stupid to get new oil CH installed over biomass??

pokadot

hi, i have posted on here a couple of times regarding our heating situation... just looking for some opinions or advice please!

we moved into our current bungalow last winter and have struggled over the last 2 winters with a very old night storage sytems and a couple of fan heaters. we have made a decision to put a new heating and hot water system in but are undecided on whether to go for oil or biomass??

oil looks to be about 9K and biomass about 12-13K (thats with the (£950 ) already deducted

we are struggling to get the extra 3-4K needed to get biomass and was hoping the RHI would come in this year to justify it but it seems its been delayed again...(to be honest it will be a struggle to get the £9K needed but we need to get something in)

we NEED to get something in this autumn- and we are wondering whether to just go for oil and maybe source a decent second hand oil tank to reduce a little bit of the cost to maybe 8.5K. we just think maybe its a bit of a backward step as we are trying to create a contemporay family bungalow (currently doing an extension )????

would we be stupid to go for oil???

we are unsure of whether we will be staying here for our forever family home but propbably another 5 years- maybe more if we begin to settle in the village.

we love the idea of biomass- ecofriendly etc but just not sure if we can afford the extra capital costs-but would be kicking ourselves if the RHI came in and we had gone for oil....

oh we will also be getting a wood burner and obviously be trying to keep costs down....

any thoughts please would be much appreciated....what would you do???

many thanks :j

crash_ndie

the rhi has already came out for commercial side so it will be a matter of time for domestic uses down side to this its not due out till 2014 if the rhi is anything like the commercial side is it will be a good investment ! have you had a quote for air source it currently has its rhi and with you having eco7 with the storage it will be cheap to run too? it may be worth while to get a quote for rads and pipe work fitted only then get a quote to have the bio mass boiler fitted on its own to the system. I'd expect to pay around 2500 for rads and pipe work. It may be cheaper option

muckybutt

Another option for a wet system with hot water would be to install an electric combi boiler, plenty of those to choose from and as you already have E7 cheap to run.

Combine that if you can with an accumulator tank so the boiler heats the tank up during the night, thus hot water and ch will only need small top ups during the day.

As for second hand oil tanks.... I'd be very wary of one unless its been thoroughly cleaned out and pressure tested for leaks.

pokadot

thanks for the replys so far- i had ruled out electric boilers on E7 due to high running costs and i know it wouldn't be viable to get air source heat pump due to having a old poorly insulated bungalow.i was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on the lifetime of a biomass bioler- we were looking at a MCZ musa 22kw? it only seems to have a 2 year guarentee? at a cost of alomost 6k just for the boiler im worried about the cost if it was to break down after 2 years- are they quite reliable does anyone know??? im kind of vering towards biomass now...

pokadot

do you thinkit would be ok to get a local plumber to fit rads/ pipre work and a hot water megaflow cylinder then get the renewable company to fit the biomass boiler afterwards- to try to save costs??

bernithebiker

If you go oil, maybe spend the few grand you save on a basket of oil shares and futures and then at least you'll have some hedging in place......

crash_ndie

hi the air source is a wet system same as a oil or bio mass boiler if your home is poorly insulated then you will have high running cost on any system you choose ... the gaurintees offered the boilers is either here or there worchester bosh (good mid range ) offer a 7 years on theres gas boilers and biasi (very poor never buy one) offer 2, but theres nothing to say the biasi wont last as long as they often do ... id still conciser air source with thermal store

ilikecookies

Hi pokadot,

We faced a similar dilemma. When we moved into our current property it was running on LPG via a VERY inefficient Rayburn.

We knew we needed to switch to a new high-efficiency boiler and because we didn't like the way LPG market operates (2-year contracts, standing charges, limited tank sizes, etc) we basically had a decision between oil or biomass (we ruled out a heat pump as the house just isn't well-insulated enough).

