Advice please: New Heating system for old bungalow

brianiac

Hi

So i have recently purchased a 1960's 1400sq ft bungalow in north county dublin with a reasonable bit of land surrounding.
The bungalow itself is very modest, and in need of a reasonable amount of work both aesthetic and structural.
A friend of my father (who has designed + managed a passive house build for his son) has given me a reasonable list of things that need doing, including exacting specifications for wall, window, roof, and floor insulation in order for it to be brought up to modern standards - which i hope to exceed in most areas.
Obviously, the main principle in heating a home is retaining as much heat generated as conceivably possible.
He has advised for installation of a heat recovery system - however the romantic in me has grown up with a fireplace all my life and wants to maintain that feature. He has suggested the smaller room-specific heat exchange systems that are installed over the vents which i will go for.
One thing is that i do plan on eventually putting on an extension of some kind - the latest room to improve left me pining to do something similar so would ideally like to future proof... the question of how to heat my home and to provide me with DHW.
i will be going with under floor heating as the some of the wooden joists are rotten and need replacing anyway.
I want a more sustainable method of heating my home and want to go completely fossil-fuel free.

I've read a little bit about various experiences with these and my ideal setup - at this point - is:
Solar vacuum tubes feeding into a multi fuel buffer tank - feeding both UFH and DHW - and which is also connected to one or more of the following:
+/- Back boiler on wood fueled kitchen range
+/- wood gassification
+/- ground to air heat recovery system.

enough of land around me to be self sufficient in fuel. Also, 'He who cuts his own wood heats himself twice'! like the idea of having heating in the house even should the electricity not flow...though i will need it for under-floor heating...(i think?). also just like the sustainability of burning my own wood.

I am a blow-in to north dublin know no one who has installed such a system (or at home for that matter). there are a shedload of companies all offer parts of this system i have in my head. unfortunately i am currently living in cork until this summer before heading back up which makes meeting some of these companies quite awkward. Also, a lot of the companies seem to specialise in only some of the product choices...thus leading me to think that they will be biased in the advice they give me...

I realise i am rabbiting on a bit so my principle questions!

1 - has anyone personal experience of a system like i have described?
Good/bad/indifferent?
Any adjustments you would make?
Advice to give?
2 - any particular companies to steer clear of / particularly recommend? I really am not looking for the cheapest - just a reliable and honest service who will give what they feel to be the best advice in my interest.

Any and all thoughts and comments would be much appreciated (even if just direction to another thread which answers all my questions and which i failed to find....)

Calahonda52

Not an answer to your question, and what following may incur the wrath of a few contributors, I have seen and done enough of this stuff to know.
If you carefully consider what follows and decide on a rational and fully costed basis not to do it then fine, I would hate the question to get asked much later: Why did you not....

You need to price all this work up, including the extension, and consider the following:
demolish and start again with proper house orientation and construction from day 1.
I appreciate there may be issues with planning but its worth exploring.

Flaffing around with PH ideas on a 1960's built bungalow is starting with one hand tied behind you back, given the ambitions inherent in the post.
I have seen and done enough of this stuff to know.

I think you should go with the full PH rated MHRV rather than the sub-optimal units you are considering.

If you mean by fireplace an open fireplace then ....
You can get 100% room sealed stoves for a PH class design

I would ditch the UFH.
If you want to go non fossil then you must go and reduce the energy demand to the absolute minimum from day one.

If you do the lifetime cost analysis then it will work