Buying a house with old storage heaters

Section62

katiekatiekate said:

There's no gas at the property. 

Is that because it is a rural property in an area with no mains gas, or is there a gas main in the street but previous owners have chosen not to connect to it?

If it is rural, is there space in the garden for an oil or gas storage tank?

katiekatiekate

Section62 said:

katiekatiekate said:

There's no gas at the property. 

Is that because it is a rural property in an area with no mains gas, or is there a gas main in the street but previous owners have chosen not to connect to it?

If it is rural, is there space in the garden for an oil or gas storage tank?

It's down an unadopted lane, and there's a mixture of gas, oil, and electric heated houses. I'm not sure how far down the gas line goes. And not sure how to find out!

lohr500

@katiekatiekate, I think your last reply makes a lot of sense.

With young children to look after, do you really want all the disruption and re-decoration that will be needed to retrofit a wet central heating system into the property? 

Adding extra insulation is doable, (at a relatively modest cost), but needs specialist advice on an older property to avoid any problems.
Does it already have reasonably modern double glazing? 
Has it got a recent EPC certificate?

The current occupier may tell you what the electricity consumption kWh figures are for the peak and off-peak rates, but as you have already mentioned, you won't know if she hardly ever uses the storage heaters. And with youngsters around, you will need a reasonable amount of hot water on tap as well for bathing, etc.so that will probably bump up the electricity consumption. 

If you do buy the property and stick with the storage heaters then you will end up running them on the current standard variable Economy 7 tariff rates which are due to increase again in October.

If you decide to fit a wet central heating system and mains gas is not an option, then you could also consider oil or LPG as an alternative to a heat pump. There are pros and cons for oil/LPG over heat pumps, but whatever option you choose, I would imagine that you would be looking at somewhere around £15k to £20k or more to get a wet system installed.

Think also about the other running costs for the house. If it has been well cared for and regularly maintained then it may not need a lot spending on the fabric of the building. But, as an example at that age, if the roof hasn't had attention for many years, you could end up with leaks if the roofing felt under the slates is disintegrating.

If you are on a tight budget and want to move in without any major renovation work, then my gut feel is you should do as you have suggested and try to find a more modern property with mains gas.

Newer properties don't always equate to better built properties however, so you will still need to do your due diligence on whatever property you view!!

Section62

katiekatiekate said:

Section62 said:

katiekatiekate said:

There's no gas at the property. 

Is that because it is a rural property in an area with no mains gas, or is there a gas main in the street but previous owners have chosen not to connect to it?

If it is rural, is there space in the garden for an oil or gas storage tank?

It's down an unadopted lane, and there's a mixture of gas, oil, and electric heated houses. I'm not sure how far down the gas line goes. And not sure how to find out!

Use this website to find out who the gas network operator is -

https://www.energynetworks.org/operating-the-networks/whos-my-network-operator

Then contact the appropriate network operator (look for information about 'New connections') to see whether they have mains in the area.  You are probably better off calling them (some have 0800 numbers) rather than using online forms.

However, with a mix of gas/oil/electricity used at the neighbouring properties I would think it more likely than not that there is no mains supply along the lane. (those using gas may have LPG)

As you usually have to pay the cost of installing a new connection it is doubtful whether it would be an economic option for you (even if available) given we are now into the era of mains gas being phased out.

Swipe

On the standard variable tariff after it goes up in October it wil roughly cost between £3000 - £4000 a year depending how low you can stand having your heating. I have 8 storage heaters (5 in active use) and live alone in a detached bungalow and use approx 1500Kwh daytime and 16,000Kwh night time. This time of year, the sunshine is your friend rather than the daytime temperature. Currently mine are all off but I'll have to switch some on tonight as it's due to be cloudy tomorrow.

