Heating alternatives

2 years ago

Hi, we're in the process of buying a house which currently has electric storage heaters and immersion tank for hot water. There is gas supply to the property and my initial thoughts were to install standard gas fired central heating with a modern condensing combi boiler. However given that we will be fitting a heating system from scratch and the suggestion that sales of new gas boilers may be banned in around 4 years' time, I'm wondering whether it would be better to look at alternative heating and hot water solutions to 'future proof' the house.

The house is a detached 4 bed, built in the 1960s. It has cavity wall insulation installed around 10 years ago, but could do with additional loft insulation (current depth around 100mm). I think that there are concrete floors in a couple of the ground floor rooms.

Appreciate that there probably isn't a 'right' answer here and I need to do more research (beyond the google search I've done so far!) but would be interested in the community's views.

Many thanks

Jill

Featured Answer

Mary Ketchley

2 years ago

It’s so difficult isn’t it? I was recently talking to a rep from a company that supplies heating both traditional and modern. I’d love to update our system to be as renewable as possible but I’m not convinced that an air source heat pump system would be sufficient to heat our 1970s house and the disruption to having everything fitted while we live in it is very off putting. Having said that, if we want to sell our house in 10 years time, no one is going to want an old system that isn’t easy to update.

Comments (9)

Jill Cornforth
Original Author
2 years ago
If we weren't already going to have quite a lot of disruption, I think I would just get a new boiler but as we will have to install a whole new system and will be reconfiguring the ground floor, it feels like the right time to consider alternatives. One of my concerns with something like an air source heat pump is whether the technology is still too new so expensive and current tech may seem outdated quite quickly (along the same lines as the earlier electric cars)
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PRO
OnePlan
2 years ago
Air source heat pumps do usually qualify for gov help ( paid back to you over 7 year period )
So could be cost effective - definitely worth looking into . Can be used for wet ( rads ) heating system and especially good for wet UFH . With rads, over spec the size you need, as the temperature of water going around will be lower than if this was gas - but otherwise it’s a good option in my opinion.
Jill Cornforth thanked OnePlan
PRO
OnePlan
2 years ago
( note - I have been looking into replacing an oil boiler with Air SHP - hence I’ve read up on it and had some peeps round - it’s not my usual field of profession !)
Jill Cornforth thanked OnePlan
leyla12
2 years ago
I've been mulling over the same dilemma. Problem with ASHP is they're just so expensive. And if you're not having underfloor heating (which is also really expensive!), then you are likely to need bigger rads than with gas boiler.My understanding is that with the govt payback scheme you may get around half the cost back (I read this somewhere, haven't calculated it for my house yet). So still considerably more than gas boiler. And there probably isn't going to huge annual savings on running the system Vs a gas boiler because gas is so much cheaper than electricity. I'm leaning towards keeping existing system in the hope that we will be able to use hydrogen boilers in future, which will be much less disruptive to install.
Jill Cornforth thanked leyla12
PRO
OnePlan
2 years ago
Well the quotes I’ve had are expensive - but with govt payback one quote reckoned I’d make a profit ! See screen shot !
DJT2021
2 years ago
Hi Jill, I just posted a similar question to yours and have since found this helpful thread. If you don't mind me asking...which way did you end up deciding on this?
Jill Cornforth
Original Author
2 years ago
Hi, we ended up going with the easy answer of gas central heating. I think if there had been no gas supply to the property, we may have reached a different decision, although it would still have been finely balanced given that we may have needed to oversize the radiators and/or fit underfloor heating, together with additional insulation. A friend of ours has recently constructed a new build home and gone with the air source heat pump which made more sense as they could spec the insulation and various other requirements from scratch rather than trying to retro-fit. Hope that helps!
DJT2021
2 years ago
Thank you Jill (& for coming back so quickly!). I can see how that makes sense. I suspect this is something I need to look into in more detail if we end up in the property we are looking at and can have a better idea of what it does and doesn't have now. I hope you're really enjoying the new home - and keeping warm!
Jill Cornforth thanked DJT2021

Heating alternatives

Mary Ketchley

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