Heating advice for my house in Greece

System

This discussion was created from comments split from: Fischer Storage Heaters.

billybonkers

I hope it is ok to resurrect this thread as there seems to be some knowledgeable hearing experts on here.

I need some advice about an electric boiler.
I live partly in Greece and my house has oil burning central heating.

My house is small two bedrooms 80 sq metres. Due to the small size of the house the boiler was installed outside underground in a big hole with a huge heavy metal lid covering it.

It has never served me well, every year it needs work, water and damp gets down to the boiler. Now the boiler has finally broken and I refuse to replace it with another outside boiler as I feel it will be throwing good money after bad.

Due to the size of my house installing it inside is not an option.

The guy who fixes it said I could replace it with a small electric boiler and use my existing pipe work and radiators. The pipe that are outside in the hole are by the wall of my house. The other side of the wall is a bedroom. 

I am thinking of having the boiler in the bedroom as it’s so close and eliminating the mess of a big hole altogether.

I know that electricity is expensive but I wouldn’t be using the boiler that often, only if it was extremely cold. 

I would really like it inside the and this seems like a good and easyish option.

I don’t need an combi  as I already have a water boiler in a cupboard under the stairs for hot water.

i read an ad for Fischer boilers in a free newspaper and was thinking I could possibly ship a boiler to Greece as apparently they are very small. 

However I just received their brochure and there are no prices and no sizes for the boilers, which makes me suspicious.

In Greece electric boiler are rare and I don’t know anybody with one, everyone has oil heating. 

Could anybody please offer any advice about having an electric boiler feed my existing heating system.

Thank you in advance for any advice.

QrizB

I know nothing about the climate in your part of Greece, about the heating demands of your house, or about Greek electricity prices.

However I'd expect Fischer electric boilers to be no more effective or efficient than any other electric boiler, and electric boilers are relatively easy to get hold of in the UK.

Screwfix (a large UK retailer) has a selection on their website here:

https://www.screwfix.com/c/heating-plumbing/boilers/cat6660001?calcfueltype=electric

Ectophile

Have you checked your electricity supply to see if it's enough to run an electric boiler?  I know that in some parts of Europe, the electricity supply is severely limited, and electric boilers are huge power guzzlers.

Cardew

In many parts of the world where there is not a heavy heating demand an Air Source Heat Pump(ASHP) is the preferred solution; and can be used as Air Conditioning 

billybonkers

Thank you for the replies.
A heat pump is not an option because I am very close to another house.
i will check the electricity supply to see if it is strong enough when I return to Greece later this month.

Has anybody changed from an oil boiler to an electric boiler and run it off the existing radiators?

QrizB

billybonkers said:

Has anybody changed from an oil boiler to an electric boiler and run it off the existing radiators?

Quite a few people have. Electric boilers run at the same sort of temperatures that oil or gas ones do, so if the radiators are adequate for the current boiler they should also be good enough with an electric boiler.

In the UK the big drawback of an electric boiler is that electricity is about 4x as expensive as oil or gas, and so energy bills soar when you make the swap. You'll have to check costs for Greece yourself.