Decision Time on Central Heating

Cushtie

Hi all.

it has come to the time where i have to finally decide what way we will go with the heating system in the house.

I am 100% going with underfloor heating in the ground floor, that is decided. end of story.

now my dilema is whether to put it in on the upstairs aswell, when I say it to people that I am thinking of putting it in on the upstairs aswell they say am I mad. that I only need / should put in Rads upstairs.

I will be running the heating system initially off an Oil Fired bolier. (the budget won't stretch to geothermal and I guess I need more convincing, sounds too good to be true and all that)

I will also have a solid fuel stove in the Kitchen that I will have on a back boiler, which will run to a second coil in the HW Cylinder, so when the fire is down I'm heating the water in the Cylinder. (I think I am right here about the second coil in the cylinder??)

the plan down the road is to switch to geothermal when and if it becomes cheaper to install. (Maybe there might be grants at some stage).

Also I suppose Solar Panels can be looked at sometime down the road aswell, so putting the UFH in the upstairs seems like a good idea now.

I'm just wondering is it overkill and will a few rads do just aswell considering I hope to really well insulate the upstairs.

sorry for the rambling post but any opinions whatsoever would be welcomed.

Cushtie

patrido

well, tell those people that strictly speaking you only need rads downstairs too but you have chosen to go for ufh.

the usual reasons for installing ufh are comfort, space, aesthetics, zoned control, etc. ufh is rarely installed for economic reasons. the same reasons apply upstairs. they apply even you have a very well insulated upstairs. just because the system is sometimes just ticking over to keep you warm, doesn't mean that it's overkill.

however, i do think that control is even more important upstairs (in the sleeping zone). it's not really an issue unless you're putting in a screed upstairs, but if you are, the slow response time needs to be managed well (with a good control system, maybe an optimiser). you don't want full heat in the room when you're trying to sleep, or to wake up to a cold room that will get up to temp when you've gone off to work.

tcoen

The cash flow needed to heat your home with a heat pump may be less than with oil e.g your repayment for a 12k heatpump might be around 900 euro and the electricity used by it 500 euro whereas the repayments on an oil boiler may be 200 euro and the oil over 1200 euro. Presume the heat pump will last a minimum of 15 yrs.

JamesM

tcoen wrote:

The cash flow needed to heat your home with a heat pump may be less than with oil e.g your repayment for a 12k heatpump might be around 900 euro and the electricity used by it 500 euro whereas the repayments on an oil boiler may be 200 euro and the oil over 1200 euro. Presume the heat pump will last a minimum of 15 yrs.

Unless you have your heating on day and night, or have a huge old house, you will not use anything like 1200 euro a year. I have a 3 bed semi, use my heating (Kero oil boiler)approx 10 hours a day and heat my water winter and summer, and get about 1000 litres every 10 months.
Also an oil boiler will usually last 20 years. I know of many which are over 30 years old. (Although later boilers are more efficient than the old ones).
Jim.

JamesM

Oil is suddenly looking a lot more attractive
Jim.

Dr_MalPractice

Effective as of midnight, kerosene and LPG sold for home heating will have its duty halved. there are also promises of expanding irelands biofuel production, and reduced, or exemptions from, duty on biofuels.

I like the sound of that last bit.:D