Best heating system to retrofit in house

adocholiday · 06-09-2018 2:07pm #1

Hi all,

I am hopefully moving into a 20 year old house in about 6 weeks and one of the most pressing immediate needs is to get some central heating installed.

The house is currently heated by storage heaters, as well as an open fire in the living room and a free standing wood burning stove in the kitchen. There is plumbing in place to facilitate radiators but none have ever been installed.

Can anyone advise on what kind of central heating we should invest in? I thought our only real option would be OFCH but now I see that there are lots of newer kinds of technologies out there like heat pumps and the like. We've been quoted ~€7k for 8 rads, a boiler and oil tank so it would be great to get an idea of other options.

Dardania · 06-09-2018 2:29pm

What is your usage profile - will there be people there all day? Or is it a case that everyone is out at work/school all day, and only there evenings?
Do you also need to think about water heating in the same decision?

For heat pumps, they're very efficient, but they need to be installed to a relatively well insulated & air tight home in order to work satisfactorily. How one uses them is to just leave them on - they output a relatively stable amount of heat, and don't have the huge amount of spare energy to heat the house up from cold (like people have with gas or oil boilers).
SEAI have a service whereby they will see if your house is suitable for heat pumps - you should check that out. If it were possible to use, it would be a very economical to run solution. See https://www.seai.ie/grants/home-grants/better-energy-homes/heat-pump-systems/

Other option to check is do you have mains gas nearby? That would be preferable in terms of running costs I think.

adocholiday · 06-09-2018 2:39pm

Many thanks for your reply.

Our usage profile would be pretty light, there's only the 2 of us and we'd be home mainly evenings Mon-Fri except for the occasional work from home day and full days at the weekend.

Hot water would have to be considered yes, right now it's immersion heating only.

I'll check out the SEAI site but based on what you're saying I'm not sure if the house would be that well insulated/airtight for a heat pump. Gas unfortunately isn't an option so we've already ruled that out.

Dardania · 06-09-2018 2:48pm

adocholiday wrote: »

Many thanks for your reply.

Our usage profile would be pretty light, there's only the 2 of us and we'd be home mainly evenings Mon-Fri except for the occasional work from home day and full days at the weekend.

Hot water would have to be considered yes, right now it's immersion heating only.

I'll check out the SEAI site but based on what you're saying I'm not sure if the house would be that well insulated/airtight for a heat pump. Gas unfortunately isn't an option so we've already ruled that out.

With the heat pump solution, if that were combined with an improvement to insulation & air tightness, it could work (and work well) but ti depends on how much you're willing to spend on comfort matters. Again, there are SEAI grants for insulation of walls and attic...

Oil is the no-brainer solution that can blast the heat in, and with modern controls like zoned heating zones and TRVs on radiators, it can be very efficient at what it does. But it brings with it a real need to maintain it every year as a recommendation, and also if you're out all day, is there a risk of pilfering of the oil? Also, it's likely that in future, the cost of oil will increase, to account for the fines the government are going to have to pay due to carbon emissions (whereas with electricity, they can, with the right will, reduce it's carbon intensity, and so keep prices reasonable)
Pros and cons to both.
There is also the potential to stick with what you have (the electric resistive solution), but maybe just add better controls to it - pricey to run, but low capital cost

adocholiday · 06-09-2018 3:48pm

Thanks for that. I think I'll explore the heat pump solution and get an idea of cost. If it's not too much more expensive then I'd go with that because I definitely see your points regarding the oil solution and the only reason I've been considering it is because it really seemed to be the only truly viable option.

In my apartment right now we have storage heaters and I really just don't like them for numerous reasons so it's not something we're willing to living with for the long term. Thanks for your input much appreciated.

listermint · 06-09-2018 3:50pm

** i havent seen anyone to date have a good experience with Heat to Air in a retrofit that hasnt been ultra expensive.

Personally id go with Oil, tried tested known quantity and serviceable .

Shefwedfan · 07-09-2018 10:07pm

What sort of piping is in place? is it all copper or qualplex? where would boiler be connected? are the pipes insulated?

You could look at oil/hybrid boiler. So heat pump to bring to certain temp and then oil to raise the rest of way. Will seriously reduce oil usage....

I would start with check pipe's, location of boiler etc. No point putting installation in if the installation is not fit for it.

TomOnBoard · 07-09-2018 10:13pm

Step 1: insulate the bejayssus out of the place, concentrating on sealing draughts out. This will give you the best bang for your buck.
Step 2: go back and insulate / change out all bad bits such as leaky windows etc.
Step 3: re-assess needs.

