First-time buyers. Central Heating or electric?

joenitro

Hi all,

My girlfriend and I are halfway through purchasing our first house (detached bungalow, approx 98m2) together in Scotland. We live in Gloucestershire in a small flat with all bills paid:) that comes with her job.
The plan is for her parents to live in the house in Scotland (they currently live 2 minutes away from "our new place" and rent, so an easy swap) and to gradually renovate / keep an eye on any work being done as we are a 5 hour drive away!

The property only has night storage heaters and two open fires. There is an immersion heater for the hot water. There is mains electricity and water, but no mains gas:(

Personally, I would like to get the place insulated as much as possible (hopefully for free or with government grants as her parents are 60 - 70 years old) with cavity-wall insulation and loft insulation. Then I would like central heating put in by a local installer. I think I am leaning towards an LPG combi condensing boiler instead of oil, due to the lesser up front installation costs etc.
However, her mother seems to be convinced that electric heaters are better. I think she is worried due to all the current headlines about the huge rises in the price of LPG and heating oil.
What can I do to convince her that a proper central heating system is the way forward, with on demand hot water (no bath at present, only an electric shower) and decent, controllable radiators in each room?!!

Pincher

Good God, a mother in law who is RIGHT!
Haven't you read the threads on LPG and oil?

I would get as much as you can from the RHI subsidy, starting in June 2011. They are going to insist on loft and cavity wall insulation before giving you funding for RHI, so you need to get those done first. Because you don't want to do wiring and plumbing whilst wading through 200mm of rockwool, you should get as much wiring etc. done before the loft insulation as possible.

RHI includes solar thermal, so you can get a solar and heat pump compatible cylinder. Gledhill does one, a thermal store.
The hot water output is probably not quite hot enough for shower and bath, so you need to put in an inline water heater, which is not expensive to run, because it only has to raise the water by a few degrees, not from cold. You can put in the solar thermal panel later, and just run on the heat pump, but the solar thermal will attract some nice FIT type income.

Since Scotland went down to -20 degrees this winter, Air Source is dodgy, so ideally, you want Ground Source Heat Pump. Under floor heating is easy if you are doing the bungalow from scratch. Just make sure it's well insulated below, and all cold bridges are eliminated.

The above is geared towards maximising the RHI subsidy, but it's a pretty decent combination for your circumstances. Gas leaks and kills you, radiators leak, LPG is expensive, so it's not exactly nirvana anyway.