Best way forward for heating and hot water

pumpkin1703

Hi, we bought our house in October 2019. It has an electric heating system, with radiators and a hot water tank. There is no mains gas in the area. The hot water tank looks like it was put in by an amateur as it is lopsided, and when it fills with water, it starts to overflow. We don't ever switch the heating on as we were advised it is expensive to run, and we don't have running hot water as we dont want to use the dodgy tank. We were going to get some heating engineers round last year for advice about LPG, oil etc then lockdown hit. 
We are in a terraced house built around the late 1800s.

Gerry1

Daytime electricity is the most expensive heating you can have. Assuming you have wet radiators rather than storage heaters, oil is probably your best bet followed by LPG.  Heat pumps would mean getting bigger radiators and the slow response time is problematic if you're out during the day.

Cardew

As above and insulate, insulate, insulate.

Mystic_CT

This is a useful thread for me. I'm in the process of buying a detached 2 bed bungalow off-grid. The property is all-electric. Economy 7 storage heaters, electric powered shower, small immersion heater.
Have researched alternative heating systems. Seems my only option is BioLPG. Does anyone else have this? Any problems/issues I should take into consideration? Many thanks.

matelodave

pumpkin1703 said:

Hi, we bought our house in October 2019. It has an electric heating system, with radiators and a hot water tank. There is no mains gas in the area. The hot water tank looks like it was put in by an amateur as it is lopsided, and when it fills with water, it starts to overflow. We don't ever switch the heating on as we were advised it is expensive to run, and we don't have running hot water as we dont want to use the dodgy tank. We were going to get some heating engineers round last year for advice about LPG, oil etc then lockdown hit. 
We are in a terraced house built around the late 1800s.

If you live in a terraced house have you got access at the rear to install the tank (whether oil or LPG). Sufficient clearance all around it to comply with the regulations and, last but not least access to fill them, - not sure if you can get away with running the fill pipe through the middle of the house. If you can satisfy those requirements then oil is probably the cheapest to run if you cant get mains gas.
A ball park figure for oil seems to be around 4p/kwh at the moment, with LPG costing around 7-8p kwh. Off-peak storage heaters could be about 10-12p/kwh and peak rate at 14-18p/kwh (these are very rough guesstimates but give you some idea of comparative costs - check for yourself where you live for a more accurate figures)

As others have said, a flow type boiler heating radiators and a hot water tank is possibly the most expensive way to heat any home as you need to use peak rate electricity.  Depending on your lifestyle (are you out all day) then possibly high heat retention storage heaters may be an option. Be wary about a heatpump as they have a very slow response time and are really only efficient when run virtually continuously at low flow temperatures (especially at this time of the year). Don't be persuaded to just hang a heatpump on the front of your existing heating system but a correctly designed, installed and operated one can work out about the same to run as LPG (depending on your electricity costs) and as Cardew points out insulation is the key to reducing your energy costs what ever sort of heating you go for.

Gerry1

Mystic_CT said:

I'm in the process of buying a detached 2 bed bungalow off-grid. The property is all-electric. Economy 7 storage heaters, electric powered shower, small immersion heater.

Welcome to the forum.

A 2-bed detached bungalow must be about the least efficient property from an energy perspective, so think very carefully before proceeding and make sure you know what you're letting yourself in for, especially as it has no gas.

The first thing to do is to get rid of the instantaneous electric shower.  Use hot water heated by the immersion heater, and make sure it's switched off during the daytime, ditto any second heater halfway up the tank.

You probably also need to improve the insulation.  With a conventional house the leakage going upstairs can be beneficial but in a bungalow it's lost.

matelodave

Mystic_CT said:

This is a useful thread for me. I'm in the process of buying a detached 2 bed bungalow off-grid. The property is all-electric. Economy 7 storage heaters, electric powered shower, small immersion heater.
Have researched alternative heating systems. Seems my only option is BioLPG. Does anyone else have this? Any problems/issues I should take into consideration? Many thanks.

We've got a fairly large (140m2) three bed detached bungalow that cant get mains gas so we had the option of retaining manky rusty storage heaters or going for summat else.  As we were doing a complete refurb, we had a wet overlay underfloor system installed fed by anAir Source Heat Pump as we didn't want an ginormous gas or oil tank in the garden.

Its worked for us, we've now had it for over ten years, we still pay less than £1000 for all our leccy (including hot water, cooking, washing etc) and we got £5k back in renewable heat incentive payments. The way it works suits our lifestyle as we are at home all day so it's runs at a low level virtually continuously (especially at this time of the year)

pumpkin1703

Thank you all. We have 'wet' radiators instead of storage heaters; the house is pretty good insulation wise. Next door to us has an oil tank and he's further in the terrace than us (he's 4 and we're 3 in a terrace of 8). Unfortunately his tank was already there when he moved in so he doesn't know how much of a palaver it was to get round the back.
I guess our next step is to contact some oil suppliers and ask about getting a tank installed.

Hasbeen

If you are contemplating oil ? Then it would be certified OFTEC central heating installation company's, I would try first.

They would give you price for complete package.

FreeBear

Gerry1 said: The first thing to do is to get rid of the instantaneous electric shower.  Use hot water heated by the immersion heater, and make sure it's switched off during the daytime,

Showering takes 5-10 minutes (15 tops), and a 10KW shower would cost 10-30p. Heating a tank of water will cost an awful lot more than that !

ProfessorChao5

ASHP and take advantage of the Green homes grant. 2/3rds up to £5k and still get the balance of the RHI