electric heating house?

[vbottles]

Looking for advice on heating a home with electricity. Presently has a electric boiler running 10 Radiators.boiler looks fairly old (10+ years). Are there more efficient was of heating a home with gas mains near by?
Also does anyone know the Max amps you can draw from domestic 240 supply?
Andrew

 

[mart]

It has an electric boiler? I honestly did not know there was such a thing.

To comment on your question, I will say that electric is roughly about 3 times the cost of gas. However, you have to take in to consideration the efficiency of whatever device/method you are using/going to be using.
Gas is not cheap, but modern condensing boilers are quite good.

If I was starting afresh, I would look at all options from solid fuel, log burners, gas, oil etc.
I shall watch this thread, the subject matter is something I often think about.

 

[Rig Pig]

A wood burner is the cheapest heat source but not the most convenient, if gas is available it will be the cheapest of the other options but find out how much they will charge to put a supply in.

 

[Kayos]

Electric boilers are horrible, expensive, inefficient things

Look into an air source heat pump, I've done a few now that can provide the whole heating and hot water requirements in a property, with an immersion as a back up

 

[oddbob]

We currently have electric storage heating on economy 7 which is comparable, in cost, to the oil fired heating we had in our previous house (but that was before the recent plummet in oil prices). But, if you have gas, that is always cheaper.

 

[piman]

Hello all,

can someone explain why heat pumps are considered to be good sources of cheap heating when air conditioning is expensive to run?

Alec

 

[vbottles]

Sorry just saw i missed out above. There is no gas and the nearest gas supply is about 3km away via rural lanes, so don't think it would be economical to connect.
How much land is required for ground source heat pumps? Had a quick look on line least week, with recommendation of 45mx 6m as a minimum for a two bed house. Which is more then I have available and it's a four bed.
What are the realities of solar water heating? Or would it be better to use photo voltaic and is the energy to offset the cost of heating?
Andrew

 

[rtbcomp]

Hello all,

can someone explain why heat pumps are considered to be good sources of cheap heating when air conditioning is expensive to run?

Alec

It's all relative really.

Heat pumps are cheaper to run than a conventional heat source because they add free heat from outside to the heat produced by the pump unit.

Air con seems expensive to run because you can't measure its costs against anything else and you are throwing all the heat away.

 

[rtbcomp]

Sorry just saw i missed out above. There is no gas and the nearest gas supply is about 3km away via rural lanes, so don't think it would be economical to connect.
How much land is required for ground source heat pumps? Had a quick look on line least week, with recommendation of 45mx 6m as a minimum for a two bed house. Which is more then I have available and it's a four bed.
What are the realities of solar water heating? Or would it be better to use photo voltaic and is the energy to offset the cost of heating?
Andrew

The trouble with solar is that you get the heat when you least need it. It's OK for heating domestic hot water. Generating electricity would be better if you can get on the feed-in tariff.

I'd like to see a heat pump set-up with the cold coils in a solar panel, that way with the large temperature difference you should be able to absorb some solar heat even on dull days without the expense of burying pipes in the ground.

Do you have a running stream nearby? That would be a good source of heat for a heat pump.

 

[vbottles]

No stream nearby. But reasonable south facing garden. Want to sort heating options then I can think about shed options.
Andrew

 

[500e]

What about pelleted fuel is there not a Gov grant for it? then again how much paperwork & inflated inst cost by Approved firms.
Friend had Electric boiler that flamed out the cost of replacing was
Warm front came from Wales to Somerset to quote the price was 50% higher than local Co so even with gov grant it was cheaper to use local chap.

 

[Kent]

Hello all,

can someone explain why heat pumps are considered to be good sources of cheap heating when air conditioning is expensive to run?

Alec

Air source heat pumps are pants. Ground source is great provided it's specked right from the trial. Most air source are just air con reversed but as the run the is longer and the least gain is in the colder months it's nothing but a cruel joke in the UK to fit one financially

 

[Kent]

Andrew: Depends on the DNO cutout fuse - Generally anything from 60-100 Amps
Gas is cheaper by orders of magnitude, if no mains gas then your talking bottle gas / biomass / oil / wood, any of the above being a lot cheaper than electric to run...

Yep last choice of heating in the uk

 

[Kayos]

Air source heat pumps are pants. Ground source is great provided it's specked right from the trial. Most air source are just air con reversed but as the run the is longer and the least gain is in the colder months it's nothing but a cruel joke in the UK to fit one financially

I've fitted several systems on estates built in the early 90's with no gas, as the govt promised cheap nuclear powered electricity that never happened

The units are physically larger than the "normal" air source ones and we had to import them from Germany but a single unit provides heating and hot water for a 3 bed family home, cheaper than it being all elec

 

[Rig Pig]

Probably bottle gas (Calor etc) would be a decent choice, condensing system boiler, along with uprating the house's insulation (cavity wall / stud out and kingspan/celotex the inside of the exterior walls, also take loft insulation to 200-300mm total thickness)

Bottle gas is very expensive, the cheapest option is heating oil and a modern boiler. I use around a tank of oil in18 months in a well insulated detached bungalow, with a wood burner that only runs when I'm about.

 

[DrDeAtH]

What about an LPG tank and gas condensing boiler?

 

[lshigham]

What about an LPG tank and gas condensing boiler?

LPG is more expensive than oil especially with the price drop of late

 

[vbottles]

Not sure if there is enough space to put in a tank above ground for LPG. Guessing that putting it under ground would cost a bit as well. Is the minimum distance for a LPG tank 5meters from buildings or is it more.
Thinking about oil but I'm guessing the price has to go up again. As diesel up here is back to £1.17 a litre and haven't heard anything about oil prices increasing.
A

 

[penfold]

What about pelleted fuel is there not a Gov grant for it? then again how much paperwork & inflated inst cost by Approved firms.

The government are offering big bribes to fit pellet boilers; the down side is the payback period and you need a fair amount of space for pellet storage or accept quite frequent need for re-ordering.

 

[500e]

Is there some ongoing gov help as well or was that clever gov speak