Daydream fund challenge part 4

Davesnave

choille wrote: »

Have to get some bases in out side for new boiler.......

What will it run on.... logs, nuts, pellets, or the black stuff that's yellow?

Fay

I remember renovating a house Choille and getting to this point, I thought I would go mad. So I decided to focus my effort on one room and get that as finished as I could. No carpets due to dust in other areas. But electrics, skirting, doors, painted etc. just made me feel so much better. Could that approach work for you? It must be difficult for you to keep morale up with it being such a long build, but it will be so worth it.

choille

Much as I hate it Dave - Oil seems to be the thing that will be the cheapest.The pellets are not really a known known as Rumsfelt [sp?]said. They are shored up with Gov funding & the price will become unstable. A place that produced them over on the East has shut. Gone bust. I believe that folks are getting grants to put the systems in but it's the feeding them that will be expensive.

Fay - the heating will have to be a priority as it will make being in the rest of it (other than the kitchen bearable. ) Some jobs I can't do & at the moment neither can OH due to recuperating form his op.

Davesnave

choille wrote: »

Much as I hate it Dave - Oil seems to be the thing that will be the cheapest.The pellets are not really a known known as Rumsfelt [sp?]said.

With pellets, I discovered that a good boiler and a new central heating system would be about £25k-£30k all-in.:eek:

Instead, I opted for an oil system at £7k including the thermal store & rads, but excluding the new oil tank, which was another £1k. I didn't want to risk the old one.

It came down to a choice of oil + conservatory, or pellets and no conservatory, so it was a no-brainer. After all, the conservatory will protect more than half the back of our bungalow from the prevailing weather.

choille

Seems the Gov are offering free pellet systems for older properties. But you don't know what the costs of pellets will become. Wood pellet is ridiculously expensive & has a bit of green snob value!

The Rayburn will be left in as I think it's pretty & the oil will be for the heating & back up for the hot water if needed. Seems it will be roughly 4K. We have the rads - obviously so it will be connected up to that - the new boiler.

Nowts cheap Dave eh? But you sound like you got good value really.

The air & ground source heat pumps are another dear do. They are not gaurenteed & they need a back up.

DaftyDuck

With pellet boilers, I found the sheer volume of pellets I'd need to be a major headache. I had thought I could get one down in the cellar here (it's fairly huge, inaccessible, and a little damp), but the chap who came to discuss it reckoned we'd have to take the rear wall of the house out, and build it a ramp reminiscent of Phairohic pyramid-building to safely get it down. He estimates you need a garage-sized bit of real estate to house the boiler and hopper/store for a decent volume of pellets. You can get away with much less, but then you are at the mercy of the market as to pellet-price. Which partly reflects oil, as it takes enough energy to make the pellets.

I have, successfully, had oil boilers in cellars before. I do rather worry about a tank leak, and the effect that'd cause and, although the pellets aren't as flammable, maybe I'll sleep better without a steel dragon asleep in the cellar!

Given that many of the biomass boilers seem to fail regularly after only a few years, I wasn't convinced (and, in fact, neither was he, and he makes his living selling them). It didn't help that I've got quite a lot of wood of my own to burn (a garage-sized pile has already arrived by accident), and you can't pellet your own wood {cheaply... about £8,000 for the kit!}. Payback time (with or without the government hand-outs) just isn't worth it. It's the same with solar hot water: I'll have the system installed such that I could, later, bung panels on the roof, but it's probably not worth it.*

I'd be interested in which thermal store, and what size you are going for, Dave. I've seen quite mixed opinion on them in the last three months. Some of the popular Gledhill TS just don't seem to work on a small-scale. I do like the medium-sized Akvaterm.

I'm going for a combined system, with oil as the main firepower, and two large wood-burning stoves supplying supplementary heat to the system. Given their heat output (and that garage-sized pile), I'll actually be using oil for the minority of the winter, and then just to boost the heat to the radiators.

There's going to be a fight between the HETAS and OFTEC blokes as to whether to use a heat store, a H2 Panel, or a combination of systems. Both chaps really do know their stuff, and both seem enthused to get this thing working well. They've worked together a few times, and all their systems are slightly different, but beautifully installed. A really neat set of copper pipes around a boiler, all laid out well is a pleasure to behold.

At the moment we are running on luck, the boiler usually comes on in the morning, it only pumps over when there's a vowel in the day, there is only a control on the boiler (which is in an outside shed), the thermal valves (where they exist) are jammed, and heat control is via towels on radiators in rooms that are too warm. Any closing of gate valves and the system pumps over such that the attic is the warmest room! I'm not sleeping up there with those spiders! :eek:

*On the solar water panels, when this new house system goes "hot", I'll be left with about fifteen radiators that are just about salvageable. I also have two huge barn rooftops and, if I don't want to go up there, a fair amount of hidden space at ground level (I can't see it, even if one of the "posh" neighbours can ). I have seen some interweb folk have made a cheap and cheerful hot water supply system from radiator tat, and I am tempted. However, aside from the essential whirlpool bath and jacuzzi, I have no idea what to use umpteen gallons of hot water for... Any suggestions? I have used a simple long loop of black garden hose on a shed roof to supply copious hot water for garden pot-washing, and I'm sure the donkeys would like a warm bath now and then. It'd save hosing my wife down with cold water when she's fallen on her bům!

DaftyDuck

There's certainly snob-value, choille. I'm really not convinced the sums add up, particularly with the current low oil/gas price. If it stays lowish (and it probably will) for about five years, it makes little sense to go for a pellet system now. The Government isn't shovelling that much money for biomass boilers (and, where they are, there are strict criteria on what you can install, where you get your fuel from etc.) and some of them just seem pretty unreliable.

My snob-value is going to take a further dive. We have an Aga. It is going. {My green credentials just can't see all that oil just go up in smoke! Either that, or I'm a mean skinflint. Ah. Oh. MSE skinflint.}

I_have_spoken

Still pouring with rain, but was cheered to see my sophora 'Sun King' is flowering after being in the conservatory all winter.

Picked up a lot from the bargain bin at Dobbies today, mostly perennials where little or nothing is showing yet so here's hoping - Salvia pratensis, couple of huge hosta, three ferns, Clematis 'Marie Boisselot', delphinium and cymbidium orchid for £25. Result!

Davesnave

Dafty, I've got the 300l version of this with a spare coil for solar if we ever get round to it.

http://www.plumbase.co.uk/therma-q-unicyl-indirect-5357-3573895

Roof is coming off later this year.

DaftyDuck

Davesnave wrote: »

... roof is coming off later this year....

Planned, or Act of God?