House heating options !

airnwater

A friend is substantially refurbishing an old terraced 2 storey house in the city.

It never had central heating , but there is piped gas on the street apparently.

It seems that there can't be any new gas fired boiler installations after 2030.

He doesn't want to go to considerable expense of gas heat installation , only to find it becoming obsolete or very expensive in a decade or so.

Modern electric panel radiators + electric immersion are being considered as a cheaper alternative , although with possibly higher running costs .

The house will be well insulated etc.

Any opinions please ?

Clareman

Moving this thread from the Limerick forum as I think it would be better suited here, please note the different charter which is in place here.

Calahonda52

1: airtightness
2 insulation
3 heatpump, with rads ideally with a buffer tank to avail of night time rates
3a: put in UFH and heat pump

Wearb

I'd go with the gas. There is unlikely to be just a clean cut off of that heating in 2030. There will have to be incentives to change over to alternatives.

Red Silurian

airnwater wrote: »

A friend is substantially refurbishing an old terraced 2 storey house in the city.

It never had central heating , but there is piped gas on the street apparently.

It seems that there can't be any new gas fired boiler installations after 2030.

He doesn't want to go to considerable expense of gas heat installation , only to find it becoming obsolete or very expensive in a decade or so.

Modern electric panel radiators + electric immersion are being considered as a cheaper alternative , although with possibly higher running costs .

The house will be well insulated etc.

Any opinions please ?

At the moment it's still very expensive to heat your home by electricity, if he has a gas line outside his door it's a no-brainer

I would go with the above except for the heatpump, I would use gas as a heat source and then swap it out later in life when heat pumps are more common.

If you look at the lessons learned from wood pellet boilers I would hold off fitting heat pumps unless of course it’s being fitted by a reputable installer who stands by their work.

The cost associated with using, repairing or replacing a badly installed heatpump can be eye watering as it was with wood pellet boilers, there is a risk with gas but as gas boilers have been around longer and there is a element of regulation I think risk is lessened.

I would expect the cost of using a gas boiler in a well insulated house to be quite low.

Outkast_IRE

Gas 100% . But i would install the pipework in such a way and ensure there is space in the future both inside and outside to swap over to a heat pump without too much hassle. Leave a future route for pipes to the outside where the outdoor heat pump unit would go.