Sure it’s the gentle breeze or fresh air from outside that is key … yes I find owl hooting, c o ck crowing, and dawn chorus a wonderful part of the environment of living in the country… shut the window that is all insulated from you… certainly when double glazed… and my neighbour has a couple of co cks, but they still don’t bother us … mind you they used to keep turkeys… and they are noisy…
If you house is well insulated I suspect having fresh air is less of an issue…
Agree something wrong with forum software… it seems to have trouble with names of some country animals…perhaps written by townies…
We fitted a wood pellet boiler (Okofen) just a year ago, replacing fuel oil. We have no gas option here.
Delighted with the system and the efficiency. We get the full rate RHI grant. Effectively last year our fuel was paid for plus a ‘profit’ of about £300. The capital cost of installation is not trivial though, and you clearly need space for the largish boiler plus pellet storage. We have a manual fill hopper. The comparative fuel costs (ignoring the grant) are a bit cheaper than oil, and we definitely don’t miss the nasty smelly oil tank.
Happy to give more details to anyone interested. The website organicenergy.co.uk is a good place to start. We had three estimates and it was clear that not all installers, or pellet boilers, are created equal. We picked an experienced company and a well established boiler manufacturer.
Sounds like you need a fair amount of space to mount/fit all the ‘bits’ That’s another problem with air-source that, last time I looked at it, put me off: Somewhere to put all the gubbins that goes with it. Next door-but-one built a customer brick outhouse to fit all this stuff. I’d guess perhaps 6x6ft… from memory.
I’ll be honest this airing of ideas and thoughts has started to put me off. Okay go for the insulation, radiators, and pressurised cylinder upgrade but as too the air-source? Probably not.
When we did our boiler replacement at the old house, 10 years ago now. This was another option considered… the room for things like hoppers &c. killed the idea. There’s a local farmer that has a wood chip boiler but he has a massive silo in his yard for the chips. Heck there’s another farmer that has a huge silage digester and runs a boiler off poo!
Our house is a 1970s dormer bungalow. When we moved in 10 years ago it had cavity walls, suspended wood floor, 25mm fibreglass roof insulation.oil fired central heating with the original boiler, and HW cylinder. It had been double glazed throughout some time ago. Approx 150m2 living area
We did this:
Changed old oil boiler with HW tank for a new, more powerful, condensing combi boiler.
Replaced central heating system, including larger radiators, three main zones with programmable thermostat (lounge, sunroom/second lounge and rest of house) and radiator stats in the rest of house zone.
Added cavity wall insulation, plus dry lining in main living rooms using 75mm of Kingspan’s foil faced urea foam board (equivalent to about 100mm of the more common foil faced urethane foam board), and dry lining in bedrooms with 50mm standard board.
Added 100mm Kingspan urea board insulation to outer part of inner wall leaf where it was taller than the outer leaf at the eaves.
Replaced 25mm fibreglass with nominally about 650mm mineral wool, except near where it dropped below that with the lowering roof (and required air space), changing to the max Kingspan type that would fit where it had to be below 200mm.
100mm Kingspan type foil faced polyurethane foam underfloor insulation all suspended timber ground level floors. 150mm same polyurethane foam beneath timber boarding on solid concrete sunroom and utility room floors.
*The two upstairs bedrooms were difficult for insulation on the sloping ceiling parts - we could only fit 50mm leaving an adequate air gap, so it is the foil faced urea foam again. (With hindsight we wished we had re-roofed for other reasons, and then we’d have raised it a touch and fitted more insulation in these bits.)
Full triple glazing with aluminium clad timber frames
Full house heat recovery ventilation system, with cooker hood linked into it (and allowing the hood’s own fan as extra boost). This also has zone valves but I haven’t yet got around to fitting the controller.
Heat recovery on one of the two showers
(Also rewired and LED lighting throughout, but not relevant to this.)
At the same time we enlarged the house by 30%, having three extensions done, enlarging the lounge/music room, doubling the size of the sunroom, adding a second bathroom with dormer window, and adding a utility room, with similar insulation levels as other areas.
My wife likes it quite warm, wherever she is sitting having to be at least 21C, 24 preferred! However normally only one room that warm - I’m normally happy with 20C. The sunroom readily achieves that on sunny days even in winter, though of course not all day. We have two adult sone who spend their whole time in their bedrooms, so those are also sitting room temperatures evenings and weekends.
