Heating my home without gas

skyela

Hello,

I was wondering if anyone could offer any advice. 

I live in an old, single brick skin bungalow. There is no mains gas and currently I'm going through the winters by wearing as many clothes as possible! I'm determined to change that this year. 

I have read that ASHP are only really good in modern, well insulated houses, is this true? 

I know electric boilers are supposed to be a big no no, but I must admit I'm leaning towards this with the view of installing solar panels with it..

I'm not keen on oil and a wet system. 

We have a log burner but it doesn't heat the house. 

Is there anything I've not thought of? 

Thanks for any advice! 

Gerry1

Only consider an electric boiler if you're so wealthy that money is no object.

You won't need any solar panels because they'll be next to useless when you need electricity for heating.

Verdigris

I have read that ASHP are only really good in modern, well insulated houses, is this true?

Any heating system is only really good in a well insulated house. The house still loses heat at the same rate. The difference with an ASHP is that they are most efficient running at lower temperatures, so they have to run almost continually in cold weather, albeit not at full whack once the building is up to temperature.

If I had a single skinneed building, which I nearly did in my recent house-hunting, I would externally insulate it, so you don't lose any internal space and you get the benefit of the thermal mass (think storage heater) of the masonry. This gives you a nice steady environment. Doesn't overheat in summer but stays warmer in winter.

Astria

Have to agree with Verdigris, the first thing you need is insulation, not a better heating system. External insulation is the way to go if permitted by your property/council etc. Depends where you are.

Forget about solar panels, when you need the heating the most there's no sun! and without insulation all the heat has left the building by that point as well.

matelodave

Solar panels generate leccy in the summer when you don't really need it and very little in the winter when you do and so wont do a lot to help your heating costs.

 As Gerry says, an electric boiler is the most expensive way to heat a place known to man, closely followed by electric radiators or panel heaters.Storage heaters are probably getting pretty expensive as well, now that gas and leccy prices have increased substantially

A heatpump is most efficient when its running at low temperatures, so ideally you want reduce the heat loss as much as possible to maximise efficiency and minimise running costs. A properly sized and specified system will do the job but wont be as cheap as oil or mains gas although might be on a par with LPG. 

An Air-to-Air heatpump, which is really a reversible air conditioning system can be quite cost effective as they have an efficiency of around 400%,)ie for every 1kwh of leccy you get 4kwh of heat) so worth investigating.

TBH there isn't any sort of heating that can be considered cheap unless you can get free wood for a woodburner or a fireplace but you really need a proper heating evaluation to decide what is best for you, your premise and your lifestyle as each have thir pros and cons.

lohr500

An electric boiler will need a wet system to operate. So if you are wanting to go down the route of having radiators installed, then subject to you being able to locate a suitably sized oil tank, oil will be a lot less expensive to run than an electric boiler.

You can also ensure that the radiator sizes are big enough to switch to ASHP at some point in the future. Typically ASHP systems run at a lower flow temperature so need bigger radiators to dissipate sufficient heat to warm the property.
But if you install larger ones on day one in the scale of things it won't cost a great deal more for the total installation. You will then be able to run an oil boiler with a lower flow temperature which will help to optimise the boiler condensing function and thus improve efficiency.

If you don't want to go down the wet system route and you want to stick with electricity only, then the least expensive electric option is probably modern night storage heaters on an Economy 7 tariff. 

Oil prices are high at the moment, but even at £0.64 per litre including the 5% VAT, that works out at around £0.07 per kW/h assuming a 90% efficient boiler. I don't think you will get an Economy 7 tariff with an off peak rate of £0.07 now, or post April increase. The beauty of oil is that if you want/need to run your heating at peak times in the day, it is still £0.07 per kwH., wheras the peak electric rate on an Economy 7 tariff will be much higher. 

ProDave

This is meant seriously as a constructive suggestion.

A single skin brick bungalow is about as bad as it can get for heat loss from a dwelling, so whatever heat source you install, if you are going to keep it warm, it WILL be expensive.

