What’s the best form of heating for us?

raustin1999

Hi there,
me and my partner have recently bought a 2 bed Victorian terrace as our first home and we’re wondering what our best option in terms of heating is. The house is currently fully electric and on economy 7 running an immersion heater and storage heaters in each room. There is gas along the street so gas is a potential for us. Electrics are in need of updated and the storage heaters are all old and in need of replacing. What are peoples thoughts? Do we go fully gas? Or replace the storage heaters with electric radiators and have a smaller gas boiler for hot water?
thanks!

FreeBear

Gas will be a lot cheaper than electric despite the recent price hikes.

Fit oversized radiators (~50% larger than required) - This will allow you to run the CH at a lower temperature which will improve efficiency. It also allows you to switch to heat pumps at a later date without ripping out the whole system. Plan the layout with ASHP in mind.

Insulate the heck out of the place before you move in - Loft insulation is cheap and easy to install. Internal wall insulation is a bit more expensive & involved, but well worth doing (just be careful about the finishing details). Once well insulated, radiators can be mounted on internal walls which will cut down on the amount of plumbing needed.

If you have a suspended timber floor on the ground level, it would be worth fitting insulation underneath - Not always practical, and you do need to be very careful not to compromised underfloor ventilation.

Gerry1

Don't even think of electric radiators: they will bankrupt you, and devalue your property because potential housebuyers will run a mile.  Get gas laid on PDQ even if you don't intend to use it for CH because it will add to the value of your property.

The storage heaters don't need replacing.  If they are faulty it's easy and cheap to fix them.  Do the Storage Heater Sanity Test to check for any failed elements, and make sure you understand how to operate them effectively.  Make sure the immersion heater is on an E7 switched circuit.  If there is a second immersion heater higher up on a 24h circuit make sure it's only used for (expensive) top ups if you run out during the day, and add a one-shot two hour timer so it can't be left on accidentally.

Gas central heating is desirable but not essential at this stage.  Make sure you oversize the radiators so that they will be compatible with a future heat pump.

raustin1999

Thank you for your responses. The house currently has no gas supply however there is gas in the street and I’ve had a quote of £600 to supply gas and a meter. It seems like everyone is pushing us towards gas central heating which I expected, obviously the upfront cost will be higher but we would like gas for the hot water anyway so factoring that in I wouldn’t of thought there would be much difference in price to installing electric rads. And by getting rid of the immersion heater we would be changing the economy 7 meter making the storage heaters more expensive to run anyway. 

Thanks

Gerry1

raustin1999 said:

And by getting rid of the immersion heater we would be changing the economy 7 meter making the storage heaters more expensive to run anyway.

Not a good idea to get rid of the immersion heater; it's always a good idea to retain it in case the gas boiler breaks down.

You don't need to change the E7 meter: many suppliers, probably most, will agree to bill both registers at single rate.

Zandoni

I’d definitely go with gas if it’s affordable, a nice combination boiler will mean you can get rid of the hot and cold water tanks and reclaim the space. If the rest of the plumbing is old and you can afford it take the opportunity and replace it.