Can anyone recommend a good heating system?

ninjaBob

I've looked into:

Oil
Gas
Wood Pellet
Wood Chip
Wood Gassification
Geothermal (ground source)
Air to Water

Between all the different sales people pointing out the flaws in every other persons experience I was just wondering if anyone had a clear cut recommendation. Something that they have put in their house and it works all year round when needed...

I've read through:

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=1041

Read about Heatpumps Performances, Seen the views on Wood Pellet.

I was just now looking for personal recommendations as to what could be used.

Kashkai

We have a 2,900 sq ft bungalow that we heat as follows:

1 - A Firebird kerosene boiler (central heating and hot water)

2 - A Lucrezia Idro wood pellet boiler (central heating and hot water)

3 - A Sideros wood pellet stove (room heater)

4 - Open fire.

We alternate between 1 and 2 above for the central heating (we have 19 rads in the system btw) using the oil for the morning and the wood pellet for the evening as its located in the kids playroom and thus provides additional heat here as well. There is no noticable difference in the heat provided by these two but it does take longer for the wood pellet boiler to get up to steam compared to the oil, i.e. the oil heats the rads within 10 - 15 minutes whereas the wood pellet boiler would take up to 30 minutes before the rads are at the same temperature. When the price of oil peaked last year, the pellets were cheaper but since the price of 1,000 litres has dropped back to around the €520 mark, I think its now cheaper than the pellets unless you buy them in bulk (we get them in bagged form which are dearer as we don't have a bulk store).

We use 3 above in the open plan kitchen cum sunroom thats 24ft x 24ft as this large space needs the additional heat due to the amount of glazing that imo sucks heat out of the room in winter, double glazing or no double glazing!

4 is in the sitting room that rarely gets lit except during the winter time.

We are also looking at the option of solar panels to heat water in the summertime and thus save on turning the oil boiler on for 30 minutes each day which is an inefficient way of heating water.

When considering a heating source, remember that good insulation levels in the roof space, the walls and the floor will also go a long way towards reducing your heating bills.

ninjaBob

Wow thats a pretty big system. I could probably only afford one primary heating system. With Solar and Back Boilers to Supplement water heating.

Anyone else care to share their systems? I would be interested in GeoThermal / Air to Water systems and how people find them.

Cheers

Leadership

I am just fireing up a new system on a new build after spending 12 months investigating this.

Edit: House is two storey 2550 sqft, built in ICF and has HRV

• Oil fired boiler - Fitted standard as part of our build package
• Wodke solid fuel stove with back boiler - Connects to 500l thermal store
• Solar - 40 tubes

If we have the stove on in the evening then there is enough hot water stored in the morning for heating radiators and showers etc. The plan is the oil will only be used 35% of the time when we feel lazy and need it to kick in.

I looked at Geo, if fitted correctly then its a fine system and cheap to run. If fitted incorectly or your home is not suitable then it will cost a fortune to run. Also has a depandancy on electricity which will go up in price soon enough. Ireland is still too depandant on importing this. You really need UFH on all floors.

Also looked at wood pellet - Still a bit pricey at the momement and pellet quality is not quite right in this country.

Plan is to swap out the oil boiler with pellet in the next 5 years once prices are suitable. Also waiting will tell if pellets kick off in this country.

bbam

Hi...
Our house is 2800sq ft Story and a half style..

Oil burner, 120K BTU Condensing unit, we looked at pellet boilers but like others I don't trust the supply of pellets nor our climate for storing them..
Hercules solid fuel stove 100K BTU's
5.5 Sq Meters of flat panel solar.
Simple up/down zones
Lots of Insulation...

We've only needed to top up the hot water with the immersion about 3 times since we moved in around March, not bad considering the sun has been away on its holidays most of the summer...

The hercules stove is a monster, one decent fireing with timber will heat the house well, have coal but not needed so far...

Oil is there for quick easy dash of heat... has been on about 6 times for ~1 hour each since March..

At the moment I reckon we have reduced our annual oil bill by 2 fills, and the immersion usage will be down by approx 700 hours a year..

I was very stressed during the planning about getting the system working well and have been very happy so far..

