recommendations for heating small house

matelodave

Petriix said:

It's probably either pay loads up front for a heat pump, or pay loads every month for electric heating.

It might make sense to look at getting solar panels if they can be utilised during the day.

Other options include a wood burner with a back boiler or some kind of thermal store with multiple inputs.

Whatever you do, prioritise bumping up the insulation to prevent as much heat loss as possible.

Solar panels dont do much to reduce your heating costs - you tend to heat the place in the winter when the sun doesn't shine and when it does the days are short and it's so low in the sky that their output is negligable.

danrv

worlestone said:

Nothing much to add, but will follow this with interest.

We're in a similar boat to danrv, recently moved to a 4 bed detached house in a village with no gas.  Were on E7, mostly Dimplex XLSN storage heaters downstairs, with a big old Creda for NSH in the hall and Storad NSH in dining room. Upstairs are Creda panel heaters on standard tariff, plus a big open fire (Keddy Superfire with built in heat exchange/blows warm air into other rooms!)

We've looked at the options, but I keep coming back to updating to Dimplex Quantum or similar. We've taken early retirement and plan to stay here for next 20+ years.  So far quotes have been for installing... oil @ £16,368, LPG £12,404, ASHP £21,409 and still waiting on quote for biomass boiler (though a neighbour has one and it's huge and his garage is filled with bags of pellets!).  Hot water is courtesy of immersion tank, with manual switch, split main/top up, as there's only two of us have taken to switching on for an hour or so each morning for shower and washing up.

It's such a difficult decision as there seems to be no one who is able to give genuinely impartial advice, there's always an angle.  I'd be happy to pay for a service, but finding it is impossible.  I did think the Centre for Sustainable Energy in Bristol would be able to help, but their service is really for people in vulnerable positions/benefits in need to energy advice, not off gas grid advice - quite rightly really.

Just realised that I've almost written an essay!

Very expensive quotes. With the E7 wiring already in place, fitting Quantum storage heaters would be much cheaper.
Multi split ASHPs give good performance and would avoid the costly wet system install.
Maybe use one on the standard tariff for upstairs heating/air con.

Pennylane

Bit of an update. We had someone round to do an EPC and is currently rated D58.  We want the old heaters out and replaced and we are told if we replace them with High Heat Retention storage heaters not new electric radiators it  would be D66.  Doesn’t sound like much of an improvement to me but the current ones are expensive, ugly and need updating badly.  Some suggestions given are Dimplex Quantum, Creda Quantum, Heatstore Quantum and 2 others.  Anybody got experience of these?  thanks

danrv

Pennylane said:

Some suggestions given are Dimplex Quantum, Creda Quantum, Heatstore Quantum and 2 others. 

I think they’re all the same, just under different names.
Seems to be widely contrasting opinions from users of the Dimplex Quantum.  Sound a little over complicated but don’t know until you try.
Also Dimplex XLE, Creda TSRE and Elnur. 
The Quantum ones are best run using two supplies so need to check the current ones to see if they have two.
If they’re single feed only, maybe look at Creda TSR heaters. Old stock still available.

matelodave

Pennylane said:

Bit of an update. We had someone round to do an EPC and is currently rated D58.  We want the old heaters out and replaced and we are told if we replace them with High Heat Retention storage heaters not new electric radiators it  would be D66.  Doesn’t sound like much of an improvement to me but the current ones are expensive, ugly and need updating badly.  Some suggestions given are Dimplex Quantum, Creda Quantum, Heatstore Quantum and 2 others.  Anybody got experience of these?  thanks

I've got an air source heatpump i a reasonably well insulated 3 bed bungalow and my EPC rating is still only D66 however it's a lot better than the F38 that I had when I first moved in.

