beaver34
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| posted on 2/11/13 at 08:54 PM |
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Gas alternative?
Hi,
Looking to buy my first house and it's rural with no gas.
Currently has storage heaters with economy 7 electric and a dual fuel burner in the living room.
I'm worried it will cost a lot in the electric so looking for some alternatives, best mate is a joiner so wood supply is no issue so was
thinking if having the burner heat radiators and the hot water, which is fine through winter but not ideal in summer which I thought i could go solar
for summer limiting the use of the electric water heater.
Anyone got something like this or have an thoughts or better ideas?
Open to any input in no expert in this!
Thanks
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joneh
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| posted on 2/11/13 at 09:00 PM |
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I've probably spent more on a boiler, gas servicing, rads and pipe work than I would have if I'd just installed individual efficient
electric heaters...
Wood burner + electric heaters / immersion heater would be ideal. I doubt a proper solar installation would pay for itself.
[Edited on 3/11/13 by joneh]
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serieslandy
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| posted on 2/11/13 at 09:23 PM |
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The guy on 'building the dream' on ch4 keeps on about wood pellet boilers. Maybe worth looking into.
I've got an oil boiler and the price has gone up from 45p to 65p per L in the past 3 years.
You can also get large gas tanks(someone local has one) I wouldn't know about cost on them.
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mark chandler
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| posted on 2/11/13 at 09:33 PM |
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Having ripped out economy 7 a couple of times now you are right to be worried  hot in the morning, cold in the evening (when you want it) and not
cheap to run so factor replacement into the purchase price.
I have had electric underfloor heating in the kitchen which proved very good, although not that cheap to run and have installed a stovax studio 1 wood
burner in the lounge which is fabulous, although very greedy on wood.
A friend had an electric system where economy 7 heated a huge insulated tank which was used to run traditional radiators, this was quite good
apparently and you can get wood burners that also contain heat exchangers for central heating, may be worth a look at these and build a hybrid.
Solar has come on a lot, if you can afford it the outlaws have panels on the roof that feed back the grid, it means that there electric bill is zero
these days, they plan running the washing machine and dish washer around the sun and have low wattage bulbs and a LCD TV to keep consumption down.
Regards Mark
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JoelP
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| posted on 2/11/13 at 09:42 PM |
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If I were in your position I'd get an electric car as well and bypass the meter!
Beware! Bourettes is binfectious.
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mookaloid
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| posted on 2/11/13 at 09:48 PM |
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I'm in a similar position to you and I'm on the verge of ordering a wood pellet boiler 
"That thing you're thinking - it wont be that."
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big-vee-twin
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| posted on 2/11/13 at 09:51 PM |
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Dump the electric heaters as soon as you can.
Install a wet radiator system heated by an air source heat pump. Or if you have loads of cash a biomass boiler.
Look up the renewable heat initiative being launched in the spring it will pay you a tariff for using green technology to warm your house
[Edited on 2/11/13 by big-vee-twin]
Duratec Engine is fitted, MS2 Extra V3 is assembled and tested, engine running, car now built. IVA passed 26/02/2016
http://www.triangleltd.com
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beaver34
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| posted on 2/11/13 at 10:54 PM |
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Looking at installing radiators behind fed by the stove and also heating water tank, then using electric as back up or summer time.
Best mate is a joiner so wood supply should be good
Or if I get the house a little cheaper go for solar which will hear the water for summer use
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coyoteboy
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| posted on 2/11/13 at 11:18 PM |
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The kind of wood you want in a wood burner is not the sort a joiner could help out with. Normal soft woods are consumed in seconds in a wood burner,
think kindling! 6" think for long logs last half an hour or so in my brother's burner!
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morcus
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| posted on 2/11/13 at 11:23 PM |
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you don't want wood, you want coal, much better for burning.
My boss's boss is always going on about oil and how if you get together with alot of people near by and buy in bulk off season it works out
cheaper than gas.
In a White Room, With Black Curtains, By the Station.
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daviep
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| posted on 2/11/13 at 11:56 PM |
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quote:
Originally posted by morcus
you don't want wood, you want coal, much better for burning.
