Heating maze!

Foggster

We moved to this house 2 years ago and have the most peculiar of heating systems!

We have a gas fire in the sitting room with a back boiler. The gas comes from propane bottles. We could also cook with it if we wished although we had a newish electric cooker so thats what we cook with.

Once upon a time the gas would also power 3 radiators (very old ones) but the "pump" in the bathroom stopped working and we have never seen the point in fixing it since the radiators throw out very little heat.

However, the house has newish storage heaters which through these last few weeks appear to work well and not at a silly price (weekly electricity readings to monitor).

This isnt the "house for life" and we will probably move in 5+ years so I am reluctant to lay out for a new central heating system. There is no mains gas on the estate and no plans for it to come here.

Believe it or not, we are happy with the storage heating. We leave the immersion heater on full time because we found the back boiler used too much gas. Our 1/4 bills average out at £170 and we use around £100 of propane each year.

Would love to get rid of the gas fire because its rather ugly and its seems OTT to have 2 ugly propane bottles in the garden and we dont use the back boiler function. We would like a wood burner and we know the house used to have Parkray fire and that it was lined less than 5 years ago.

So what would you do!!! (if you have managed to read this far)!

PennyForThem_2

Are you in the country? Have you thought about a wood burning or multifuel stove?

I got one installed 18 months ago after having an open fire. Yes, it wasn't cheap aswe don't diy and i got HETAS engineer to install. But i love it. It is easy to light and warms up the room fantastically.

Read more on this forum about stoves - look at the pictures. If you can get cheap or free wood even better, but it needs to be seasoned. Just stack outside for a year or so to season it yourself (well more or less that simple - look for advice on here).

(And yes, I am a convert!)

Foggster

Thank you PennyFT.

Yes, we are considering a wood burner which is why I asked the question above i.e. is it better to get a woodburner and take out the gas fire....

I have had numerous open fires/rayburns/stoves etc. so happy with the knowledge on how to run them.

I suppose I was looking to see if I would be foolish to get rid of the back boiler or maybe should consider radiators and a proper boiler system etc etc.

:idea:

suki1964

if you are looking a stove then look at a multi fuel

Logs can work out very very expensive. We just put a multi in and so far in a week we have used 2/3rds a 25kg of smokeless fuel and a bag of logs and some old peats we had lying

Smokless Fuel - £7 for 25kg
Logs £2.80 a bag ( a net bag)


To keep to logs only would have cost at least £2.80 an evening ( 4 - 10pm) usually more


Would it not be possible to connect the multi/wood stove to the back boiler? if that was at all feasible that would be the most economical surely?

Swipe

Logs will always be expensive if you buy them in nets. Get a cubic metre delivered mid summer instead.

Katie-Kat-Kins

I use storage heaters and for background heat they are good, if you don't have gas they are probably your best bet. Glad you aren't finding them too pricey. If you can make them work at this time of year you will be fine with them. One low cost suggestion, get a timer switch on your immersion, it will save you money, we only need to have ours on for an hour during the E7 period to get enough hot water for the whole day as our tank is well lagged.

suki1964

Swipe wrote: »

Logs will always be expensive if you buy them in nets. Get a cubic metre delivered mid summer instead.

I know that, but for the sake of easy comparison I chose to use the net

Logs are sold by so many different ways depending on where in the country you are.

For example last year I bought a "trailer load", this year it looks cheaper for me to buy a 7.5ton lorry load (uncut) but then this is NI and nothing is simple and logs are NOT cheap no matter when where or how they are bought

Right now im burning briquettes made from the waste products of the tobacco factory along with some peats. Tomorrow it will be home made paper briquettes - anything to eek out the logs and coal