Heating advice needed please

jolo_2

Hi, we have a large (4 bed)semi detatched victorian house, 3 storeys, solid stone walls (i.e. no cavity). At the minute we are heating it with radiators run from a large multi-fuel stove powered by coal. The stove struggles to cope with heating the whole house at once so we usually have either the upstairs or the downstairs on. The radiator are very hot and there is lots of hot water but obviously we dont get a steady heat, and if someone has a bath the heating goes off until the hot water has built back up. I am spending £95 on coal a month on average, but when its very cold like lately we can double that. Is this hideously expensive compared to other fuel for this size of house? I would estimate that it works out over the year at £120 ish per month as we use less in the summer, more in the winter.
Im wondering if we should be looking at getting a combi boiler put in but there is no mains gas here so it would have to be an oil or gas tank in the garden. Obvioulsy there would be quite an initial expense but can anyone tell me what their heating costs are for a similar sized property so I can judge if this would save me money in the long term.
Any help gratefully received.
Jo

200

Im stagered with that bill, it is huge!
oil is curently not a very secure thing to do,
so oil is out the question. If i were you, id go for electric
not cheap, but cheaper than that!
or if you wish to get smaller bills, get a wind turbine system to "cut" your bill, however there maybe other solutions. LPG is not.

Magentasue

I think oil would be the better long term investment but who knows? We had a similar house and paid about £1000 last year for gas (central heating and hot water for six). Our whole house was warm all winter on that. My brother pays about £1500 a year for oil but they also run an Aga in the winter months. However, only hot water for two and they don't keep their house as warm as we do.

200

Hang on a sec,
what makes you so sure oil is a good investment?

munchings-n-crunchings

Hello jolo,
I can only say what my experience is.
I previously heated by house using an open coal fire with a back boiler. In winter I would use 2-3 bags of coal per week, and at present prices that would cost me £32-£48.
I couldn't cope with those sort of fuel bills, and so made the change.
I went completely against current trends, and went for LPG.
I had a Baxi Duotec combi boiler installed, and a system of 4x47kg LPG bottles.
The bottles cost me £146 for the 4.
The first 2 bottles lasted me 5 weeks, which means at just under £15 per week, I have cut my heating bill by at least half.
My plumber organised a grant towards to cost, and there is a standard grant, or higher grant depending on benefits. The grant information is on the link below.
www.a1-boilers.co.uk/fuel-switching---funding.html

I am sure there are other grant options available.

In my circumstances, I thought this was the best option, and have been thoroughly delighted with my decision.

Regards
Munchie xx

jolo_2

Thanks everyone for the help and advice. Will get a few quotes in the spring and go from there.
Jo

halia

jolo wrote: »

Hi, we have a large (4 bed)semi detatched victorian house, 3 storeys, solid stone walls (i.e. no cavity). At the minute we are heating it with radiators run from a large multi-fuel stove powered by coal. The stove struggles to cope with heating the whole house at once so we usually have either the upstairs or the downstairs on. The radiator are very hot and there is lots of hot water but obviously we dont get a steady heat, and if someone has a bath the heating goes off until the hot water has built back up. I am spending £95 on coal a month on average, but when its very cold like lately we can double that. Is this hideously expensive compared to other fuel for this size of house? I would estimate that it works out over the year at £120 ish per month as we use less in the summer, more in the winter.
Im wondering if we should be looking at getting a combi boiler put in but there is no mains gas here so it would have to be an oil or gas tank in the garden. Obvioulsy there would be quite an initial expense but can anyone tell me what their heating costs are for a similar sized property so I can judge if this would save me money in the long term.
Any help gratefully received.
Jo

well we're on gas so it may not help but we have a 3 story victorian terrace which costs us £75/month in gas - and thats not having the house 'warm'! we tend to keep heating at about 16 degree mainly cos we can't afford to have it set much higher! We have an open fire which we use for supplementary heat to keep the living room warm.

tbh I'd take a good look at whether you can cut your heating bills by other means first- we've bubble wrapped our french doors, hung thick curtains and purchased thermal underwear so we can keep the radiators on a much lower setting!

Large victorians can be pretty chilly- its never going to be cheap to heat these houses.