Underfloor heating and Oil boiler.

walnuts

I'm hoping to get a bit of information on this and hopefully a few people's experiences

I'm in the middle of constructing my house. It’s a 3500 sq/feet two story house. Next step is to decide on our heating system.

I was planning on going under floor and geo thermal but the more I look into it and the more prices I get the less I'm convinced.
I don't like the idea of all the pipes in the garden (600 meters) plus it will work out at least 15 grand more than an oil boiler. What is the implication of having the pipes in your garden and sowing trees?

At the moment I'm thinking of going under floor, oil boiler and solar panels. I'm thinking that with solar panels we will not use any oil over the summer. We will also have a stove with a back boiler for helping to heat water during the winter.

Has anyone gone down the route of under floor and oil? How do you find it? I have been told that oil does not really work well with under floor because there is a constant small amount of oil being used to keep the temperature stable.

Any advice, experiences or opinions most welcome.

Graaaaa

Have you looked into an air-source heat pump? SEI site lists registered suppliers.
The advantage over ground-heat is the lack of pipework and no need for a good size plot of land. As with ground-heat, there will be an electrical cost for operating it, and servicing. Supply and install cost is 10-12K I think...
Many posters here will undoubtedly have more expert opinions on it.
An example in this link:
http://www.dimpcoheatpumps.com/pdfs/LAMS.pdf

FLOMAN09

"Has anyone gone down the route of under floor and oil? How do you find it? I have been told that oil does not really work well with under floor because there is a constant small amount of oil being used to keep the temperature stable.

Any advice, experiences or opinions most welcome. "

We are looking at the same thing as above but are getting outrageous prices, does anyone have any views on Unitherm ufh or qpl in Cork?

The best way to run a UFH system is to use a thermal store, the boiler will have one good burn to raise the temperature of the thermal store (big cylinder) then the UFH is fed via a mixing thermostatic valve set to the required temperature for the floor.

This is the way I run my system.

walnuts

Thanks dolanbaker.

Do you use oil or geo to heat? What is a thermal store? hot water cylinder?

walnuts

walnuts wrote: »

Thanks dolanbaker.

Do you use oil or geo to heat? What is a thermal store? hot water cylinder?

I use oil, but intend to supplement that with a multifuel boiler & solar. Solar now up and running.

A thermal store is basically a large vented cylinder, read here for more info.

stackerman

You would be mad to use oil !
Price will always be high and elec costs comming down. Geo is the best option in my opinion. I have geo installed for last few years and works a treat. I have one friend you uses oil and slagged me off when I was building and installing geo. Smiles on ther other side of his face now though
Pipes are easy to install and are no problem as long as you dont plan on digging up the garden in the future.
No boilers to service, no chance of runnig out of fuel, clean and fairly cheap compared to oil.

walnuts

Thanks for the advice keving but how much are you saving on heating bills every year compared to your friend? As ESB prices in this country are linked to oil and gas prices the differences is never going to widen much.

Also have you sowed any trees where you have the geo pipes?

dfcelt

Looking into the same myself & am swaying towards Dolanbakers choice of system tbh. Got one or two ludicrous figures back for geo & like OP, sowing tress (+ space to rear) are an issue to me.

stackerman

walnuts wrote: »

Thanks for the advice keving but how much are you saving on heating bills every year compared to your friend? As ESB prices in this country are linked to oil and gas prices the differences is never going to widen much.

Also have you sowed any trees where you have the geo pipes?

Anyone who tries to tell you they are saving this or that is talking crap unless they have done a retro fit. So any figures I throw out would mean little. UFH is designed for systems such as geo that work on a low heat imput, but a constant imput. If you use oil and UFH as my friend does the burner only comes on intermitenty and works hard to bring the temp up. to get a constant heat imput would mean burning alot of oil. If you want to use oil then I would suggest rads would be beter suited.

With regard trees etc . . . .
I have and no problems, the only time you would be likely to come across problems would be if the pipes are not put down at the correct depth. If too shalow the soil can freeze and kill grass/trees. but that would need to be very shallow. Rec depth from mem was 800-1000.
Another option if you have concerns abouth the pipes would be to drill a well and drop the loops into the well (cant be same one for water supply), but there is a cost to that. I have a large house and have used both vertical and horizontal loops.

Night rate does most of the work for me, and only pops in the odd time during the day,
Board gais now saves me another 12% on my bills too

keving

keving wrote: »

UFH is designed for systems such as geo that work on a low heat imput, but a constant imput. If you use oil and UFH as my friend does the burner only comes on intermitenty and works hard to bring the temp up. to get a constant heat imput would mean burning alot of oil.

The solution to the issue of the oil (or any other type of fuel) boilers heating to too high a temperature is to use a buffer tank and a thermostatic mixing valve.

The boiler feeds the buffer tank directly and can run at maximum efficiency to bring the tank up to 65c then the water is taken via a thermostatic mixing valve which feeds the ufh at 30c the control of the boiler is done by a tank thermostat and the pump for the ufh is controlled by the room thermostats. The ufh can easily run for five or six hours after about one hours firing by the boiler.

Last years oil usage was about 1300 litres including hot water.

Stevie Dakota

We have oil UFH downstairs in our 2200sq ft house, rads upstairs. Stats in each room. Endless hot water and lovely ambient heat downstairs, no cold zones. When I visit friends in winter with rads I am shocked at the difference, chalk and cheese. We would go through about 1000 litres of oil every 3.5 months but we use it for all our hot water, no messing with the immersion. No smells whatsoever, the boiler is outside next to the tank.

Hope this helps.