Buying a house with warm air central heating

Jambo777

Hi guys,

I'm looking at buying a house which ticks all the boxes for me but one unusual feature is that is uses warm air central heating which runs off electricity.

Are there any drawbacks to this and if it proves expensive is there any scope to switch to gas without the costs of changing the whole setup to water heated radiators?

Thanks in advance

AnotherJoe

I love warm air CH but haven't encountered electric CH before. I could imagine it would be difficult to convert to gas, but that depends on your installation, the only way to know would be to get a gas warm air specialist in.
If you are in the south of England I can pm you the name of the company I used to install and maintain mine otherwise you'll have to google.

theinbetweener007

I had a gravity fed boiler system I!!!8217;m guessing that!!!8217;s the same? I just paid £5500 for British Gas to rip everything out and put a brand new combi boiler system in. Got more cupboard space too.

hazyjo

There's been a few threads on this which I've commented on before (on phone and can't search for them). I grew up with it (think it was electric but can't swear to it) but parents eventually changed it all over to gas/radiators. Downsides - too hot (very quickly) or too cold. Lots of static. You can listen through the air vents to hear stuff from other rooms above/below! Nothing was sacred in our house! Also you should keep them clear which restricts where furniture can go.

AnotherJoe

theinbetweener007 wrote: »

I had a gravity fed boiler system I'm guessing tha's the same? I just paid £5500 for British Gas to rip everything out and put a brand new combi boiler system in. Got more cupboard space too.

Its not the same at all !!!

Stubod

Some friends of ours had it in their property when they moved in but found it to be expensive and inefficient. They soon got it replaced with gas boiler and rads...maybe worth factoring into your offer price

rtho782

Rip it out and put air source heat pumps in, will be much cheaper to run, won't involve having mains gas connected to the property, and gives you aircon in the summer too.

You could go for an air->water ASHP and put radiators in if that's more your thing, you get RHI payments then which will basically pay for the whole system over a number of years.

agatham

I would really love to have something like that. If anybody knows any brand name that manufactures such ACH please share here.