Buying a house with old storage heaters

Mstty

Reed_Richards said:

Mstty said:

You may need to prioritise what is more important a warm and toasty home over a fancy heat pump which will probably need a lot of other work on the house to work efficiently.

I think @Mstty may be confusing efficiency with cost effectiveness.  You can heat a house at lower cost by making sure it is well-insulated whatever form of heating you use.  But you don't need a well-insulated house to have a heat pump although this is a common misconception.  You can increase efficiency of a heat pump by using underfloor heating throughout rather than radiators.  A mixture of UFH and radiators, as @Mstty has, may or may not give you better efficiency than radiators alone, depending on how it is configured.      

No misunderstanding I have directed the OP to talk to some professionals in their fields for the best way to design and heat their potential house purchase.

There's not enough details for anyone to advise here from the little information provided by the OP it's all guesstimates and caveated statements.

katiekatiekate

Mstty said:

Reed_Richards said:

Mstty said:

You may need to prioritise what is more important a warm and toasty home over a fancy heat pump which will probably need a lot of other work on the house to work efficiently.

I think @Mstty may be confusing efficiency with cost effectiveness.  You can heat a house at lower cost by making sure it is well-insulated whatever form of heating you use.  But you don't need a well-insulated house to have a heat pump although this is a common misconception.  You can increase efficiency of a heat pump by using underfloor heating throughout rather than radiators.  A mixture of UFH and radiators, as @Mstty has, may or may not give you better efficiency than radiators alone, depending on how it is configured.      

No misunderstanding I have directed the OP to talk to some professionals in their fields for the best way to design and heat their potential house purchase.

There's not enough details for anyone to advise here from the little information provided by the OP it's all guesstimates and caveated statements.

We're booked to speak to a heat source pump company tomorrow to try and understand the working a bit better. 
I've spoken to EDF who supply the house so I know the tariff but don't know how much energy is used (plus there's a big difference between a single lady who might not even use the storage heaters and a family of 4). 
The cottage is 1860s and no cavity wall insulation. 
Putting in a heat pump and doing the cavity walls (costing about 20k?) won't be worth it if the bills are still high. 

Reed_Richards

katiekatiekate said:

Putting in a heat pump and doing the cavity walls (costing about 20k?) won't be worth it if the bills are still high. 

No actually the higher the bills the more you are likely to save.  If you could save £1k a year then your £20k investment would pay for itself over 20 years, sooner if electricity prices rise.  Whether you want to buy (?) a cottage that would require £20k of additional investment and still be quite expensive to heat is another matter.

Mstty

Thanks for the extra info Katie. Worth checking the loft as that's where you want good insulation as well to stop as much heat loss as possible.

Obviously a 1860's property is going to be costlier to run than its modern equivalent I haven't got any studies to hand but they used to tout £600-700 savings on a new build than 1970's and earlier and that was before the big price hikes. 

Have you got any open fires of a log burner in the cottage and maybe a source of free wood to burn as that will help in winter.

With children I also like the idea of a moveable upstairs thermostat so you can put it in the kids room and they get the temperature you want rather than the generic hallway.

You will definitely save on energy bills by doing all the cavity, insulation and we'll designed heating and if this is the house for life then you will see a return on your investment. However compared to your 2 bed property be prepared for a shock especially as energy prices are expected to rise again come October.

Ultrasonic

For context for the discussion, are you definitely buying the house, or asking for information to decide whether to go through with the purchase? This may affect the advice you are offered.

katiekatiekate

Ultrasonic said:

For context for the discussion, are you definitely buying the house, or asking for information to decide whether to go through with the purchase? This may affect the advice you are offered.

We're looking at whether to go through with it so not definitely buying it. We're trying to get a better understanding of whether we could afford to live there if we bought it as our budget is tight. 
I'm starting to lean towards it not being worth it given the amount we'd have to spend to improve the property and the possibility that we'd still end up with high bills 😕 

Mstty

katiekatiekate said:

Ultrasonic said:

For context for the discussion, are you definitely buying the house, or asking for information to decide whether to go through with the purchase? This may affect the advice you are offered.

We're looking at whether to go through with it so not definitely buying it. We're trying to get a better understanding of whether we could afford to live there if we bought it as our budget is tight. 
I'm starting to lean towards it not being worth it given the amount we'd have to spend to improve the property and the possibility that we'd still end up with high bills 😕 

Well at least you are doing the right thing and budgeting properly👍 sad when the spreadsheet rules over the heart but many have to do it these days and no point getting yourselves into debt with a new born on the way.

I am leaning towards the fact that properties with a high EPC rating (and checked against that rating) are going to be the most sort after in these times of high energy costs.

katiekatiekate

Mstty said:

Thanks for the extra info Katie. Worth checking the loft as that's where you want good insulation as well to stop as much heat loss as possible.

Obviously a 1860's property is going to be costlier to run than its modern equivalent I haven't got any studies to hand but they used to tout £600-700 savings on a new build than 1970's and earlier and that was before the big price hikes. 

Have you got any open fires of a log burner in the cottage and maybe a source of free wood to burn as that will help in winter.

With children I also like the idea of a moveable upstairs thermostat so you can put it in the kids room and they get the temperature you want rather than the generic hallway.

You will definitely save on energy bills by doing all the cavity, insulation and we'll designed heating and if this is the house for life then you will see a return on your investment. However compared to your 2 bed property be prepared for a shock especially as energy prices are expected to rise again come October.

There's an open fireplace but without a survey it's another unknown as to whether that would need work to make it safe. It's probably too small to put in much of a wood burner. 

I'm starting to think we should just get a more modern house with gas and use our money for higher mortgage repayments rather than spending it on renovations and heating bills. 

Phlik

1860's build, are you sure it has cavity walls? 

katiekatiekate

Phlik said:

1860's build, are you sure it has cavity walls? 

It doesn't- that might have been a typo! It would need external or internal cavity walls put in.