Shefwedfan · 07-09-2018 10:19pm

TomOnBoard wrote: »

Step 1: insulate the bejayssus out of the place, concentrating on sealing draughts out. This will give you the best bang for your buck.
Step 2: go back and insulate / change out all bad bits such as leaky windows etc.
Step 3: re-assess needs.

I agree but before all that if you have to use the current piping system then I would start looking at that first

If you have uninsulated pipes and you put a heating system onto it you will waste more heat on those pipes than anything in the house

Also position of boiler...my previous house had boiler in shed, only when it snowed the first time could I see the line across the garden of all the heat I was losing into the ground.....

Check that out and then insulate the cr*p out of it

ouxbbkqtswdfaw · 07-09-2018 10:49pm

I have an oil fired stove. Great, no ashes or cleaning, fantastic heat.

roy rodgers · 07-09-2018 11:36pm

listermint wrote: »

** i havent seen anyone to date have a good experience with Heat to Air in a retrofit that hasnt been ultra expensive.

Personally id go with Oil, tried tested known quantity and serviceable .

Yes your right in saying that. A house would need to have a ber rating of a least A3 to make the heat pump efficient.
Now seai will fund 50% of the cost to retrofit a house to a A3 which could be window, doors, insulation, air tightness membrane, plastering and a new heating system.
Yes the costs could be 70k but 35k would be paid by seai.

adocholiday · 08-09-2018 9:54am

Thanks everyone for the info. The house was built in 2001 and by all accounts to a high standard so I'm assuming that the pipes underfloor were installed to whatever standard was in place at the time.

The house has a BER rating of E right now but we were told that that's due to the storage heaters and some minor sealing issues with some windows. If we put in OFCH and fix the window seals we're told it'd go up to a B but that could be complete rubbish.

I like the idea of a hybrid system I'll definitely look into that. We'd definitely be prepared to outlay some extra cost for a more sustainable system but I don't think we'll be dropping 35k on insulation for a few years yet.

_Brian · 08-09-2018 10:05am

Heat pumps only work where heat loss from the house is near zero and air loss is eliminated.

These are possible with upgrades to an existing house but it requires extensive specialised work as build wasn’t done with these issues in mind.

With a hefty budget it’s possible.

On a more modest budget upgrading insulation and well controlled oil will give good results and be economical to run.

Idbatterim · 08-09-2018 10:09am

I take it you are not on a gas line op?

adocholiday · 08-09-2018 10:14am

No not on a gas line so it's not an option

Idbatterim · 08-09-2018 10:19am

Pity. You could get lpg bulk tank in and install a combi boiler. Instant unlimited (until gas tank tank runs out) domestic hot water. With good insulation and so many sensors these days , the older type systems don’t need to cost a fortune to run. You can also zone the areas, to heat just living areas or bedrooms etc. oil can be stolen, it’s dirty and stinks, I’m not sure of all boilers are fully modulating like gas and from what I remember the boilers are more expensive to buy BUT the cost per kwh of oil is nearly 50 pc cheaper than lpg gas I believe ...

Idbatterim · 08-09-2018 10:42am

This just popped up on my Facebook news feed. Is it a load of bs?

https://heatese.com

Shefwedfan · 08-09-2018 10:43am

0rx1j6bati7sng wrote: »

I have an oil fired stove. Great, no ashes or cleaning, fantastic heat.

Longer term 10 year + everyone will be trying to reduce oil use as much as possible...if retrofitting now it’s better to think long term

xl500 · 09-09-2018 8:40am

Idbatterim wrote: »

This just popped up on my Facebook news feed. Is it a load of bs?

https://heatese.com

Well if a House has a fixed Volume it takes a fixed amount of Energy to increase and maintain its Temperature at say 21c that energy can come from various different Fuels but to claim 80% reduction in your Energy Bill just by changing to a different heating system is yes I would say BS

gctest50 · 09-09-2018 9:24am

xl500 wrote: »

Well if a House has a fixed Volume it takes a fixed amount of Energy to increase and maintain its Temperature at say 21c that energy can come from various different Fuels but to claim 80% reduction in your Energy Bill just by changing to a different heating system is yes I would say BS

It probably does compared to a bad installation, it has a flue gas heat recovery condenser yoke and a tank so the boiler would be running in it's happy zone all the time its on

geo88 · 12-08-2020 11:16pm

2 years later - have there been any developments in this space or any grants that change the options significantly?

I am similarly in a situation where I have an old house with an old oil boiler - and weighing my options for when I'll want to replumb. I can get a connection to gas - however - I wonder if that's also going to be taxed a lot in the future given it's still a fossil fuel. Are there any gas-heat pump hybrids out there that would be cheap enough? Any other alternatives?

Best heating system to retrofit in house

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