Heat Pump alternatives

Dannygee22

Would really love some advice as we are really struggling.
 Moved into our new house a few months ago that has a Biomass pellet boiler. When we bought the house, the boiler was serviced, and the agent and the owners sang the praises of the boiler and how the owners owned a company who installed it and could help us out with any issues. From the moment we move in it hasn’t worked, ex owners are not interested, and there are no plumbers who have any idea how to repair it, it’s no longer even sold in this country, so needs to be replaced. We explored getting a grant for an air source heat pump, but because we currently have biomass it is unavailable. I’ve discussed the options at length with Ofgem, as I don’t want to use fossil fuels, but there is no way around it even though the boiler is faulty.
 Our options then are-
oil- there is no immediately obvious space in the garden for the tank, but if it is the best option we may go for that.
LPG- we had an LPG cooker, which we replaced so there is an LPG connection, but would need to run the pipes further to get to where the boiler would be situated. We have no LPG tank (again would be open to install one if it would be the most cost effective) but if not the space where the gas bottles currently are are only big enough for 19kg bottles. We had a quote to have a boiler installed using 4 of these bottles.
 Electric heating- something like this https://fischerfutureheat.com/product/electric-heaters/ and the water heaters here. 
 Replace Biomass boiler- seems very expensive and inefficient. If there is a suitable alternative that is easily maintained we would consider it.

 We would still love to go for the heat pump but we did not budget to replace the boiler this soon when moving in, so initial cost is the main consideration. Along with that, it needs to be a long term solution, concerned that if we go for oil or LPG we will need to replace again when the supply becomes more difficult. Monthly running costs is obviously also a major consideration.
 Any advice on this would be very much appreciated. Need to make a decision quickly, we have an immersion so we have hot water, but it’s a very expensive way of doing it. 

 Thanks

QrizB

 

Dannygee22 said:
Moved into our new house a few months ago that has a Biomass pellet boiler.

How big is your new home? How much heating does it need (look at the EPC you received as part of your purchase paperwork, it will quote a number of kWh for heat and hot water).

Dannygee22 said:

 Electric heating- something like this https://fischerfutureheat.com/product/electric-heaters/ and the water heaters here.  

Direct electric heating is ruinously expensive. See the calculations in my signature for example costs of those vs. storage heaters.

If you can't afford a heat pump (and it can be done on the cheap for £5k or less, @michaels has done something like this) then storage heaters are the only other credible electric option. They're not cheap to install and are likely to need some significant electrical work.

If not electric, then oil or LPG. Gas is clean and just like being on the mains. With bulk gas you'll be under contract to a LPG supplier and they're all sharks who see you as lunch, and with bottles you'll be paying considerably more for a less convenient system.

Oil is as about cheap as mains gas (sometimes cheaper) but oil boilers have a reputation for being temperamental, sooty and smelly. You can buy your oil from anyone who's prepared to supply you, no contracts to worry about. 

There will be people along with current experience of all the above shortly if you want specific recommendations.

Dannygee22

Thanks. EPC is C rated, we have all the insulation, but a lot of the rating is because of the biomass boiler. House is a 4 bed link detached.
 The EPC usage estimate is 

• 12,732 kWh per year for heating
• 2,965 kWh per year for hot water

This is very rough though, house was refurbed before we move in, and was empty for about 6 months with minimal heating on.

Newbie_John

Can you not get rid of the boiler, get electric radiator for a month and then apply for heat pump?

lohr500

I am a big fan of oil, so I would rip out the biomass boiler and replace it with an oil boiler. 
I presume the biomass boiler is located externally, so it should be a pretty easy job to replace it with an external oil boiler in the same location.

I'm also assuming you will have a hot water storage tank. This being the case, you can go for a conventional boiler. No need for a system or combi, both of which are more complex.

When we got our new Grant external oil boiler, it came with a 10 year parts & labour warranty, subject to being installed and serviced annually by a Grant approved engineer. It is now 5 years old and hasn't missed a beat.

The oil price is currently at a 2 year low, but likely to increase shortly due to the war between Israel/Iran.
Yesterday I ordered 800 litres for £0.518 per litre including VAT.
Roughly that works out at 5.5p per kWh, assuming a 90% boiler efficiency.

