Best way to heat a space

treecol

Does anyone know the best way to heat a space currently without heating so we can actually use it during the winter? It is 24ft long x 9ft wide x 13ft high (vaulted ceiling) it is an infill between our garage & house. It's properly insulated. The mains gas supply is right behind the wall in there in the garage. We can not extend our central heating as it is warm air. We have just had a quote from an air conditioning company to install an air con unit that will also heat during the winter. It is apparently very efficient costing 8pence per hour to run. The company does not do just heater units. It will cost £800 to install & supply. If we have a 2nd boiler & rads in there it will cost around £2500 to install. There will be no residual heat with this heater - there would be with rads. We could also fit a flueless gas fire (had one years ago) but again no residual heat with that.
The guy installing it claims he has fitted them for people who have found them to be a cheaper way of heating their homes & gone over to them rather than their gas C/H - but he would say that, wouldn't he?!
It is a large but beautiful space. It has 2 Velux windows in the roof, the front is all glass & we really want to use it all year round. What would you choose?

J_B

Folks with better knowledge than me can comment on A/C units used for heating - I've heard that they are reasonably efficient too.

If one end is 'all glass' and there are two velux, does it get hot in the summer? If so, the A/C would help to keep it cool.

matelodave

An air - air heat pump will do the job - summat like this https://www.appliancesdirect.co.uk/p/eiq-12k12kc24kwminv/electriq-eiq12k12kc24kwminv?refsource=APadwords&refsource=Apadwords&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI8rbL7JfB2QIVKrvtCh3UZQviEAYYASABEgJJ6fD_BwE

I'm guessing that this is the sort of thing your installer is suggesting

They are between 300-400% efficientt meaning that you'll get between 3-4kwh of heat from every 1 kwh of leccy that you put in (depending on the outside temperature) and as said above you'll have the advantage of air conditioning in the summer.

You'll just need space for the outside unit, but that could be hung on the wall. Using a split sytem like this will allow you to have the heat distributed to each end of the space.

treecol

Thank you this:
https://www.airconcentre.co.uk/products/Wall+Mounted+Split+Units/KFR-53IW+18000+BTU+Air+Conditioning+Unit+%28KFR53+Wall+Split+System%29/318731765
is the one we have been quoted for. The quote is £860 installed. Do they chuck out a good amount of heat as it can be a really chilly room - we've had two convector heaters on in the past & it takes a long time to warm up. That said, we have never tried to heat it every day so I guess that would help.

matelodave

I'd have thought that a split system with two heating units, one at each end of the room would help with a more even heat rather than one single unit in in the middle.

24000 btu is around 7kw, whereas the single unit you've been quoted is 18000 btu which is roughly 5kw so I'd be tempted to spend a bit more to get more heat and a better distribution in a biggish space like yours..

It may cost a bit more to install as you'll have two sets of pipes from the the compressor unit - one to each of the heaters but you'll also gain with a bit more control as you can adjust each unit independently.

zeupater

treecol wrote: »

Does anyone know the best way to heat a space currently without heating so we can actually use it during the winter? It is 24ft long x 9ft wide x 13ft high (vaulted ceiling) it is an infill between our garage & house. It's properly insulated. The mains gas supply is right behind the wall in there in the garage. We can not extend our central heating as it is warm air. We have just had a quote from an air conditioning company to install an air con unit that will also heat during the winter. It is apparently very efficient costing 8pence per hour to run. The company does not do just heater units. It will cost £800 to install & supply. If we have a 2nd boiler & rads in there it will cost around £2500 to install. There will be no residual heat with this heater - there would be with rads. We could also fit a flueless gas fire (had one years ago) but again no residual heat with that.
The guy installing it claims he has fitted them for people who have found them to be a cheaper way of heating their homes & gone over to them rather than their gas C/H - but he would say that, wouldn't he?!
It is a large but beautiful space. It has 2 Velux windows in the roof, the front is all glass & we really want to use it all year round. What would you choose?

Hi

Considering the date of the OP it's possibly a little late, but as the previous post bumped the thread into view .....

If you've not settled on a solution yet and are still interested in a split unit heat-pump have a look at this thread on the G&E board of the MSE site ....

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4715287/discussion-ashp-air-air-with-solar-pv

... don't worry too much that it mainly concentrates on the operation of the heat-pump in tandem with solar PV as that's just concerned with self-consumption of generated power, just look at the idea & experiences in the thread as they'll give an idea of efficiencies & using the technology in conjunction with other forms of heating ....

HTH
Z