Kim1965

By some miracle, if you talk to an air source heat comoany, you mighr end up wuth an aur source heat pump.
 Having worked in the heating industry for 40 yrs i cant quite believecthe push for heat pumps, especially into houses pre 2002. I think about this time the iinsulation standards were improve d greatly, these houses (providing no microbore) might be ok for air source.
The gov cannot be serious about air source as a cure all. I have fitted  source  to older buildings.... Buy some thermal garments for the winter.
 The cost could include, ufh,/larger rads, massive insultion etc costs are eyewatering. 

Phones4Chris

@katiekatiekate
There's been a lot of useful and constructive comment here, but there's a few bits missing. I wouldn't even consider oil at present, the price has more than doubled (nearly trebled) since the energy crisis began. The best price I had last September was 44.65 ppl (ex.VAT). It went to 56.32 in October, but 53.85 in November, but recent prices quoted have been 109.95 ppl (last month) to 91.95 ppl now (needless to say I haven't bought any at that price, but starting to get very low so may not have a choice in  a few weeks!). That all compared to 39.1 ppl a year ago (April).
A neighbour had an air-sourced heat pump installed about 18 months ago to replace his Log/Anthracite boiler. His running costs have not been any less with the heat pump and now electricity prices have gone up, it'll be a lot more!

As has been suggested by several people, stick with the E7 storage heaters for now, that vintage are pretty reasonable (make &model numbers would help to confirm) & the cost of modern ones with all the new fangled bits is expensive, so wouldn't consider them in the short term. Stick with improving the insulation, a relatively low cost exercise which you'll need with whatever form of heating. With solid walls you'd have to look at External coatings and internal cladding (the latter can be a pain reducing the room size a bit), check the loft insulation and also double glazing etc.
HTH.

lohr500

Agree oil prices have gone up considerably, but still not prohibitively expensive.
A litre of oil in my area is now £0.84. At 90% boiler efficiency that equates to £0.095 per kWh including the VAT.
Mains gas in my area is £0.073 per kWh. SVT electricity is £0.274 per kWh. 

Off peak Eco 7 in my area is £0.181 per kWh. So arguably the running costs for an oil based central heating system would be less than storage heaters charged up overnight. And with oil, you can always increase the temperature during the day without using peak priced electricity. Granted though as there is no central heating system installed, there would be a sizable capital investment to put any form of central heating system in place.

[Deleted User]

Hi,

can we have a photie of the heaters, please?

Section62

lohr500 said:

Agree oil prices have gone up considerably, but still not prohibitively expensive.
A litre of oil in my area is now £0.84. At 90% boiler efficiency that equates to £0.095 per kWh including the VAT.
Mains gas in my area is £0.073 per kWh. SVT electricity is £0.274 per kWh. 

Off peak Eco 7 in my area is £0.181 per kWh. So arguably the running costs for an oil based central heating system would be less than storage heaters charged up overnight. And with oil, you can always increase the temperature during the day without using peak priced electricity. Granted though as there is no central heating system installed, there would be a sizable capital investment to put any form of central heating system in place.

Agreed.  The OP is looking at purchasing this property and will have specific needs with young children.

They need to consider a 'blank canvas' approach without ruling any feasible options in or out.  I wouldn't say oil is necessarily the best option, but given the investment they may need to make will have a long-term horizon (say 10 years) basing decisions only on price changes in the last few months would be unwise.  The graph of wholesale cost of gas looks remarkably similar in shape to that of delivered heating oil... and given our reliance on gas for electricity generation nobody can say that gas and electricity prices won't be affected in very similar ways to the cost of heating oil.

One of the advantages of oil (over electricity and mains gas) is the ability to buy in bulk when prices are lower and have that supply to tide you over peak prices.... as Phones4Chris has been able to do.  It can be more hassle than having mains gas or electricity on tap, but oil (and to some extent LPG) does enable the savvy consumer to somewhat disconnect themselves from World events.

Keeping the storage heaters for the time being is a perfectly valid option - but committing to purchasing this property does require a thought-out plan 'B' in case the performance of the heaters is inadequate for the OP's needs.