Does this make sense with this old poor standard building?

we don't know much about it, how big, detached, semi detached etc, bit if detached, I would SERIOUSLY consider seeking planning permission to replace it with a new well built well insulated building.  Then decide if you want to undertake that for yourself, or just sell it for development and buy something better, more modern and more efficient.

mumf

ProDave said:

This is meant seriously as a constructive suggestion.

A single skin brick bungalow is about as bad as it can get for heat loss from a dwelling, so whatever heat source you install, if you are going to keep it warm, it WILL be expensive.

Does this make sense with this old poor standard building?

we don't know much about it, how big, detached, semi detached etc, bit if detached, I would SERIOUSLY consider seeking planning permission to replace it with a new well built well insulated building.  Then decide if you want to undertake that for yourself, or just sell it for development and buy something better, more modern and more efficient.

Seriously? I live in a single skin Victorian terrace. !!!!!! me,I’d better get it knocked down and rebuild. Wonder what the house each side will say? You obviously approach life’s issues with plenty of money behind you.

markin

Single skin Means only 1 brick wide, a Victorian terrace will be double brick with no cavity or less than 50mm.

@skyela Do you mean Single skin, or simply no cavity?

Solar would offset your power bills, It may pay for December when an air to water heat pump is using 50-100kwh a day, but the pay back on Solar is around 9 years after that you would have free power, Around 3600kwh a year on a standard budget system, so if you have a limited budget its Insulate and more insulation, with a Single skin house you could build a stud wall on the inside to insulate, could be cheaper than external if you are already gutting the inside and want to keep the bricks.

BUFF

mumf said:

ProDave said:

This is meant seriously as a constructive suggestion.

A single skin brick bungalow is about as bad as it can get for heat loss from a dwelling, so whatever heat source you install, if you are going to keep it warm, it WILL be expensive.

Does this make sense with this old poor standard building?

we don't know much about it, how big, detached, semi detached etc, bit if detached, I would SERIOUSLY consider seeking planning permission to replace it with a new well built well insulated building.  Then decide if you want to undertake that for yourself, or just sell it for development and buy something better, more modern and more efficient.

Seriously? I live in a single skin Victorian terrace. !!!!!! me,I’d better get it knocked down and rebuild. Wonder what the house each side will say? You obviously approach life’s issues with plenty of money behind you.

ProDave's suggestion is a bit extreme but your house won't be as bad (I live in 1 too) as a bungalow. You have neighbours abutting either side whereas the bungalow most likely won't so you only have 1/2 the amount of  external wall for the same footprint. Unfortunately, to provide the same internal space a bungalow will also have a larger footprint than a terrace ...

mumf

BUFF said:

mumf said:

ProDave said:

This is meant seriously as a constructive suggestion.

A single skin brick bungalow is about as bad as it can get for heat loss from a dwelling, so whatever heat source you install, if you are going to keep it warm, it WILL be expensive.

Does this make sense with this old poor standard building?

we don't know much about it, how big, detached, semi detached etc, bit if detached, I would SERIOUSLY consider seeking planning permission to replace it with a new well built well insulated building.  Then decide if you want to undertake that for yourself, or just sell it for development and buy something better, more modern and more efficient.

Seriously? I live in a single skin Victorian terrace. !!!!!! me,I’d better get it knocked down and rebuild. Wonder what the house each side will say? You obviously approach life’s issues with plenty of money behind you.

ProDave's suggestion is a bit extreme but your house won't be as bad (I live in 1 too) as a bungalow. You have neighbours abutting either side whereas the bungalow most likely won't so you only have 1/2 the amount of  external wall for the same footprint. Unfortunately, to provide the same internal space a bungalow will also have a larger footprint than a terrace ...

I get it. Trouble is on some of these boards,people with loads of money seem to steam in with a ‘knock it down and start again ‘ attitude. Bit like the pension forum, ‘ I have a million quid,can I retire’ sort of thing. 

It’s almost like they gloat and judge people who are trying to do the best with what they have and can afford.