Change bottle gas central heating & hot water to solar & electric - advice please

Thecreative

Hi all, I have a small property in a high up rural location, 2 bed semi bungalow with a log burner but the main heating is gas powered central heating for the radiators and hot water. There is no mains gas so I rely on the expensive 2 gas bottle system installed before buying it. 

With working away its usually only used for 2 or maybe 3 days per week apart from minor things like the freezer etc.. Several of the neighbours now have solar but they seemed to qualify for Welsh government grants, where as I may qualify on the bungalows poor heat rating I probably wouldn't on income.

My question is what's involved in changing the gas boiler & radiators for solar panels & electric radiators, what's required to heat the hot water/bath/shower etc...?

How much would it cost for everything done including batteries & with not being there for 4-5 days how much would realistically be made selling that back into the grid?

Any advice is really appreciated so I can assess if its worth perusing, the initial cost & break even point would also help any resale, as prospective buyers may be put off by the bottle gas solution.

  

Netexporter

I was lucky enough to get solar and a heat pump free on the ECO4 scheme. Although I thought I didn't qualify, because I wasn't in receipt of any of the listed benefits, in my Welsh local authority, the rule was more relaxed. Unfortunately for you, the ECO4 scheme has been axed but it might be worth asking the council what the new arrangements are.

Having said that, the solar and heat pump were part of my plan for my bungalow with LPG central heating and a rubbish EPC. This last calendar year cost me about £180 in total, for heating, charging my EV, and everything else being electric. That was with just over 4kW of solar (10 panels). 

Solar is very cheap at the moment and battery prices keep falling. You will still qualify for the BUS (boiler upgrade scheme) grant of £7.5k for the heat pump. How much you actually pay will depend of how much modification your existing central heating system requires, but things have advanced a lot, and people like Heat Geeks and Octopus can quote as little as the cost of replacing a gas boiler, after BUS grant.

There is also a lot of automation incorporated in systems, so they can manage themselves to buy electricity cheaply and sell at the best price, even when you are away.

Good luck. It's definitely worth doing.

Martyn1981

I think your question may be a 'length of string' problem.

But in simple terms, you might be able to replace the wet heating system with A2A units. These are air to air heaters, commonly called air con units. The BUS has just been extended to include them, with a £2.5k grant. Very rough guess, A2A units installed start around £1,200, so let's say £1.5k each* for wiggle room, plus maybe another £1.5k for a HW cylinder, so ~£4.5k for two A2A units and a HW cylinder.

Or you could have inline water heating for DHW (domestic hot water).

[*But the price of some units is much higher, your choice.]

Alternatively, go with the full ASHP wet system, which hopefully may be close in cost to the £7.5k grant.

PV on bungalows can often be a great idea, as you typically have more roof space v's a two storey house with the same number of bedrooms. Also means no need to pay for scaffolding. But again, 'piece of string' as it may have a  very steep roof with upstairs bedroom, or a 4way hipped roof. But fingers crossed you have a decent roof to play with, a pic would be useful.

Batts are getting cheaper, so are now viable for some, not for others. Thinking out loud, if you are only there 2 days a week, then potentially you will only get 2/7ths the value, v's someone else. But doesn't mean they are a no.

Resale ..... well, first off I'd suggest not changing heating, PV etc etc if you plan to move, as you won't get the time needed for payback. However, if you are on bottled gas, then maybe, perhaps, possibly, I don't know, modernising the heating may be seen as a plus and add value?

Just read back through, and realised I could add 10x more, and bore you to hell. So, maybe a few more details and thoughts will help narrow things down, and open the floodgates for comments.

QrizB

One note from me:

Thecreative said:

There is no mains gas so I rely on the expensive 2 gas bottle system installed before buying it.   

My parents had bottled gas until 3 or 4 years ago. If you can get a 47kg bottle for £90, you're paying about 13p/kWh for your heat. That's 2x more expensive than mains gas but still half the price of standard-rate electricity. A heat pump will deliver cheaper heat than this but the installation costs are likely to be significant.

Solar PV is almost certaily worth it - panels are cheap and export remains lucrative - but replacing your heating system might not make economic sense. You can sell electricity to the grid when you're not at home, but you will only see any savings from cheaper heating on the days when you're there to use it.

Heedtheadvice

Rural, high altitude no mains gas, away from home a lot.

All the above posts  on limited info makes a lot of sense, but....

I am always a bit risk averse when it comes to heating and power resilience.

Say you went all electric ( with solar) it ought to be financially good for you and Green ,  very so for the summer and with batteries and a time of use Tariff ( with enough battery storage to make best of it) all year. Over longer time scale the most benefit for capital expenditure.

However taking out the gas system, would that put you at risk during any grid outages? 

No grid no generation, batteries would need to backup ( auto switching?). 

Except for relatively short outages the batteries would not cope for long. That would depend  upon amount of storage relative to consumption, maybe not too bad if you are not home consuming little (summer and heating just ticking over) winter probably a different matter.

That risk needs to be assessed and if significant for you something to mitigate the risk. Probably infrequent but a potentially big impact to your property!

System design to act as emergency supply ( perfectly feasible) or even just keep gas heating too and combined wet heat pump/Air to Air could do that.

If I were to be in the property for several years I would be keen to go the Green route and keep the gas!

Martyn1981

Nothing wrong with a hybrid system, just adding the A2A, but if you don't remove the gas boiler you won't be eligible for the BUS grants. The OP has a log burner, so already has a back up heat source for emergencies.

Heedtheadvice

Quite Martyn,  but lighting a log burner when not home is difficult!

Martyn1981

Heedtheadvice said:

Quite Martyn,  but lighting a log burner when not home is difficult!

But equally, not lighting a log burner, when not home, is easy. Just as easy, I'd suggest as not lighting a gas boiler or switching on a HP.   

Heedtheadvice

err, can't follow that 'logic ' 😀

Martyn1981

Heedtheadvice said:

err, can't follow that 'logic ' 😀

I was just pointing out the lack of need to operate heating, during a power cut, when you are not there. Some edge cases are just too 'edgy' to really need to be concerned about.

Heedtheadvice

Sorry, was just an obviously failed attempt at humour!