Absolute bollocks, coal does produce more heat than wood but the hassle factor is not worth it. The soot from coal is an oily black mess which
ineveitably ends up smeared on walls and carpets and is virtually impossible to clean, also coal ash fills the ash can up in about 2 days where I can
burn wood for over a week.
We have a 3 bedroom farm cottage with ecomnomy 7 heating and water and also an open fire with a back boiler which heats 5 radiators. Insulation wise
the house is a disaster, we spend approx £130 a month on electric and burn wood/coal from October to March (roughly).
Don't worry about what type of wood you burn, I only have two criteria for wood selection:
1. It must burn
2. It must be free
Cheers
Davie
“A truly great library contains something in it to offend everyone.”
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daviep
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| posted on 2/11/13 at 11:58 PM |
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I've always fancied a PERGE log boiler, should appeal to any locoster, very high efficency and no electronics.
Cheers
Davie
“A truly great library contains something in it to offend everyone.”
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JC
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| posted on 3/11/13 at 09:28 AM |
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I looked into wood pellet boilers recently - very good but my conclusion was that they needed a large space for the storage hopper - eating into
valuable car building space!!!
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mad4x4
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| posted on 3/11/13 at 10:03 AM |
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Get a boiler Stove and use that to fee radiators, then its a matter of feeding Trees and coal into it.
Back could be oil fired plumbed into same system.
or Alternates of ground force heating or that but all very dear.
We are rural Scotland and use a 10KW & a 6KW stove to heat about 70% of the house and oil for the rest 1000L per Year is our oil consumption.
We have solar water topped up with OIL and it's only on about 10 mins in summer in the morning to take the chill of the water for a shave
etc.
[Edited on 3/1111/13 by mad4x4]
Scot's do it better in Kilts.
MK INDY's Don't Self Centre Regardless of MK Setting !
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prawnabie
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| posted on 3/11/13 at 11:17 AM |
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quote:
Originally posted by morcus
you don't want wood, you want coal, much better for burning.
quote:
Originally posted by daviep
Absolute bollocks, coal does produce more heat than wood
erm?
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Hector.Brocklebank
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| posted on 3/11/13 at 01:08 PM |
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quote:
Originally posted by prawnabie
quote:
Originally posted by morcus
you don't want wood, you want coal, much better for burning.
quote:
Originally posted by daviep
Absolute bollocks, coal does produce more heat than wood
erm?
I saw that and thought Really !!!!
Time to slink off in obscurity 
Some people can never handle the truth and always try to shoot the messenger instead of taking an honest look in the mirror (its always easier to
blame another than to face reality), but secretly they wish they could grow a pair and be the messenger !!!
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inkafone
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| posted on 3/11/13 at 02:20 PM |
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Go mad on insulation, use a heat recovery system and some kind of heat storage (heavy wall in front of a south facing glass, underground water tank).
An efficient wood burner with a back boiler and heat recovery on the flue is enough to heat a decent sized house that is really well insulated.
Check out this guy, there was a TV documentary on his work HERE
[Edited on 3/11/13 by inkafone]
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daviep
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| posted on 3/11/13 at 08:05 PM |
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Very funny prawn and hector
It's a small world mr brocklebank 
“A truly great library contains something in it to offend everyone.”
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Peteff
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| posted on 3/11/13 at 11:32 PM |
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Our small stove is rated at 4kw burning coal and 5.5 kw burning wood, how can this be ?
yours, Pete
I went into the RSPCA office the other day. It was so small you could hardly swing a cat in there.
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Irony
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| posted on 4/11/13 at 04:08 AM |
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You cannot install a system which relies on a joiner mate supplying wood. Unless said mate works continuously in hardwood then he'll just be
able to supply kindling. What if he moves away or changes jobs. Or gets cheesed off. Planed pine that I can get hold of from the workshops at work
just goes within minutes. You can burn a sack full in a evening. I have had my pot bellied stove so hot that 2x1 planed pine will burn away faster
than it can be out in. You need hardwood.