That being said, as you don't have an oil tank already, I would imagine the cost to install an oil boiler plus tank and pipework, won't be dissimilar to a non grant funded heat pump installation.

I would avoid bottled LPG as it will be expensive for running an LPG boiler. And as @QrizB mentioned, from what I have read, bulk LPG does seem like a trip back to the Wild West with unregulated cowboys running the show!

Also as @QrizB mentions, stay well clear of any direct heat electrical heating. Don't get drawn in to all the amazing claims from Fischer or other highly priced electric panel radiator suppliers. It makes little difference if they are filled with moon rock, space dust, clay or kryptonite. They, along with £15 convection heaters, all run at the same 100% efficiency, so if you put in 1kW of electricity, you get 1kW of heat out. There may be some marginal benefits on the more expensive models from smarter thermostatic control, but I'm not convinced. Others may disagree.

Dannygee22

lohr500 said:

I am a big fan of oil, so I would rip out the biomass boiler and replace it with an oil boiler. 
I presume the biomass boiler is located externally, so it should be a pretty easy job to replace it with an external oil boiler in the same location.

I'm also assuming you will have a hot water storage tank. This being the case, you can go for a conventional boiler. No need for a system or combi, both of which are more complex.

When we got our new Grant external oil boiler, it came with a 10 year parts & labour warranty, subject to being installed and serviced annually by a Grant approved engineer. It is now 5 years old and hasn't missed a beat.

The oil price is currently at a 2 year low, but likely to increase shortly due to the war between Israel/Iran.
Yesterday I ordered 800 litres for £0.518 per litre including VAT.
Roughly that works out at 5.5p per kWh, assuming a 90% boiler efficiency.

That being said, as you don't have an oil tank already, I would imagine the cost to install an oil boiler plus tank and pipework, won't be dissimilar to a non grant funded heat pump installation.

I would avoid bottled LPG as it will be expensive for running an LPG boiler. And as @QrizB mentioned, from what I have read, bulk LPG does seem like a trip back to the Wild West with unregulated cowboys running the show!

Also as @QrizB mentions, stay well clear of any direct heat electrical heating. Don't get drawn in to all the amazing claims from Fischer or other highly priced electric panel radiator suppliers. It makes little difference if they are filled with moon rock, space dust, clay or kryptonite. They, along with £15 convection heaters, all run at the same 100% efficiency, so if you put in 1kW of electricity, you get 1kW of heat out. There may be some marginal benefits on the more expensive models from smarter thermostatic control, but I'm not convinced. Others may disagree.

Thanks. I agree oil does seem like the best option, but the volatility in the Middle East is concering. The biomass boiler is in the garage, and it is huge, so plenty of space for whatever we want to replace it with, and it does have a hot water tank, so may be the best option. 

Dannygee22

Newbie_John said:

Can you not get rid of the boiler, get electric radiator for a month and then apply for heat pump?

I'm thinking about it. I need to understand the cost of removing the boiler though. It's huge, I would need to get someone in to remove it, and all of that eats into the benefit of having the grant. It may be the route I need to go down though.

Sorting_Hat

You could get a survey/quote for an LPG tank from one of the majors (Calor, Flogas etc) as that would give you firm info on tank location and so on.

You would be contracted for 2 years to the firm that fits the tank then after that you can look about for any independents that are in your area. An independent may also survey/fit LPG tanks as some do.

stripling

@Dannygee22
Thanks. I agree oil does seem like the best option, but the volatility in the Middle East is concering. The biomass boiler is in the garage, and it is huge, so plenty of space for whatever we want to replace it with, and it does have a hot water tank, so may be the best option.  

A heat pump will be much cheaper (and greener) to run than LPG and gives you the base to build a solar/battery set up further down the line making it even more cheaper and also independent of price craziness.  

I must confess I love my heat pump, the heat is so much nicer and evenly spread throughout the house.  I don't have any solar/batteries but it is still cheaper than my previous gas central heating.  It's a Daikin installed by 🐙 who did a superb job. 

Why not get some quotes (🐙 quotes are refundable if you don't go ahead and are offering 15% discount atm, British Gas heat pump quotes are free, Heat Geek are £300, Boxt & lots of others are offering loans on their installations etc.,) and investigate?