All electric house. Poor EPC rating and no heating. Help!

Owain_Moneysaver

1. First priority is to Insulate. - secondary glazing, interior wall dry-lining, interior ceiling dry-lining.

2. There are two economically viable means of electric heating - heat pump or night store.

For heat pump you can get air conditioning that doesn't need an outside unit but works through two vents through the wall

For night store you can use conventional storage heaters, fan-assisted storage heaters which hold the heat longer, Dimplex Duoheat/quantum heaters which have better management and integrate peak and off-peak heating, or a thermal store which is a big storage tank of very hot water linked to conventional wet radiators.

Possibly your hot water cylinder is an old one with poor insulation and controls which is why it would get a lower rating than a modern Part L compliant cylinder with timer controls.

3. Check the energy saving trust website as there are sometimes grant to help you get gas mains in infill locations. Also consider that mains gas and heating is likely to add value to your property (whether for sale or rental), unlike spending money on any form of electric heating.

Richie-from-the-Boro

According to Ofgem, published in July last year there were around 5 million meters in Great Britain which allow for separate recording of off-peak consumption. Out of these, approximately 3 million have a fixed time switching mechanisms [ie there is a clock attached to the meter that switches the registers or the load every day at the same time; Economy 7 and Economy 10 meters fall under this category] and around 2 million have a teleswitch, implying that the load switching time can be remotely controlled through instructions sent by suppliers/DNOs in the fashion described above. Almost all these meters belong to domestic customers and are connected to electric storage and immersion heating installations. These 2 million customers represent around 7% of all domestic electricity customers in Great Britain (27.6 million), as of December 2012.

- the heat """presumably all the heat will be gone by 7pm""", it is self evident, and startlingly obvious that presumably all the heat is not gone by 7pm .. .. think about it !
- a DUO will put extra heat on demand when you want it, fan assisted will draw air through that pre-existing heat, so no extra heat input, just a forced depleting output
- see here for domestic U values including slab on ground and thermal conductivity values of slab on ground, most of the O/P's writings are copy 'n paste from this site

The O/P is off gas and lousy insulation, the best bet would have been E7 [not E10] and night storage. Stand alone convector's are no good, stand alone radiant panel is better, heat pump [with RWI subsidy] is even better still, but all rely on good insulation. But wait, hey, they already had E7, night store and a the excellent rated PartL water which give a whole lot of extra savings and ripped it out, maybe they are going to install Quantum.

System

Maikeru wrote: »

- "fix the leak first, otherwise good money will be leeched from your budget supporting monthly fuel bills"

What leak are you referring to? Other than cavity wall/floor insulation there's not much that can be done.


- "wrong again my friend, you seem incapable of grasping the self evident, the startlingly obvious
- its self evidently the case that your neighbour is paying 60% less for night-rate water and space heating than you"

Ok, so are you saying that running shaky 1970 underfloor heating at peak rate in the living room combined with storage heaters on economy 7 in the bedrooms would be cheaper than storage heaters in all rooms?


People on here seem to be focusing a lot on the 'stupidity' of throwing away the storage heaters. The fact is, they were very old and if storage heating turns out to be the road we go down then we would have replaced them with modern fan-assisted ones anyway. I'm still not entirely averse to doing so but I haven't had a clear answer to whether they're the best solution for a working couple in a below average insulated house (since presumably all the heat will be gone by 7pm)?

It's not like we'll have the panel heaters in every room all the time. 3 hours in the evening in the living room and 2 hours in the bedroom (1 hour before we go to bed and 1 hour when we get up). That's 5 hours of panel heat a day. Are you saying it will still be cheaper to run two storage heaters every day (and there will still be enough heat left in them in the evening when we get home)?

I know the gas isn't a strong possibility in the near future; as I said I'll need 4 out of 16 neighbours to chip in and it's not like it'll be an overnight decision for them. Still worth a try though.

Hi if you go down the road and buy new storage heaters when you come home from work in the evening you house will be warm, not cold but not hot, you may have to top the living room up with a fire for when its really cold.