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beaver34
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| posted on 4/11/13 at 06:22 AM |
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quote:
Originally posted by Irony
You cannot install a system which relies on a joiner mate supplying wood. Unless said mate works continuously in hardwood then he'll just be
able to supply kindling. What if he moves away or changes jobs. Or gets cheesed off. Planed pine that I can get hold of from the workshops at work
just goes within minutes. You can burn a sack full in a evening. I have had my pot bellied stove so hot that 2x1 planed pine will burn away faster
than it can be out in. You need hardwood.
his company do hardwood stuff also, not saying that i am goign to run it just on the wood that i get gifted, im looking for a alternative to normal
gas that will work better and be cheaper than electric storage heaters.
im open to listen to people first hand experiances like yours
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mcerd1
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| posted on 4/11/13 at 10:16 AM |
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quote:
Originally posted by Irony I have had my pot bellied stove so hot that 2x1 planed pine will burn away faster than it can be out
in.
up until a few years ago the only heating in my parents house was a big aga style wood burner in the kitchen and a small open fire in the living
room
(it was some fairly modern thing from scandinavia, a bit more efficient than the old aga's...)
it heated the house quite effectively when it was on (~18 radiators around the house)
but we went through about 25 - 30 tons of wood a year 
we'd get a lorry load or two of often beach or similar (whole trunks that were probably too poor quality for much else)
and it would take my dad, my brother and me about 2 days work with chainsaws and log splitters to cut enough to fill the wood shed (about 4m - 3m and
3m tall) and that would last us about 2 months in winter if we used a bit of coal with it (about a bag a week)
we ended up having to use that rubbish smokeless coal substitute stuff as a new chimney liner (fitted after chimney fire number 3...) was too small
and choked up every other month
in the end they swapped it out for a oil burner - the oil's not cheap, but its a lot less work
[Edited on 4/11/2013 by mcerd1]
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Irony
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| posted on 4/11/13 at 12:03 PM |
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I am moving house soon that has Oil Fired central heating a a huge wood burner in the living room. I am hoping to beg/scrounge/source as much wood
free as possible. I am getting the roof insulated and the cavity walls done.
I am hoping to boost the costly oil fired central heating with the wood burner. The new house has a medium sized oak tree smack in the middle of the
garden. This oak tree will soon be too large for the garden and neighbours have complained about its large size. I think this might be my source of
wood for a good time to come.
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David Jenkins
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| posted on 4/11/13 at 01:22 PM |
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Just remember to get the chimney swept regularly if you're going to run a wood-burner, especially if you're going to burn softwood that
fouls up the flues with tarry soot. I only burn hardwood (apart from kindling) and the sweep gets a small bag of soot out every summer - this is in a
modern twin-walled flue that keeps very clean, unlike old brick chimneys that can build up pockets of inflammable muck very easily. Our sweep also
gives us a certificate when he's finished, which is very useful to keep the insurance companies happy in case of disaster.
IIRC, in Austria the insurance companies demand that the householder gets the chimney swept every month (with a certificate) as they burn softwood
almost exclusively - no certificate, no house insurance. (but I may have got hold of the wrong end of the stick, or my memory is failing! )
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RobBrown
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| posted on 5/11/13 at 10:11 PM |
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We live I a rural idle, no mainline gas.
When we moved in it had an oil boiler and a steel tank. Both needed replacing and I looked at a number of the options. I didn't fancy the faff
of the wood pellet boiler option so never looked at it in any great detail.
We did compare costs though for replacing the oil boiler and tank with an LPG system and it was much more cost affective (at the time) to go LPG. We
ended up with Calorgas and they put the cost of the installation on the bill and you essentially pay for it over the course of the next 2 years with
your monthly DD - or you can choose to pay it off in one lump sum if you wish.
Depending on your house location within the bounds of your property you can install the tank underground - It had to be 3m from any boundary and any
building. This is what we did. It meant we reclaimed the space where the old oil tank was. Just means we have a plastic manhole cover in the middle of
the lawn. Mobile fuel senders on the tank will also notify your supplier that it needs refilling without you needing to worry too much.
Overall I wouldn't say it is much more cheaper than oil to run, but in light of recent rises with the energy companies, we've had a letter
from Calorgas to state that they won't be increasing their prices (this time round) - refreshing. A letter from NPower for our electric within
the same week stated our bill would go up 15.4%.
We've a couple of log burners too for taking the chill off if necessary - but hardwood is becoming expensive too. £80-£100 per ton bulk bag -
and it doesn't last long if you are lighting up nightly.
Rob
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