Options for New Central Heating System in Gas-free Area

Roxburgh_rose

Hi all. I'm after some experience of options for central heating in a rural area with no gas supply.

My current house has oil fired central heating; probably not very efficient, environmentally lousy, but effective, supplies are easy to get and we are used to the costs. 

We have seen an 'in need of renovation house' that we'd like to buy which has an open fire and electric panel heaters in some rooms. It must be baltic in winter so not a long term option for us! Installing an oil fired system would be do-able financially and while oil boilers are unlikely to be phased out for existing properties any time soon, we're concerned that we may be forced to completely change the system in 20 or 30 years when we'll be pretty ancient and perhaps not capable of dealing with the decisions and disruption. 

We have thought about ASHP but I understand they may not be terribly efficient in the relatively high humidity we get in the UK. The up front costs are also off-putting.

We've also considered electric heating but having had the odd electric heater over the years know the costs can be astronomical. Perhaps things have moved on?

So, any thoughts on the long term future of an oil system or alternative options bearing in mind in a fairly remote location we're not going to be blessed with a vast range of installers?

Thank you in advance!  

BUFF

How long do you think that you would intend to be living in this "new to you" house? You mention 20 to 30 years in which case I definitely would be looking into an ASHP or if you have the land a GSHP. There may be grants available to partially offset the high up front cost.
Or, of course, you could fit an oil CH system now (but future-proofed to convert to an ASHP/GSHP system down the line).

Direct electric heating is likely to cost you a fortune in running costs but all of these things depend upon how good your crystal ball is.

The first thing that I would do though would be to maximise the insulation of the house & thereby minimise the energy need to heat it initially & keep it at that temp. .

Roxburgh_rose

Thank you! 
This is a house for the very long term so you right, we should think about the upfront costs differently.
We'll definitely look at the GSHP as there is sufficient land.
Insulation is 100% in the plan.
Cheers!

Roxburgh_rose

I also wasn't aware conversion from oil was possible. Thanks again.

Gerry1

Might be better to go for oil now, but with larger radiators and pipes so that it can be switched to a GSHP relatively painlessly when the oil boiler has become life expired or the price of oil has risen or been taxed to make it uncompetitive with GSHP electricity.

By then the price of GSHP systems will probably have fallen in relative terms and there will be more suppliers with the expertise.

QrizB

Gerry1 said:

Might be better to go for oil now, but with larger radiators and pipes so that it can be switched to a GSHP relatively painlessly when the oil boiler has become life expired or the price of oil has risen or been taxed to make it uncompetitive with GSHP electricity.

I was thinking exactly this, I see Gerry1 beat me to it!

You could set the system up to work with a 35C flow temperature, so eg. underfloor heating and fan coil radiators, but feed it with an oil or LPG boiler now with a view to switching in 10-20 years.

Rodders53

Roxburgh_rose said:

I also wasn't aware conversion from oil was possible. Thanks again.

It's simply replacing the oil boiler with a heat pump as the heating source.
   
You fit much larger radiators (to work at lower water flow temperatures that's needed for heat pumps to be efficient) and/or use well-designed underfloor heating (same low flow temp reason) - initially powered by the oil and eventually electric via the heat pump replacement.  You also need to have a hot water storage tank (so do not be swayed to fit a combi oil boiler in the new home).

BUT the cost of an oil burner and tank install, with their eventual disposal costs down the line may well be better spent now on a good heat pump solution?  Or not.  You need to do the sums and make some guesses as to how all fuels' prices will go in the future as part of those calculations.

Do read up on it and become knowledgeable before making any decisions.  There are some quite long but very useful threads on here!

For my location:  Oil is @ 50p/ about 5.4p/kWh today.  Natural gas is 4.1p/kWh.  Electric 20.9 p/kWh.  A heat pump with a COP of 3 would be 7p/kWh of heat output (A COP of 4 is unlikely but would be 5.2p).  So for the same heating input requirement, and no natural gas option, oil is the cheapest to run.
But oil has been pricier than 50p/l this year and the SVR prices are expected to increase (any fixed rate electric I'm offered is 29p or more per kWh, electric only). So heat pump costs go up. 

Reed_Richards

These days you can buy "Low Temperature" boilers that use a flow temperature of 50 C and a return temperature of 30 C.  I'm not absolutely certain that you can get oil boilers of this type but I suggest you investigate if you decide to go with oil.  That would ease any future transition to a heat pump, which operates with water temperature in the same range.  

AFAIK the only issue with heat pumps and humidity is that they need to defrost themselves in cold weather. 

Roxburgh_rose

Thanks all for your insightful replies. Lots of really helpful thoughts send pointers here and plenty to research.

matelodave

If you are considering a GSHP (Ground Source) rather than an ASHP (Air Source) then humidity isn't relevant. TBH I live right out in the fens where it gets pretty damp and cold (around zero for most of today and the fog across the fields reduced visibility to around 100yds) and our ASHP chuntered away quite happily. It defrosted a couple of times but it really didn't make a lot of difference to it's overall performance.

There are a lot of myths around heatpumps but a properly configured, installed and operated system should be more than up to the job - they do fit a lot of them in Nordic countries where it gets a lot colder for a lot longer than it does in the UK.

Consider the cost of an oil system (tank, base, boiler etc) and deduct that from the cost of a heatpump to see what the difference  difference is. I've no doubt that the present cost of oil is lower per kwh than heat from a heatpump but is it's hard to project whether that will remain so in the future

Our RHI more than covered the cost difference between oil and the heatpump and up to now even the cost of leccy has kept the price per kwh comparable with oil

Reed_Richards

matelodave said:

There are a lot of myths around heatpumps but a properly configured, installed and operated system should be more than up to the job - they do fit a lot of them in Nordic countries where it gets a lot colder for a lot longer than it does in the UK.

I know this is true but I cannot help finding it surprising.  Houses are typically much better insulated than here so the heat pump doesn't have too much work to do but even so.  Perhaps they never built the gas supply network that we have?  Perhaps water condenses in oil tanks then tends to freeze and block the pipes?  Perhaps electricity is cheaper or the alternatives more expensive?   It would be interesting to know.