We went with oil in the end even though this felt a bit retrogade. Our rationale was:

1) Siting the biomass boiler was going to be more problematic and expensive as ideally we wanted one on an automatic feed/with a hopper.
2) No local installers - as such I was worried about the cost (and speed) of repairs and servicing down the line.
3) I wasn't totally convinced that the running costs would be much lower without RHI and there was no clarity at that point when this was coming.

So in the end we plumped for oil and I can't say I particularly regret it.

If you don't think your current property will be your long-term home then I'd consider if biomass is the right option as ultimately you won't be the one receiving the RHI payments (to offset the higher install cost) and you *might* find buyers are suspicious of biomass.

Without knowing the full ins-and-outs of your property I was a little surprised that the install cost for oil was quite so high though I guess this is due to the fact that you need to have all new pipework, rads, etc. All I could suggest in this instance is to get more quotes and see if you can push that price down to more like £7-8k. If you can get the oil cost down then I suspect the decision will be easier to make.

One tip though don't scrimp on the oil boiler though - go for a Grant (the best oil boiler manufacturer in my opinion) or a Worcester.

Hope that helps!

fishybusiness

Look at the numbers.

If you stay 5 years, will you save the extra 5k you would invest in biomass?

Will your property value go up significantly with biomass compared to oil?

If the answer to both of those is no, stick with oil.

matelodave

We had a very similar situation in 2010, we moved into a bungalow which had old storage heaters, economy 7 and no access to gas. Our options were oil, lpg, biomass or heat-pump. As we had to have a complete system installed including all plumbing, rads etc we explored underfloor heating using an overlay system (ie laid on top of the existing floor, rather than buried into it - we've got PolyPipe Overlay but there are other systems about). The bungalow isn't all that old, 1986 but was scruffy and needed work doing to it so it wasn't too much of a problem stripping all the skirtings and laying the floor, although with a new system it shouldn't be hard to design it with the correct sized rads to suit whatever heat source you choose.
We decided that we didn't want to stare out onto an LPG or oil tank or even a heap of wood/pellets neither did we want the hassle or security aspects of having oil or gas deliveries. I'm also a bit of a techie and liked the idea of a heat pump although it had to be reasonably cost effective.
We've got double glazing, 300mm of loft insulation and the cavity walls are insulated - in hindsight I should have insulated the floor as well (suspended timer over a ventilated cavity) although the cost and time probably would have taken a long time to pay back.
The heatpump (Daikin 11kw LT) and 200 litre pressurised water tank cost us £7995 so try and equate that with the cost of an oil tank, boiler & civil works or a biomass boiler & store etc to get some idea of the cost differential. We haven't had any RHI and I don't expect to get any either - the govt has procrastinated so long that I reckon it will evaporate.
Our total electicity consumption last year was just under 8300kw and I reckon the h/p consumed about 4500 of that for all our heating and hotwater - we are presently paying about 10.6p/kw for electric (fixed price to November this year). We are at home all day and the system is on most of the time. The system runs very closely to the simulator (have a look on the Daikin uk website) and assuming that it's about right we appear to be getting a COP of about 3 (4500kw x 3 = 1350kw) which means we are paying about 10.6/3 = 3.5p/kw which is about the same price as mains gas.

Investigate the vat situation - when we got ours the heatpump was only subject to 5% but as the heating system was installed as a complete system we only paid 5% for the whole job, if we'd had the heating system installed seperately (by another contractor or plumber) we would have had to pay 17.5% on that portion.
If you want more info please feel free to PM me

pokadot

thanks for all the replies so far- my head is spinning with all the options, i think i will talk to our local plumbers- who do lots of renewables about a heat pump but we definately couldn't have underfloor heating- it would have to be rads- but not sure if that would give enough heat off, also aren't they really noisy.

in some ways i like the idea of oil- not having to load up pellets etc and alos biomass also has an elliment of electricity so if there was a power cut there would be no heating or hot water....

any ideas on getting a second hand oil tank to reduce capital costs...??