Gas is banned

[donnk]

By the looks nothing is going to compete with a heat pump price or maintenance wise for domestic.

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

2 hours ago, Stere said:

How about solar PV and solar thermal with a battery bank for DHW?

 

Telsa power wall

Next upgrade for solar PV may well be a battery bank with V2G compatible car. 
 

Charge the car up all day for free then suck down the leccy at night for free!

 

Upfront costs might be a bit cheeky but the shits and giggles of free leccy would be worth it ?

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

2 minutes ago, donnk said:

By the looks nothing is going to compete with a heat pump price or maintenance wise for domestic.

That’s interesting. 
 

Availability of sufficient (free) wood / chip / pellet is a factor that might change the figures but I can see that as a significant factor for the Arbtalk dweller, maybe not the average Joe. 

[difflock]

33 minutes ago, donnk said:

By the looks nothing is going to compete with a heat pump price or maintenance wise for domestic.

I did SERIOUSLY consider a ground source heat pump, under the now infamous NI RHI Scheme,

especially as we had both underfloor installed, and oodles of peaty ground to locate the groundsource coils under.

BUT

My "free" source of firewood unfortunately nudged me in the other direction.

and

The ground source heat pump would still be working today , but the shitty Solarbayer logwood gasifer is no more.

[Stere]

Thought GSHP only good for modern well insulated homes and with underfloor heating otherwise large lecky bill.

[scbk]

5 hours ago, Stere said:

How about solar PV and solar thermal with a battery bank for DHW?

 

Telsa power wall

An interesting bit of kit is the sunamp thermal battery, works like a gel handwarmer

Sunamp Heat Batteries & Thermal Energy Storage

WWW.SUNAMP.COM

---

Sunamp’s unrivalled Heat Battery technology delivers market leading thermal energy storage to homes, businesses and...

 

Not sure if the money side works in it's favour though.

 

There's someone I do work for, has a large solar panel array and a tesla battery, at times he can be totally self sufficient in electricity, his main source of heating is oil. (he gets the good feed in tariff)

 

 

We live in an old stone house with no central heating and little insulation. Would like to put in central heating, but can't decide which route to go down, we don't have the funds to gut the place.

I would love solar pv, there's plenty of south facing space to have a simple ground mounted array here but the last time I looked the feed in tariff has been reduced to virtually nothing, meaning the panels might struggle to pay themselves back?

Edited December 29, 2019 by scbk

[neiln]

I like the idea of a wood boiler. Don't suppose they should be used in a smokeless zone though, and knowing my luck my wood scrounge source would dry up if I installed one.

[difflock]

4 hours ago, Stere said:

Thought GSHP only good for modern well insulated homes and with underfloor heating otherwise large lecky bill.

Mostly, I understand, from lazy feckless installers failing to either fit enough meterage ground loop pipework, or they actually did fit enough meters of ground source pipework, but either or neither deep enough, nor spread over a large enough area, ergo an insufficient heat source to draw from.

So they system is then basically electric resistive heating via the immersion heaters fitted to provide higher temps needed for the domestic hot water supply.

And yes GSHP is best suited to the low tempratures required for underfloor heating OR oversized and lower temperature wall hung radiators.

 

Edited December 29, 2019 by difflock

[Baldbloke]

Im still looking at going the Biomass direction if I can save the cash needed before March 2021 when its cut off. Always something creeping up knicking the cash.  I'd be going the log route as I'm happy splitting logs and get wood fairly cheap. The System Ive been quoted for has a 2000l buffer and a 25kw Burner, self lighting etc for £18k, but Id have to build my own housing for it. Ie lay a slab and build a shed, might even have to run the power myself, we'll see. 
 
Speaking with a Lad off-shore who gets £900 back a quarter for virtually the same system he had some issues with getting the RHI approved due to the lack of insulation in his old house. Did you come across this issue? Would be a kick in the teeth for me to blow 18 large and not get the money back from the Government. [emoji3] 

I ‘blew’ 25k on a log boiler (including installation costs) through an approved MCS company for a 60Kw log/pellet boiler and 4000ltr buffer in 2013. I get bugger all for it as it’s too big for domestic use in spite of the installer refusing to put in anything smaller as he said it had to match the house requirements.
Retrospective consultation stated a max of 40 kw boiler so mines too big.

[Alycidon]

22 hours ago, doobin said:

I’d go with an oil burner, and auto correct ?

Correct, I wondered what in earth you were all talking about.

Apologies for the error.

 

A