I have storage heaters installed and if you can afford to run them get them but they can be a bit expensive.

I have 2 2.5kw and 2 1.5kw and hot water run on E7 last winter i used £120 in 1 month.

I am in a 1bed flat 15th floor so i cant have gas or calor for safety reasons, i would hate to live in a house with NSH as it would cost a fortune

lstar337

mackemps3 wrote: »

I am in a 1bed flat 15th floor so i cant have gas or calor for safety reasons, i would hate to live in a house with NSH as it would cost a fortune

No point saying that unless you make a comparison. Is NSH expensive? sure. Is it expensive compared to direct electric heating? no.

It's the best you can do with an all electric house.

Richie-from-the-Boro

The biggest leak [in this scenario] is leech. It was then with the previous owner, is currently with the neighbours with non-working underfloor, and will again prove to be now with this new owner.

(1) If the slab on ground that formed the old heating system was / is SOI and insulated against heat transfer at the top of the slab, the mass that is tons of screed will suck heat from the ambient, and in a normal heating cycle will be an insatiable enemy of any form of heating. This should be attended to immediately [neighbours also advised] as the first of any remedial insulation.



(2) If the slab on ground that formed the old heating system was / is IUB and insulated against heat transfer at the bottom of the tons of absorbing concrete slab, plus the mass that is tons of screed [this is double the thermal mass of SOI] will suck even more heat from the ambient, and in a normal heating cycle will be an insatiable enemy of any form of heating. This should be attended to immediately [neighbours also advised] as the first of any remedial insulation.



These slabs are all over all the properties in the road, in a C or B they can work to your advantage, when they don't work buying any kind of alternative heating in an exercise in complete futility without first insulating the floor.

BTW 13a fan assisted night store is a very bad idea unless you have at least 22 not 17 hours of stored core rate heat. 13a panel assisted radiant night store is a good idea.


Fan assisted (above) will deplete stored core price heat, a radiant panel (below) will give you extra instant heat.



Best of luck.

Maikeru

Thanks for this. What sort of measures could we take to insulate such a floor? Is it possible to fully insulate it?

What would be a good modern example of a 13a panel assisted radiant night storage heater?

zaax

Why not contact National grid to see if they will lay gas pipes, as no gas in your colse seem to be a bit silly for the middle of London. Don't give up with the first no. Take it to your MP if needs be.

lstar337

Maikeru wrote: »

What would be a good modern example of a 13a panel assisted radiant night storage heater?

Dimplex Quantum or Duo.

Quantum - QM150
23.1kW of stored capacity, 1.3kW boost element.

Duo - Duo500n
18.2kW of stored capacity, 560W boost element.

Probably some other brands doing similar stuff, but you can look for those.

Richie-from-the-Boro

- see #27 Pincher comment on how it affects the floor level
- see '39 lstar337 comment on Duo & Quantum

The Floor

Assuming you are not going to work to code and spend £20k evacuating the slab. You are going to have to make some adjustments to the door openings, and will impact on stairs and skirts. The general rule of thumb is that 100mm of cheapish air-based insulation done properly will give you a U value of 0.2W/m2K in an average already insulated semi detached. Of course the thicker and higher performing material will give you an even better outcome, and the 25mm suggested below will lower the thermal outcome. This work will have an impact on impact on door openings, skirts, stairs and other fixtures.

There are many thin concrete floor insulating products available in the market. Those made from phenolic foam give good insulating qualities for the price, a cheaper different alternative would be rigid PIR [polyisocyanurate] which has alloy on both sides, the thinnest 25mm will cost about £11 for a standard domestic 2.4m by 1.2m baton. It is not difficult, if you are going to do this yourself see the hilarious video below, and do not - do not forget to leave no gaps and tape absolutely every thou of gap and lay a vapour control layer before your laminate floor or carpet.

Video :

captainhindsight_2

It is worth checking out air source heat pumps as this could be a good option especially with rhi payments being generous at the moment and they can be small installations if space is limited.

Other options are ground source or biomass but in London I am guessing you don't have space for ground source or space for storing biomass.