depend on how well you can tolerate cold. For example if you have kids it is more difficult. If you have a relatively big house and are a single person it is far easier to dry washing without using a lot of electric and not screwing up the humidity. If you are on your own you can probably just heat one or two rooms in winter and use heated throws/electric bed blankets to take the edge off. These are very cheap to run. You might find you can reduce your bills enough that it would take decades to pay off the large installation costs of gas or a heat pump.

There are so many factors/variables involved that to optimise for cost you really need to tailor whatever solution you come up with to your circumstances by experience and applying some science.

Or if you can't be bothered with all this or are feeling flush just splash out on gas or a heat pump.

Have a look at the EPC certificate online and see whether it has any low cost recommendations you can implement.

Oh and you can easily and cheaply install heaters in the bedrooms if you want. Glass panel radiators are relatively low cost and look great on walls. Just be sure that the electrics are up to it as they can take a lot of power if you put them into mains plugs.