New central heating install - WHAT TO DO?!

Owain_Moneysaver

joenitro wrote: »

G...drawbacks:
Having to light the fire first thing in the morning and tend to it all day every day to heat the house.

... positives:
Having a lovely fire all day!
No more running costs whether you only have one radiator turned on, or 7 turned on (as long as the stove outputs enough BTU's to start with!) -

I've experience of a coal-fired Parkray roomheater (glass fronted stove) and it stays lit for months on end. Because it runs on low overnight there's always hot water ready in the morning and you can have the radiators on a timer.

If you turn 7 rads on and want them all to get hot, you need to increase the heat output from the stove and that will increase fuel consumption. The energy has to come from and go to somewhere.

lovesgshp

Sorry Joe if you misinterpreted my post, but I was not suggesting a gshp for your situation, it would not be cost productive for the outlay in a short period. I work mainly with those systems. For a 2-3 year solution, it is better that you look for a more simplified option, low cost and efficient.

joenitro

Owain,
Those Parkrays look quite good. I keep thinking I don't want a stove and then every time I look at stoves, I want one again:rotfl:
What you said about leaving a stove on continuously for weeks(or even months!) on end is kind of what I envisaged. It would be much easier to get going again the next morning. Just open up the air controls, pop some more wood/coal on and away you go:)

Geotherm,
No I didn't misinterpret your post - thanks for your help so far:T

All suggestions form everyone gratefully received

joenitro

Well, had an independent plumber/heating engineer round last Saturday and have now received the estimates. What does everybody think? The bungalow has no wet central heating at present, so this would be a fresh install including running pipes and fitting all radiators etc.

[FONT=&quot]Option 1 – oil fired central heating system[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]To supply and install:[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Worcester 18/25 Heatslave Condensing Combination boiler[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Standard Flue[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]1000 litre bunded oil tank with base[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]9 radiators with thermostatic valves[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Programmer[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Fittings, copper & consumables[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Labour[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Materials and Labour: £5500.00 +VAT @ 20%[/FONT]


[FONT=&quot]Option 2 – LPG central heating system - Gas bottles/tank not included [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]To supply and install:[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Worcester 28jr LPG Combination Boiler [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Standard Flue[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]9 radiators with thermostatic valves[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Programmer[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Fittings, copper & Consumables[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Labour[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Materials and Labour: £4500 +VAT @ 20%[/FONT]


[FONT=&quot]Option 3 – Gledhill Thermal Heat Store – Multi Fuel stove not included [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]To supply and install:[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Gledhill thermal Heat Store[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Central Heating Header Tank[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]9 radiators with thermostatic valves[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Programmer[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Fittings, copper & Consumables[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Labour[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Materials and Labour: £3800 + Vat @ 20%[/FONT]

Thoughts?

LittleVermin

ulsterman wrote: »

Personally speaking, I wouldn't even think about buying a house with LPG as the cost of running the system once the initial sweetheart deal has expired will generally be a clean fortune. I'm on oil (which is far from cheap, but for heating at present I'm probably paying less than half what a neighbour is paying for LPG). Beyond that with LPG there's the hassle for any future purchaser of disentangling themselves from the LPG supplier... which dependent upon the supplier, can be problematic and far from straightforward.

Hi Joe,

Several posters on the Bulk LPG - Cheapest supplier / supply route? thread have written that they'd never get another house with LPG. And several of us have diversified our heating options.

ulsterman mentions "disentangling" from a supplier - it's normally easy now (since the Competition Commission LPG Order came into effect in April 2009) but there are still horror stories (particularly with Flogas - see posts in Bulk LPG ..). You must keep your wits about you when getting an initial price and a contract (I suggest you take the advice of HateLPG and DAVID.T, rather than brandeberryj, on the Bulk LPG.. thread. DAVID.T is in the industry, working for an independant supplier I believe, and is very helpful. HateLPG is digging into prices, contracts, and legal aspects..and getting the media involved)... and also you must make sure the supplier sticks to the terms of the contract (Calor is notorious for forgetting the clause about maximum rate of price rise. Corporate amnesia! One poster got a refund of nearly £1000).

There seems to be a lot of people subsidising some good deals for a few. Just this autumn one poster was paying Flogas 30ppl while another was paying 68ppl - to Flogas too! OK, you'd expect some variation based on usage, tank size, delivery costs - but someone paying over 125% more than another? Oh yes, the person paying 30ppl had been paying 45ppl - then learnt he could join a farmers' co-op bulk buy scheme ... and his price was reduced overnight! At the present time we know of people paying in the low thirties per litre while someone is paying 79ppl (and there are rumours of even higher prices).

You can see why we are trying to get Martin Lewis to bring up the LPG 'market' with top politicians. If you'd like to help please add your thanks to this post:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=39205254&postcount=477

ML has written in the first post in that thread that he'll take up the best supported posts - as part of his annual 'moneyfesto' which top politicians have already promised to listen to. All we get from our MPs, when we write, is woffle! And ofgem only deals with the former nationalised energy suppliers (i.e. mains gas and electricity).

