Choosing central heating for a house with no mains gas

[LadyUrsula]

I'm buying a house with no central heating or mains gas and need to choose a new heating system. I don't want oil and I'm tempted to go with LPG via a tank. Ideally I'd go for an air source heat pump but it's so expensive! What's your experience of central heating?

No to LPG. The air source heat pump and solar panels is the way to go. LPG is so retro.

NO to LPG, it’s a nightmare to manage and with no buying power.

look at a Saphire Oil boiler which will also run from HVO when the cost comes down, or now if you want to pay more than oil. Also got a 25yr warranty.

Are there not grants available for Heat Pumps and Solar Panels?

Definitely maximise solar with an air source heat pump and battery.
I would also have a back up heating system like a log burner or bottled gas fire.

There should be government grants to help with heating and also insulation.

A friend has gone down that route and has waited so long for the recommended companies to do the work that they've given up and gone for oil.

Don't know about grants available to you, but why not look at air to air heating and cooling?

if its a period property then the insulation required to get the grant isn't appropriate anyway.

If I was at the point of needing to put in a whole new heating system from scratch, I'd definitely go for solar, battery and air source. I know next to nothing about cost, grants, etc but what a great opportunity, particularly if you're intending to stay there for many years. Research it before ruling it out completely - how much cheaper will the alternatives actually be and how much will you likely save in your heating bills for years to come.

I have extensively done this exercise and it works for some but far from all.

We have no mains gas and can’t have solar panels or heat source pump. We have replaced our old electric panel heaters with clay core radiators which are much more energy efficient and work very well.

How they work is they are electric but use only enough power to heat the clay core which then releases heat slowly. You set a thermostat to your preferred ambient temperature and the heater clicks itself on or off depending on how much heat it has left in its core. They are expensive but we worked out that they will pay for themselves over 5-7 years.

We bought the Fischer ones but others are available. Our neighbour has them and also has their water heating unit which we didn’t get because we couldn’t afford it at that point, but may buy in future.

What insulation requirement? The necessity for cavity wall insulation (if possible) was removed in May 2024, from the BUS grant.

We have just moved and found ourselves in the exact same position.

We have gone down the ASHP route.

We researched companies and did our due diligence before approaching them. They came out, did a very comprehensive site survey, sent us the report which we went through with them with a fine tooth comb, they then handled the grant application for us, which we got accepted on last week, and we are now on the schedule for a heat pump installation for the first week of September. Took us 6 weeks from initial enquiry to installation date being given.

Guess it depends where you are, and who you go with OP.

Over the years we've had,
LPG in cylinders (initially had to put the empty ones in the car and swap them over before we could find a company to come out to do it.)

Changed to OIL. Had an externally wall mounted boiler but the installers fittied a small oil tank (1200 litres) so we had to keep an eye on the tank and call them to refill it (it was too small to use a 'top-up' service. Then found a remote device that fitted to tank so you could see the level from inside the house (still had to call for delivery).

Another house - had a LPG cistern installed underground although we were still responsible for monitoring and requesting delivery.
Finally, now in a house with mains gas.

Unfortunately the price of OIL and LPG can fluctuate significantly depending on wars etc. Out of OIL and LPG I would favour LPG as it is cleaner and uses the same boilers as Natural Gas (different jets) and you can use it for cooking too, if you wish.

Thanks for all the replies. I'll look at applying for a grant towards ASHPs and solar panels (one side of the roof faces south).

Would you have it attached to underfloor heating or just have radiators? Ground floor is concrete (thinking of having porcelain tiles or LVTs throughout that floor) and upstairs is chipboard on timber joists (going for carpet up there).

How is it heated at the moment, and how long do you intend on staying there ?

One thing you could do that is cheap in the short term but expensive in the long term is just get some wall mounted electric radiators.

They are cheap, you can fit them yourself and they are independently controllable from room to room so you can target your heating better.

The bad news is that they could be very expensive to run. But remember even if they are expensive to run then it will still take a hell of a lot of energy for them to cost as much as say a heat pump installation. 8K or so buys you a lot of electricity.

If you tried to heat a house by this method alone it would probably be too expensive long term. But if the house is relatively well insulated, you have something like a log burner and you aren't the kind of person that needs greenhouse type temperatures it could be a viable option for a few years before you decide what to do.

The only other thing I would do is make sure you test your electrics out if you are going to do this, as if you have a few of these they take much more power than may have been running previously.

Not all houses are suitable for ashp without a lot of retrofitting insulation. We considered it for ours when we bought as had to replace the heating system and in the end stayed with oil because the work to make the house suitable for ashp was far too much money. It's been cheaper to heat than our previous homes on gas, except for this year. And even this year hasn't been bad, we watch the price and buy when it dips. Some areas have buying clubs too which means you get better pricing. We buy every 9 months roughly.
I'd love solar and batteries, I hope to be able to install those in the next couple of years, for water heating and electricity.
I think given the choice again i'd be fitting some sort of electric heating that you could control room by room. I was without heat and hot water for nearly two weeks a couple of years ago midwinter due to a boiler issue. The lack of hot water was far more of an issue than the lack of heating. I had a single oil filled radiator that I kept in one room and in a different room I've a multi fuel stove that I'd light about midday and keep going until bedtime, which was always still warm the next morning. The heat from the stove kept the hallway and three rooms warm plus the bedroom directly above. It made me think about different temps in different rooms and that I don't really need to heat a whole house every day in winter.
No hot water was crappy though.
Anyway, I like being on oil, it works well and hasn't been expensive for us, but I would prefer a more sustainable option in future if I can ever afford it.

We’ve just put air source in. Underfloor heating. It had oil when we bought it but we are renovating before we move in.

@LadyUrsula If you can install under floor heating, it’s best but it works with radiators However water temp is a bit lower so you need over sized rads. If you are renovating I would sort it out. Wall mounted electric heaters are not central
heating. Naff to be honest,

We live in a village with a lot of new builds that have been built in the last 3 years . All of them have ASHP as no mains gas . Since then , every last one has had a woodburner installed , because it just wasn’t warm enough when it got really cold .

Oil has its drawbacks , but we just don’t have the means to splash out on solar . My neighbour just spent £60k on his and is spending more on battery storage when he can . At my age , it’s just not financially worth it .

How much is it costing you?

Thanks everyone for all the other replies. The house is a 40 year old barn conversion with electric radiators. There's a woodburner in the large sitting room, which backs on to the dining room. One radiator for the long kitchen/breakfast room.

I would have to check the pricing because we got a grant and I think the grants have gone up since then. Off the top of my head I think it was something like £7.5k but cost us about £2k.

There was a thread here earlier this week from an OP who's fitted an ASHP, was costing her a fortune, over £20 a day in heating, and house was just between 12-18 degrees in winter ☹️
It didn't sound promising

LPG is perfectly easy to manage, plus you can have a (adapted) gas boiler which is way cheaper to install and service than oil.

Oil is more expensive to maintain and you are responsible for maintaining and buying your own tank. Servicing costs are higher but much more important as nozzles and hoses need changing each year and without servicing it will be less effective.

ASHP has a big outlay, needs solar to be efficient and doesn’t suit all properties. But if suitable and scoped properly isn’t difficult. The warranty on ASHP are super short compared to gas or oil.

Just to add, if you have solar and hot water cylinders you can heat them from the solar so the ASHP or boiler is just for the heating.

I always had oil before which I used minimally for getting up for work on cold mornings.
The main source of heat was a big old woodburner which cost me around £100 every winter in wood and kept the house very warm.
My current house has gas.