Heating: thermal stores, ASHPs, solar thermal, oh my!

Smiley_Dan

Martyn1981 wrote: »

As mentioned earlier, may be one to watch, amongst others. Possible suggestion, since house is new (to you) and PV will be new too. Perhaps spend the next year studying consumption of oil and leccy, and generation of PV. Also get a feel for ASHP's and real performance figures. Try to insulate and draft proof as much as is possible (assuming it's needed .... it's always needed). And in a year or so's time hopefully everything will fall into place.

Great advice I think. I'm probably too keen on doing something overly grand as a project. Best to measure, analyse and improve from there.

MFW_ASAP

Smiley_Dan wrote: »

I moved into a large detached house a few months ago. This house is off the gas grid, and currently heated with an oil boiler.

Solar PV is due for installation next month; I'm hoping this will cover a large portion of our hot water requirements with an Optimmersion using spare 'leccy for the immersion heater in one of our (!) hot water tanks.

Thoughts now turn to heating. I'm looking for a solution that makes financial sense long term. I am no eco-warrior... I'm doing this to de-risk our family's financial future. As such, moving away from oil seems like a good idea, plus if RHIs can be gained for any new installation, so much the better.

The one 'green' technology that has a reasonable payback, definitely works and would drastically reduce your heating bills is insulation. I'd look at improving your thermal envelope before even thinking of installing other green tech as it's much better to reduce energy consumption than increase energy generation.

I was very pleased to see that the domestic feed in tariff payments for solar PV are reduced for energy inefficient homes. I'd extend this to RHI payments too.

Kernel_Sanders

What would be a typical payback period for a "normal" air source heat pump
(operating with low
heating water temperatures), and could this period be delayed perpetually due to maintenance and repair costs?

thenudeone

How long is a piece of string?

It would depend on so many factors including:
-the heating fuel it replaced (or was used in preference to) - electricity, oil, bottled gas, tanked gas, or mains gas.
-the level of insulation
-the cost of installing suitable heat emitters (underfloor or larger radiators)
-heat requirement (eg: as determined by the EPC)

But the biggest factor is probably RHI eligibility. I am expecting the RHI payments over 7 years to completely pay for the installation cost of the ASHP I'm having installed.

If you have access to mains gas, I'd suggest that even with RHI, an ASHP would be financially borderline for a retrofit installation. For new build or a full refurb, where suitable emitters and suitable insulation can be built in almost from scratch, it would be better.