Replacing gun barrel heating

done4now

My parents house is from the late 60's with the original pipework (gun barrel) for most of the downstairs. They did a loft extension ~35 years ago and all the plumbing upstairs is with Qual-Pex. My father wants to replace the heating system downstairs but leave upstairs as is. Downstairs consists of 7 rooms with 9 radiators but the bathroom rad and pipe work are new (they cut the upstairs plex and fed the rad from there). The living room does have a back boiler that has never really worked. Downstairs is all suspended wooden floor except for the kitchen. The oil boiler is ~35 years old.

He got a quote about 6 years ago for €17k to replace the heating system and the contractor who did the bathroom was meant to back with a quote but never did (however my father made contact with them again this week).

The reasoning for upgrade is to make the house warmer and only heat the rooms that are being used ie put the house into 4 zones (one for hot water).

I am going to lift a few floorboards downstairs to look into insulating underneath them but I know myself I am going to very tempted to pull in new plex pipe when I've the floorboards up.

So I've two questions on this:

1. Is there that much value in replacing the heating system rather than just running it all the time in the winter as how many years will we need to see a return on investment?
2. Would any plumber connect into my pipe work if I fit all the rooms with new pipe work and radiators? I would be just leaving the new pipes unconnected in the boiler room?

Just on the second question I'd like to think I'm pretty competent as I've already replaced two rads upstairs with their corresponding TRV/Lockshield valves and done other work that requires you to be competent i.e. electrical work.

antoinolachtnai

What makes you confident the boiler and system will even last another year? By the sounds of things the system isn’t delivering enough heat either.

You will need to make an investment if you want to be confident that the system will work at all. You will need to refurb and possibly replace it. Efficiency and cost-effectiveness doesn’t really come into it that much on the overall investment decision.

The hand-work of installing heating is mostly drudgery and I am sure you could do that part, but you do need someone who knows how to design the system.

insulating below downstairs floorboards is the same sort of thing. It’s hard work mostly, but you need a plan to do it properly. In the end a different solution like replacing the floor with concrete might be a more effective solution.

Coyote

first you need to decide why you want to upgrade, is it just to reduce cost, the system is old and failing, or the system does not work well (bad design)

at 17K i don't think you will quick return on investment unless your spending 5K a year and it reduces to 2K

about 4 years ago I replaced a 30+ year old boiler that was very inefficient with a 90%+ boiler, that saved a lot (30-45% reduction gas use with the old control system).

if the heating works but just lacks control then maybe the Honeywell Evohome would work, I installed one 3 years ago and it controls 11 rooms (14 rads) and the hot water and allows each room to be individually heating or turned off, works fully offline and with the cloud if you want to control from outside the house. this allowed to set a schedule for each room and temp, with the smart control I guess it reduced gas use by other 25+%. and that was with heating some rooms more and others less now that we had finer control over them and the boiler would only come on when a room was making a call for heat and stay off when rooms were warm already

I did the install myself, the rads are easy they just screwed on for my rads( you would need to check if they fit yours), the water you need to get a plumber/spark for the connection to the boiler

https://www.techradar.com/reviews/honeywell-evohome

Lenar3556

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058303143/replacing-gun-barrel-heating

I think the first thing is to get a solid plan together. €17k is significant expenditure.

Is the gunbarrel pipework definitely defective? Has it been thoroughly inspected?

Zoning is in principle is a good idea, just don’t spend too much on achieving it.

Replacing the boiler may be a good idea, although again it would need to be assessed as to the net benefit.

EchoIndia

If you are doing work that may improve the energy efficiency of the house, it is worth checking whether it may qualify for some of the grants now available. I think an energy audit of the house has to be done first as part of this, though.