No gas in area - heating? Have log burner...

Lelaw

Hello, I am hoping for some advice as I am a first time buyer and learning!

I have purchased a house, 2 bed mid terrace in a village that does not have gas. This was a compromise as I love the village/house.

The living room has a log burner and currently they have portable electric heaters dotted about (not fan heaters).

What would be the cheapest running cost for heating? We will use the log burner in the front room but need option for bedroom upstairs and kitchen. There is no back access to the garden only with right of way across the neighbor. 

It an old house with no carpets built around1860 I believe so pretty cold.... We went into the garden yesterday so we would warm up when we returned inside!

Any advice would be very much appreciated. 

Penguin_

It won't be the cheapest option but long term you could look to have a back boiler stove which could heat radiators around the upstairs of the house. 

Martin_the_Unjust

I suspect if you leave all the internal doors open the log burner will warm the entire house but I would still go with Penguins suggestion.

MattMattMattUK

Lelaw said:

Hello, I am hoping for some advice as I am a first time buyer and learning!

I have purchased a house, 2 bed mid terrace in a village that does not have gas. This was a compromise as I love the village/house.

The living room has a log burner and currently they have portable electric heaters dotted about (not fan heaters).

What would be the cheapest running cost for heating? We will use the log burner in the front room but need option for bedroom upstairs and kitchen. There is no back access to the garden only with right of way across the neighbor. 

It an old house with no carpets built around1860 I believe so pretty cold.... We went into the garden yesterday so we would warm up when we returned inside!

Any advice would be very much appreciated. 

Is there an EPC for the property? I am wondering what the scope for insulation and overall potential energy efficiency is?

wittynamegoeshere

We have exactly the same situation.

If you're buying properly seasoned wood, as legally required to avoid killing you and your neighbours, then you will find that firewood is very expensive.  Plus it's a load of hassle, muck, pollution and shortens your life by filling the air with toxic gases and particulates.  Just in case you haven't worked it out, I'm not really in favour of burning stuff to keep warm - we moved house to get away from our neighbours who'd embraced this stupid trend, the whole neighbourhood was like living inside a barbecue every evening.

We got through the first winter here with electric heaters and didn't touch the stove.  Then I worked out that a lot of heat was blowing through the stove's vents and up the chimney.  I bought a foam camping/yoga mat and chopped it up into pieces, a big piece shut into the door and little pieces stuffed into all the vents.  The transformation was huge.  Having a stove is like having a window open.  If you're using it most of the heat goes out of the chimney, but even if not then they're very draughty.

We will eventually get a heat pump, and I will take down the chimneys completely, roof over where they were and insulate around the fireplaces.

We use oil-filled radiators generally, as they're safe and don't give off any horrible burning smells as some heaters can.  We do use a fan heater fake fire in the lounge though, just to get the temperature up quicker when it's cold.

Obviously heating with electric is not going to be cheap, but we really like being in the countryside, I'm happy to pay for the privilege at least until we get a heat pump anyway.

doodling

Hi,

The running cost of heating (not the capital cost!) goes something like this (my list, with thanks to @Gerry1 for some tweaks), least expensive to most expensive:

1. Mains gas (wet radiators)
2. Mains gas (gas fire)
3. Oil
4. Electric Ground Source heat pump (*)
5. Electric Air Source heat pump (*)
6. LPG
7. Electric storage heaters (High Heat Retention, fan assisted) on E7
8. Electric storage heaters (old style without fan) on E7
9. Direct electric heating on single rate (e.g. panel heaters / oil filled radiators / fan heaters)
10. Electric boiler on single rate

(*) These two may move up or down one row depending on how the price of electricity varies with other fuels. A year ago they might have been cheaper than oil but now they might be more expensive than LPG - that is because the price of electricity is high at the moment. It is impossible to say how long the current situation will persist for.

I don't know where the cost of solid fuel fits in that list but others might.

You need to work out what is available to you and then how much it might cost to run (we can probably make some guesses on that for you if you give more details about the property).

It is obvious, but the more you spend on insulation the less you will spend on heating so you need to think about that too.

danrv

Penguin_ said:

It won't be the cheapest option but long term you could look to have a back boiler stove which could heat radiators around the upstairs of the house. 

Discussion here on those. 
http://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=2661

markin

wittynamegoeshere said:

We have exactly the same situation.

If you're buying properly seasoned wood, as legally required to avoid killing you and your neighbours, then you will find that firewood is very expensive.  Plus it's a load of hassle, muck, pollution and shortens your life by filling the air with toxic gases and particulates.  Just in case you haven't worked it out, I'm not really in favour of burning stuff to keep warm - we moved house to get away from our neighbours who'd embraced this stupid trend, the whole neighbourhood was like living inside a barbecue every evening.

We got through the first winter here with electric heaters and didn't touch the stove.  Then I worked out that a lot of heat was blowing through the stove's vents and up the chimney.  I bought a foam camping/yoga mat and chopped it up into pieces, a big piece shut into the door and little pieces stuffed into all the vents.  The transformation was huge.  Having a stove is like having a window open.  If you're using it most of the heat goes out of the chimney, but even if not then they're very draughty.

We will eventually get a heat pump, and I will take down the chimneys completely, roof over where they were and insulate around the fireplaces.

We use oil-filled radiators generally, as they're safe and don't give off any horrible burning smells as some heaters can.  We do use a fan heater fake fire in the lounge though, just to get the temperature up quicker when it's cold.

Obviously heating with electric is not going to be cheap, but we really like being in the countryside, I'm happy to pay for the privilege at least until we get a heat pump anyway.

Modern stoves are far cleaner and re burn the gasses, and are also room sealed so air blowing in from vents is cut down hugely. You can buy green wood if you have the space to store next year's wood.

wittynamegoeshere

I didn't know some are externally vented, ours is vented from the room.  Having said that, there is a low level vent on the outside of the chimney so it may be vented from the room and outside.  Anything is possible in this place, so I'm very glad I sealed it from the room.

So an unused "room sealed" stove won't be draughty but will be very cold, due to the wind blowing through it.  In which case stuff something into the air inlet and make sure it's obvious in case anyone lights it.

We were looking at oil vs heat pump but there are so many issues with oil, including the risks of theft, leakage and a hugely volatile price.  So I think we've decided on a heat pump, possibly partly because we don't already have a wet system installed.  I'm going to look at an air-to-air one.  If we had radiator plumbing already then things could be different, oil would be more of a contender then.

danrv

wittynamegoeshere said:

I'm going to look at an air-to-air one.  If we had radiator plumbing already then things could be different, oil would be more of a contender then.

I’ve had a Toshiba Aircon system recently installed for main area heating/cooling.
No radiators or mains gas either so it was the best bet. A close 2nd would have been HHR storage heaters.

in_my_bumble_opinion

A good log burner (like a Villager....second hand will be fine) with back boiler will easily heat your whole house if set up correctly. A separate electric immerser could be a good option for summer months. Seasoned logs pretty cheap round our way but depends a lot on where you live. 

Once you get the above set up you would have your heating and hot water for cheaper than any alternative imo. What you have to also figure though is the time/effort involved in running the above vs other options. If someone is going to be at home all of the time then it works well, if people are out working all day, etc, not so much.