Hi everyone, I’m here on a viewing trip, seen four houses and four ways of heating,
One house I like has oil fired central heating, I thought this was expensive and outdated, one house, built in 1983 had one log burner in the living room and apparently vents fed off it to heat the rest of the house, although on passing a vent in the hall I put my hand on it and felt nothing- despite the fire burning in the living room. Electric radiators and of course movable electric heaters…… how do you do it effectively and efficiently?
Unless the pipes are insulated it will just be a heat loss system, certainly on the longer runs.
As Mat said, check insulation levels. Although isulation has to be installed properly to work, my house had insulation flopping about in the spaces so would not work.
Double or tripple glazing reduces heat loss dramatically therefore like insulation requires less to heat the place.
Will this be your permanent home or a holiday 2nd home?
You should be shown the DPE of each property which will tell you about energy efficiency.
My preference would be a modern air source or ground source heat pump, but these are fairly recent so not many houses have them.
Piped gas is generally just in towns, but would be a second choice.
After that pellet systems - again relatively new.
Log stoves to me are secondary systems as wouldn’t wish to rely on it because of the faff.
Fioul is very common, and a decent fioul boiler is a workhorse that does what you need. Slowly being replaced as rules change. I wouldn’t rule out a house with an oil system (we have one) but would factor in changing it in years to come.
And whichever system used to generate heat, an underfloor system is a plus to me,
I would avoid oil central heating. My house is heated by electricity and an efficient woodburner. It does depend so much on the type of house you are looking at. Modern houses will be very efficient and need less heating. Heat pumps are very popular and pellet stoves are a good alternative to woodburners. I agree that underfloor heating is good, especially in older stone houses.
I’ve just ordered two years + worth of pellets today (5,60€ for a 15kg bag). It’s efficient at heating our 1850s brick (126m2) house, it’s from a sustainable source, easy to fill up,- and very good value. Including an annual service it’s about €330 a year for heating the house (not including hot water- we have a cumulus for that).
That makes a difference if you are relying on the thick walls of an old building for thermal mass to iron out the weather changes. My house is just holiday so never really gets warmed up and although its great in summer to have a cool interior in winter it requires days and days of log burning in my case just to take the edge off the downstairs. Sure its warm when the fire is burning but soon cools when its not. Upstairs we really went to to town with multifoil backed up by 200mm of rockwool insulation and it was transformative.
Just an illustration for your house hunt.
I have air sourced heat pump with reversible clim plus back up programmable electric radiators in the bedrooms. Electric bill is lowest I have ever had in over 35 years of owning french property and am very pleased there are no messy stoves, boilers etc to keep clean and no oil fuel/wood/gas bills to pay. Good insulation though plays a major part in any home to keep it warm and also good well fitting doors and windows - double/triple glazed.
Mine too. I kept the central log burner for electrical backup and installed 2 air to air heat pumps, they can be reversed to pump cool air in summer too.
But they would be an expensive investment for a large house.
The house we moved out of in January was very cold from November through to March or April. It wasn’t that old (early 90s iirc) but had poor insulation and although the windows were double glazed it was apparently the crappy style that’s not efficient. It also had a huge open fireplace and a few old electric radiators that couldn’t heat the large rooms. I was glad to leave that house.
We briefly stayed in an Airbnb that was mid-terrace and had central heating powered by gaz de ville. I was sad to leave that house.
The place we’re in now is sadly more like the first house… During the visit the landlord said the DPE was B, turns out the energy consumption part is E and the greenhouse gas emission is B
Annoyingly there’s no central heating despite gaz de ville being available. Luckily the windows and the electric radiators are much more modern than our previous house. However we’ve discovered the house is humid (approx 70% relative humidity in the bedrooms and living room on some days) so I’ve just picked up a dehumidifier on Amazon… I hadn’t realised just how much colder rooms feel when there’s high humidity.
If this was my house, I’d either install gas central heating… possibly using heated skirting boards to avoid having radiators, or underfloor heating. Otherwise I’d install solar panels with an ASHP and a Sunamp system to replace the ballon d’eau for generating hot water.
We have a pellet stove in the kitchen, log burner in the living room (may not be used much in winter) and electric convector heaters upstairs. We sized our stoves to cope with harsh winters in a stone built house around 150 years old with single glazing, because we may well live there in the winter occasionally.
Our Oxfordshire cottage has oil/fioul through a nearly 30 year old converted Rayburn, and although not cheap, the running cost is tolerable and it is effective.
On its own that RH measurement is a bit meaniless as it relates to how moist the air is relative to the temperature. We used psychrometric charts to work out dew points and actual humidity but these days an app can work it out much easier. Cold dry air vs warm damp air as warm air can carry much more water vapour. Ventilation is usually key especially when there is dry outdoor air on tap. Unless there is a source of damp in the property.
If it makes you feel better the cost of fitting air to water heat pumps would be considerably more. Here in the UK the £7,500 grant is a gift to installers and many are just in it for the money, thankfully there are good guys out there who do really understand that a heat pump doesnt usually run at 60c+ like a gas boiler.
As @Gareth has mentioned solar panels I have recently answered an EDF offer and at the moment are trying to persuade them to contact by sms or email (as promised). I have the perfect south facing roof for them which is bathed in sunshine all year round when it shines.
Air to water is not worth it for me. due to low ceiling and low roof pitch, the max size for a hot water tank is only 30 litres so I have the temp set to max and am very stingy with use.
I have a horizontal cylinder, I would not tecommend that to anyone as it presents a much larger surface area for cold water to reduce the tank temperature than a vertical one. We inherited it with the house and I poured in 50ltrs of vinegar to de clag it of the calcaire. I may change to a cascade of smaller tanks hopefully using my solar when installed or a Sunamp heat battery subject to the weight of the thing upstairs.