Best wishes,
John

lucysettle

Whatever you do - don't employ npower to install your central heating. This is our experience...

Last September me and my boyfriend employed Npower to install a full central heating system to our house. We were very proud first time buyers, but were realistic and knew that a full install including new pipes throughout would be disruptive - there's no way that the damage and mess caused by npower could ever be described as within acceptable levels.

We've started a blog with photos and I really think the pics illustrate what I'm describing far better!
http://npower-gas-install-photos.posterous.com/

To keep it brief, we went with npower over similar quotes from local contractors because they guaranteed they'd be in and out really quickly and I had my 30th birthday coming up, so this was important to us. The beautiful sales brochure shows npower workmen branded in npower sweatshirts with npower dust sheets, but without us knowing our job was then outsourced by them to a Glasgow based gas company who carried out the work. (300 miles away from our house?!?)

The work was very poor to say the least - including using the wrong sized gas pipe being installed, so even if it got that far the boiler probably wouldn't have worked anyway. Pipes were installed at funny angles on the wall, so that they couldn't be boxed in or pressed so close together they were rubbing and creaking. Joints weren't holding so we had gas leaks during the install that the engineers struggled to source and water leaks through the ceiling. Pipes weren't sleeved through exterior and interior walls - against GasSafe regulations. And on top of that a huge amount of damage was caused (burnt carpets, burnt wall paper, stained walls, stained carpets, snapped floorboards etc) and eventually nPower stopped the work in the middle of the install.

Despite us asking, no dust sheets were used to protect our belongings or carpets, there were no guards used on the blow torches, so skirting boards, carpets and wallpaper were burnt. And my brand new washing machine and dryer that I'd be given as a house warming gift only a couple of weeks previously, they used as a saw bench which scratched the top and they got covered in brick dust in the back vents. They used my brand new vacuum cleaner too to hoover up brick debris. They had no wet/dry hoover so they couldn't suck out the gunk from the old pipes, so they either let it drip down the walls or onto the walls or on a couple of occasions I grabbed a couple of my bath towels to mop it up.

Npower have since returned to our house with their 'best men' and have reinstalled the gas pipes and tried to fix the banging/creaking pipework. In the end my boyfriend, who has absolutely no diy knowledge or experience whatsoever fixed the creaking pipes after npower failed to do so after three separate visits by an engineer.

The house is now warm, thank goodness, but we are now faced with the enormous task of fixing the damage. This is our first house and although the decor is dated, we needed to do one room at a time and slowly, so we could save up! We're now faced with pretty much every room having some damage that needs fixing.

Npower to their credit have admitted that they've left themselves wide open to criticism, however they have not been forthcoming so far with the money to fix our house and we've had to outlay money or rely on exceedingly generous friends and family and local businesses to get our house roughly back to normal in time for a family Christmas.

You think you're paying for the best when going with such a big company as npower, but if they're going to subcontract out, then what's the point? We may as well have gone with a local firm. And although the two young lads who came initially to install it are completely to blame for the damage and mess, they were left with no support and barely any instruction from npower and we feel the damage caused was down to inexperience on their part and them panicing when things started to go wrong like the gas and water leaks. Despite a very lengthy planning meeting between us and the sales person from npower, all these two lads were given on the first day was a lined a4 piece of paper with a top down drawing of our house drawn in biro... is that the extent of npower's resources??

We're waiting to hear back from npower about our compensation claim...

I hope you get sorted with your dilemma, but our advice is not to go with npower, but to find a local firm through word of mouth.

Lucy

joenitro

Ouch Lucy, that seems terrible. I hope it works out for you in the end?! And don't worry. NPower won't even get a look in!!

lucysettle

Thanks Joe, I hope you get sorted too!

joenitro

Thanks for all the replies folks. Had another quote for:
Worcester Greenstar Danesmore 12/18kw Wall Mounted System boiler
Standard Flue
Gledhill 130ltr open vented thermal store
Titan 1000ltr bunded oil tank with base
Tiger loop, Fire safety valve
Oil Line
9 radiators with thermostatic valves
2 central heating pumps
Programmer
Fittings, copper & consumables
Labour

Materials and Labour: £7000 +VAT @ 20%

To be honest, this is WAAAY more than I want to spend, just on a heating system. Obviously, this doesn't include a MF stove and is just utilising the back boiler on the open fire at the moment. I can't justify the expense as we won't be living there long enough.
Another(!) thought now is a Dunsley neutraliser or Systemlink to link up a regular oil boiler and MF stove to do CH and a normal vented hot water cylinder. Would this work out cheaper, as you are not having to purchase a small 130 litre TS at over £1k!

So confused!