Our heating bill, including hot water, we estimate has dropped by around 60% compared to the cost of heating the smaller original house At the same time the house is so much more comfortable to live in, no draughts but effective ventilation ensuring no smells, no damp anywhere. We have as much hot water as we want whenever we want it.
And the house is quieter - and also has less noise penetration outwards with the triple glazing. (N.B. Although the foam board insulation materials are the most efficient for thermal insulation, (other than going to the mega expensive vacuum panels), their sound insulation is quite poor compared to mineral wool, which is worth bearing in mind if you need both.)
I haven’t attempted to calculate the cost recovery aspect of the work: we did it mainly because at the time we intended thid to be our home for the rest of our days, so were more interested in not having ongoing bills of significance given that energy inevitable will go uo in price, and wanting the comfort aspect - though we hadn’t realised just how big a difference it would make to comfort.
N.B. No grants or rewards for fuel efficiency where We live.
A similar story when we moved into our old house. The first year we were there I got the oil tank refilled three times and this was when oil was typically 60p/litre!
Then we got a new boiler, new stat, new cylinder, double glazing, new doors, surface insulation on the dorma walls, &c. When we moved out we were going through one oil tank refill a year.
We got a new oil boiler 3 years ago… we replaced our previous 20 year old boiler… and it’s hugely more efficient… albeit there is much steam coming from the heat exchanger exhaust vent. We use about 2/3 of our 1200 litre tank a yearly but does vary on how cold the winter is… and what with the very cheap price of oil over the last few years, I think it’s around 40 p a litre right now, is certainly cost effective…
Agree Tim . I own a barn conversion and rent it out . 5 years ago we put annASPH for 10 k but RHi payment is 2.4K a year for 7 years . It won’t be as good now I am sure . You must have a well insulated house for this to work ., lecky is going up in price all the time . We now live in a big 100 year old farm house . Ripped out the back boiler to the oil fired Aga and Put a pressurized system off the old ( and working well) the oil fired boiler . I liked a volume shower . Have a couple of electric showers in on suites but rarely
Used . Ground source and wood pellet boilers ( can’t remember correct the name ) are expensive and incentives aren’t as lucrative Agas are great , simple but are like naim systems … can’t live without them . Have a clear view and open fire in drawing room and loads of wood round the farm
Summary
Wood burner a must
Check out RHI payments
Don’t buy Air source if it is and old cold house
Put a jumper on and listen to Naim system
They are aren’t they… yes we use a top up account system… it’s less bother… and oil is so cheap i find it not worth saving a few pennies per litre using Boiler Juice or equivalent community systems.
Tonight’s Grand Design on More 4 featured a rather modern home in Midlothian that had a small mention at the end of using a heat store. No mention of GSHP. The work started in 2006.
What I learned about the recent experimental earth heat store was that it’s insulated. I wonder if clay from footing is equally good which could save the cost of disposing of it off site!
My Bulb electric is rising to 18p/kWh for 19 April, which puts me off ASHP which give 2.2 kWh for 1 of electric. For some unknown reason most adverts don’t say much about the efficiency! GSHP are off course much more efficient.
There are many places that do not have gas. And electricity is a lot more expensive for space heating (at least without a heat pump). So oil is very common in areas without gas. “Oil” these days is kerosene.
According to Which?, the running cost heating a house with an air source heat pump typically is higher than either gas or oil with an A-rated boiler. The Renewable Incentive scheme may mitigate that of course if it at least nearly recovers or the full installation cost, vs no repayment for the gas or oil boiler.
Meanwhile no-one knows the relative cost of different fuels in a decade and more when the systems would still be in use and green grants and incentives long past…
The technophile in me leans towards heat pumps, but I am still not convinced about air-source and may not have the option of ground source (if the incentive scheme is still running when the time comes for me to decide, if it clearly will repay at least most of the installation cost then the upfront cost doesn’t worry me, but otherwise it is a non-starter. Depending how things develop in the coming 12-18 months, I suspect that in my next house I’ll go for a boiler system, supplemented by solar thermal, however designing the central heating system so that conversion to a heat pump source would be easy and minimally disruptive, future-proofing as I guess heat pumps will become the norm (and drop a lot in price) in the next decade or two.
… mind you they used to keep turkeys… and they are noisy…
That’s another problem with air-source that, last time I looked at it, put me off: Somewhere to put all the gubbins that goes with it. Next door-but-one built a customer brick outhouse to fit all this stuff. I’d guess perhaps 6x6ft… from memory.