Install gas or go green?

Richie-from-the-Boro

Underloor insulation is never easy or cheap. Usually a suspended timber floor can be anywhere from 6" to 3-4'. for cross flow if yours was built after the 20's that's normally air-brick cross flow anyway. Loft hatch and particularly non-balloon open fires are a very very major loss of expensive heat energy.

A 5 or 6 brick pier crawl space will be 16-18", plenty of advice on the interwibble on who/what/costing, certainly summer is better than winter, this IMO is where you should consider cost/benefit spend.

cagreen13

Richie-from-the-Boro wrote: »

Most regulars on this site know I'm a fan of Quantum. With water you need a partL type compatible cylinder preferably with enough head-height for gravity fed hot water system. It's a heck of a price for a centrally controlled water and heat system and will be a - l o n g break even point.

However if you install a 3.4 kW any brand in your [most of your waking life] your living room you will have a sufficiently comfortable area to spend your life. The trick (and there is one) is to learn to use NSH and drive the % of night use ALL water and heat to 30%+ of ALL use.

- you will, twice a year need instant on demand heating
- you need both water and heat on E7
- you need a 'best' tariff for your area code
- you need leccy counter distribution @ 30% +

Best of luck in your thinking

Hi Ritchie, thank you for this and your other replies. I really appreciate the time and thought you have given this. This is an area I’m coming to completely cold (ha ha) and though I can sit down and do the maths on prices / kWh I am totally out of my depth on the technical side. That’s why I’m grateful for advice from anyone who’s not a salesman!

Now I have an admission to make: I didn’t understand quite a lot of what you’ve said! Re the water, was your opinion that I should be on an E7 rate or that I shouldn’t because it’ll be a long time before I see a return? I’m still quite keen on solar water heating for green reasons, if that makes a difference.

I’m also not sure what you mean by leccy counter distribution at 30%?

I also wondered, as you obviously know about Quantum, if in your experience it would be a good investment for someone who is working from home during the day a lot? It sound like they are so good at storing heat, I wondered if they would give you warm evenings at the price of being cold earlier in the day? If I decide to stick with electric and get another storage heater for my living room I was thinking about trying one. If I found it worked well I could gradually replace the others as needed. Or have you found that to really get the benefit you have to have more than one and use them as an integrated system?

I understand if you think you’ve spent enough time answering my questions and you’ve had enough! Thanks again.

I have a day off next week and am planning so sit down with a large spreadsheet and try to start getting my head around options, costs, and technical details. Thank you to everyone who has responded so far, I’m grateful for all the different opinions my question has raised. It gives me a chance to look at things from several different angles.

markin

An air to air heat pump, split unit for the office or living room may also be worth considering rather than a new storage heater, most run at around a cop of 6, until its something like 7c outside, so 1kwh in, 6kwh of heat out. And it can cool you in the summer!



You could possibly get all 3 for under 18K depending on your quotes, and save gas during the day and only use it for the evenings/night.

Richie-from-the-Boro

Water

The Off-Peak should supply the bottom element and the On-Peak the top one and should be wired :

- isolator switch ~to~ off peak controller ~ to top & bottom elements

The off-on-peak is automated. the stat should be set @ above 55 °C to meet Legionella requirements. with the unrestricted on-peak supply able to be switched manually by the householder using the button on the boost controller. These buttons should act on each other - such that internally - both can never be on at the same time.

This is a schema for a split Consumer Unit i.e. separate on and off Peak supplies, different wiring exists for Combined On And Off Peak Supplies and different again for On Peak Only Supply :



This is old school but still available water controller. other brands and newer digital can be had. You already have an electric water immersion heater somewhere, put simply you change it for a PartL type compatible cylinder, put in a water controller and wire it into your existing 20a ring from your consumer unit. you already have water to and from and 20a 3kW wiring from your existing Consumer Unit. so your costs will be (1 water cylinder) (2 water controller) (3 two stats and two heating elements) (4 cost of changes to the conumer unit and plumber.




Best of luck.

Richie-from-the-Boro

On dimplex

AndyPK

Richie - While that wiring diagram maybe the ideal, by the time the OP has spend all that money on installation the payback will be minimal.

This is the case if the op already uses cheap rate to heat the cylinder, and rarely needs to override or boost.

While modern cylinders have great insulation, they only last 10-15 years before leaking!


personally I like these timers.
They can be used either with single or dual immersions.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Timeguard-TRTM7-Economy-7-Analogue-Immersion-Timer-with-Boost-Control/281939082416?epid=2254743702&hash=item41a4e0fcb0:g:ESsAAOSwBt5ZLpJN


or a small boost timer boost unit is available

Richie-from-the-Boro

HiYa Andy, #15, O/P's water is not on E7 ring/CU. Sparky could certainly wire existing non-E7 cylinder into the existing E7 circuit.

Where s/he wants to get to depends on filling the gap between from-and-tp and thus far we have almost zero idea of wiring setup/controller/water and heat size/ insulation/chimney leech/ etc. With £25k starting .. .. all my suggestions (excluding underfoot) could easily be done for £2k.

Richie-from-the-Boro

Both Horstmann and Timeguard, £60-80 between trade & retail both very good, both will certainly do the job. Using his existing cylinder on E7 circuit is no disruption and cheapest. Just a question of sparky pulling (after checks) from the non-E7 and inserting the load into E7 side. (assumption) single bottom standard 3kW heating element. No provision for boost/over-ride/isolation.

NOTE I've never in my 3 dwelling E7 life used the "boost isolator contactor", can't speak to the Timeguard but the Horstmann has the isolator and I assume the Timeguard ditto. Sparky needs to check there's not an old school anytime on-demand "boost" switch.

Regards Andy.

1+6

cagreen13

Thank you Richie and Andy. I have to admit that this has all got more technical than I am currently prepared for. I was originally hoping for general pointers on which way to go over the choice of gas / E7 / renewables, and you have all been really helpful. My thinking was at a very preliminary stage when I posted, and I now need to get some quotes and expert advice about my current setup. You are obviously a lot more expert than me, so thank you for all your help and I’m sorry if I’ve caused any disagreements!

Richie-from-the-Boro

No problems cagreen13.