CJhaughey

Build to Passive house specs and forget about systems, just put in a small woodburner connected to the DHW and a couple of solar collectors.
No massive energy bills for the lifetime of the dwelling.

Highway

Hi
I've a 3200sqft house with central heating an hot water via a KWB 15Kw wood pellet system alone.

Have UFH throughout the house.

Work perfectly and costing about €1800 per annum on pellets. (approx 3 x 3tonne loads).

Have piped for solar panels, but did not make economic sense at the time, until we were sure of pellet running costs. We can now make a more educated decision of the payback of solar.

Am also considering doing the wind turbine course with this guy <SNIP> which i saw in the farmers journal.
My plan is to use a small turbine to power an immersion in the buffer tank of the heating system. I live on an elevated site with lots of wind (wind farm being constructed in the area) and this should save a lot of pellets. It's only economical if i do it myself, because such wind systems cost thousands commercially. I could do a diy one approx €2500 up and running, including immersion etc.

No further running costs either. May add diy solar panels (which guy also does courses in) which would be massively cheaper, and in theory both systems should massively subsidise the pellets costs.

I think the last posters opinion about building a passive house (if you haven't started yet) is probably the best approach though. Basically no future heating bills at all, and supposed to be very comfortable houses.

Highway.




Mod edit: Read the forum charter please.

seclachi

There really is no clear cut recommendation on a heating system as there are so many boxes to tick and no heating system will tick all of them at once. If your building a house you`ll notice there is a theme here, there are no easy choices after the basics.

I`m by no means an expert, but here is the gist of what I have picked up so far, corrections are more than welcome.

You`ll have to consider what is important to you in a choice, the first major decision imo is UFH or Rads, some systems are more suited to UFH and others to Radiators. Heat exchange systems are generally better for UFH as they produce lower temperature water 20C-30C, conversely warmer systems like oil may be inefficient at producing water at that temperature.

Then you have the other questions, how future proof will each system be, will oil be as cheap in 50 years time ? Probably not, but things tend to be linked, and gas may rise with it and possibly timber as demand increases. I have a feeling electricity may be the future fuel with us relying on Nuclear power from Europe or wind energy.

Have a look at the SEI`s site for fuel costs, it can give you a rough idea, but its not the bible as I`m sure there are many other factors, such as the cost of the system

http://www.sei.ie/Publications/Statistics_Publications/Fuel_Cost_Comparison/Domestic_Fuel_Cost_Comparison_October_2009.pdf

Oil
This probably the cheapest route to install and run if you are not near a gas mains.

Gas - Mains
I think Mains gas works out the cheapest fuel wise, I`m not sure of the system cost. You also get the other benifits of Gas such as water heating and cooking

Gas - LPG
LPG is pretty expensive fuel wise according to the SEI. Not sure about it otherwise

Wood Pellet
Wood Chip
Wood Gassification

Not too sure about these three, I didnt really consider them myself as people say there has been shortages in wood pellets and they can be quite expensive. I was concerned about the labour of filling up the log feeder for wood gassification, yes I am that lazy.

Geothermal (ground source)
Air to Water

The main thing about these is that they are lower temperature than the above systems, so you need special radiators or UFH to use them properly afaik.
Geothermal is supposedly the more efficient system, you need either a well or a ground loop. Air to water is probably a more tidy package in this respect, you just need the AC units. There can be problems with them icing over however.

One interesting piece of advice I got regarding the above is that you dont get a grant when installing these in a new house, and that they are new technologys, so it may be worth installing a conventional system and then putting in a geothermal / air to water system and possibility getting a grant and a more advanced system. Who knows how it could turn out though.

Highway

Sorry about breaking the rules in previous post. PM me for the link.

There is definitely no shortage of pellets, but there is up to €100 in the difference between a 3 tonne (the minimum bulk order size) load between different suppliers. People say there is a big difference in quality, but it's hard to tell I think.

If considering wood pellet, definitely factor in a bulk storage method, as it is very expensive to buy by the bag over long periods.

You need to allow about 2 weeks delivery time for pellets, to be safe, so don't wait until they are almost run out.

Highway.