I think what keeps the EPC rating down is the fact that it's using electricity and that hot water is also using leccy even though in my case the hot water is heated using the heatpump rather than with a bog-standard electric element (it only gets 2 stars for hot water even though the heatpump gets 4 stars for heating). I have a pretty dim opinion of all the EPC assessors that I've come across (quite a few over the years) they dont often display any common sense and just seem to be box ticking to input into a computer programme.

TBH there's not much else I can do to improve the EPC without spending silly money on impractical "improvements" to get a superduper EPC of B84. Their recommendations would cost around £21k to save an estimated £600 (I reckon it would be less) and a payback period of some 35 years)

IMO you should do your own sums and work out whether you think your outlay will be cost effective in the long run - you've got to save an awful lot of leccy over a long period to get a payback. In the end you need a certain amount of energy to heat your place and any storage heater that's sized correctly will do just that. Undersizing it and fitting a boost/auxiliary heater wont reduce the amount of energy that you use but has the potential to increase your leccy costs if you dont store enough heat during the off-peak period. Just my opinion you understand

Pennylane

The EPC Advisor recommends High Heat Retention Storage heaters. If I go for new electric radiators my EPC will go down to E50!  Currently rated D58 and with new HHRS heaters it would be D66.  They pointed out that at the moment you can legally rent out a property with an E rating but in a couple of years it may well be a D rating. Off peak heating seems to be the way to go rather than on peak electric radiators.  They are independent and not selling anything so I guess I should listen to them.

Pennylane

I am shocked. I have just seen a neighbours cottage online for rent. It is rated a D for EPC. Previous tenants have told me it is very damp and there was black mould in a bedroom. It has no cavity wall insulation, hardly any roof insulation and when it rains the brickwork is soaked through as the rendering is full of cracks.  Because you step down into the cottage I have seen the hall flooded several times when there has been a downpour.  It has oil central heating, that’s the only thing going for it.  How can somewhere like that get a D when my rental property has got double glazing, cavity wall insulation, full double glazing and loft insulation and  also gets a D?

macman

An EPC does not take damp, mould or flooding into account...that's the job of the surveyor.

Gct2002

Hi, we moved in to a bungalow with no mains gas and the electric meter is a dual rate meter. We decided toy install 22 solar panels along with 19kw of battery storage. We have ATC electric rads. I programed the batteries to draw a charge from the cheap rate tariff when the panels won't provide enough to charge them. We installed a solar Ibuddy to the water cylinder to utilise even more of solar when I can. I arent too sure if I am doing the right thing or not but time will tell. 
I had the whole system fully installed for £13k. 
We did look at oil but couldn't stand a big tank in the garden or a boiler outside either.
I am glad I put the solar panels on but may have opted for the wrong type of heating system.
I'd love to hear peoples thoughts on if I am bonkers or not?

Gerry1

You haven't given us much hard info to go on (rooms, occupants, home all day?), but I fear from a 'back of envelope' guesstimate that it will far from cost effective.

Do you know what your annual consumption was before you started?  Bungalows are not energy efficient because of the large roof area and having no rooms above the living area, so presumably you'd be using around 12,000 - 15,000kWh per year?

Assuming you mean a 19kWh battery, you'll be lucky to heat a living room for an evening with that.  It corresponds to a 3kW fan heater running for 6 hours and 20 minutes.  Would that keep you warm all day?  I suspect you'd soon be shivering !  Far easier just to use clever storage heaters.

Assuming your panels each produce 300W, that's about 6.6kW maximum.  But you won't get that for very long, perhaps four or five hours on a sunny summer day, but far less during the short dull days in winter.  Worst of all, the highest output is when your demand will be at its lowest.  You might charge the battery fully in summer, but certainly not in the winter.

Even if you're generating an average of 25kWh per day that won't be covering your annual usage, so you'll still have electricity bills.  If the shortfall is 5000kWh then you might be saving 3000 - 6000kWh per year.  Even a saving of 6000kWh (which might be equivalent to a £600 bill) would take 20 years to pay the capital cost.  And the inverter will probably have expired once or twice by then...