brewdexta
The biggest tool in the box
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When I renovated our house (AKA taking it back to a shell), I dug up the floors as there were just flags on damp earth and put water under floor heating in. The density of pipe was worked out based on a "low" temp boiler output of around 55c.
That was over 12 years ago and I'm not on mains gas, LPG is very expensive so alternative heats sources are more attractive. I looked at air source and ground source heat pumps, my brother uses both successfully in his holiday lets. Unfortunately you only get the circa 3:1 ratio of heat out electricity in if you keep the output around 40c. So I would need more pipe in the underfloor heating to get the output I need and considering its in the structural slab then this would be very difficult.
So I'm looking at wood pellet boilers. I did check out wood chip but for a house the amount of machinery (augers etc.) needed is not economical. I've been looking at it for a couple of years and nearly made the leap this year but got busy at work. There was a local council scheme in February that linked into one of the government subsidies and feed in tariff schemes however it had to be completed by end of March and I had to rip out my existing boiler to qualify, I couldn't choose the plumber and the choice of boilers was limited.
At this time we had 6 foot snow drifts, no way was I going to let some stranger sod around with heating in winter when I have a young family to put in a cheap Italian boiler that didn't seem to meet some of the "Blue Sky" requirements so you got stuffed on future offsets. I would rather miss the subsidy and do it myself and select the best boiler and get it tested by a known plumber qualified to allow me to get the feed in tariff etc. I would also sneak the old boiler back in as a back-up with a couple of valves, its not nice up in t'Pennines when your a week away from a spare part on a boiler in the middle of winter. Your not supposed to have the old boiler at all to qualify for the subsidy and feed in tariff - shear stupidity when most of the boilers are relatively niche and you can't get the parts from local plumbers merchants.
I need to build a plant room for the new boiler round the back of the house so may get that done this year first.
Probably going to go for a Guntamatic boiler, expensive but proven track record. Windhager and HDG also have a good reputation. There are others but you need to do the research, depends if you want gas boiler convenience or don't mind regular daily effort to load the boiler, the less effort you want to put in the more the system will cost. You can get wood pellet boilers that can take logs too, some even have stirling engines on top to make electricity from flue gases. I can feel a couple of projects coming on
Andy
That was over 12 years ago and I'm not on mains gas, LPG is very expensive so alternative heats sources are more attractive. I looked at air source and ground source heat pumps, my brother uses both successfully in his holiday lets. Unfortunately you only get the circa 3:1 ratio of heat out electricity in if you keep the output around 40c. So I would need more pipe in the underfloor heating to get the output I need and considering its in the structural slab then this would be very difficult.
So I'm looking at wood pellet boilers. I did check out wood chip but for a house the amount of machinery (augers etc.) needed is not economical. I've been looking at it for a couple of years and nearly made the leap this year but got busy at work. There was a local council scheme in February that linked into one of the government subsidies and feed in tariff schemes however it had to be completed by end of March and I had to rip out my existing boiler to qualify, I couldn't choose the plumber and the choice of boilers was limited.
At this time we had 6 foot snow drifts, no way was I going to let some stranger sod around with heating in winter when I have a young family to put in a cheap Italian boiler that didn't seem to meet some of the "Blue Sky" requirements so you got stuffed on future offsets. I would rather miss the subsidy and do it myself and select the best boiler and get it tested by a known plumber qualified to allow me to get the feed in tariff etc. I would also sneak the old boiler back in as a back-up with a couple of valves, its not nice up in t'Pennines when your a week away from a spare part on a boiler in the middle of winter. Your not supposed to have the old boiler at all to qualify for the subsidy and feed in tariff - shear stupidity when most of the boilers are relatively niche and you can't get the parts from local plumbers merchants.
I need to build a plant room for the new boiler round the back of the house so may get that done this year first.
Probably going to go for a Guntamatic boiler, expensive but proven track record. Windhager and HDG also have a good reputation. There are others but you need to do the research, depends if you want gas boiler convenience or don't mind regular daily effort to load the boiler, the less effort you want to put in the more the system will cost. You can get wood pellet boilers that can take logs too, some even have stirling engines on top to make electricity from flue gases. I can feel a couple of projects coming on
Andy
As they say in Belfast, it was OK when it left here 
