Heating system for period property - Air to water?

MissSteel

Hi all,
I am about to start renovating a period property and need advice on the best heating system to install. The house is listed and is subject to insulating issues..etc. We are hoping to go with some sort of heating system that will be cost effective. We have been thinking about an air to water system working on rads alone, is this something that anyone has any experience of? We cannot go with UFH as there are no solid floors.
Does the air to water system keep the rads at a constant temp throughout the day, and can this temp be increased to higher temps of ~60oC using oil? I like the idea of a constant temp throughout the day as this would help with maintaining any damp issues there might be.
Would a geo-thermal system be better then air to water? Can it be used with radiators, as I have only ever heard of them being used UFH. I have heard that the cost of installing these systems is quite large.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks!

Idbatterim

was on the below website the other day and saw this, might be of interest or useful...

http://www.rvr.ie/Advice/Website/RVR_Hybrid_Heating_Explained/

Condenser

MissSteel wrote: »

Hi all,
I am about to start renovating a period property and need advice on the best heating system to install. The house is listed and is subject to insulating issues..etc. We are hoping to go with some sort of heating system that will be cost effective. We have been thinking about an air to water system working on rads alone, is this something that anyone has any experience of? We cannot go with UFH as there are no solid floors.
Does the air to water system keep the rads at a constant temp throughout the day, and can this temp be increased to higher temps of ~60oC using oil? I like the idea of a constant temp throughout the day as this would help with maintaining any damp issues there might be.
Would a geo-thermal system be better then air to water? Can it be used with radiators, as I have only ever heard of them being used UFH. I have heard that the cost of installing these systems is quite large.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks!

I don't think you'll be happy with the results from either an air to water or a geothermal system as the temperature you require is far too high. A pellet boiler or other high temp system would be better suited or else you need to change the rads to fan assisted units which may look out of place in a period house.
Running a HP at high temp will return very poor efficiencies and you're likely to need a new compressor in only 5 or 6yrs due to the high pressures it would need to create in order to attain these temps.

paddy147

Idbatterim wrote: »

was on the below website the other day and saw this, might be of interest or useful...

http://www.rvr.ie/Advice/Website/RVR_Hybrid_Heating_Explained/

Would there be much noise from the fan unit?
And does the fan unit go inside or outside the house?

Thanks.:)

MissSteel

Condenser wrote: »

I don't think you'll be happy with the results from either an air to water or a geothermal system as the temperature you require is far too high. A pellet boiler or other high temp system would be better suited or else you need to change the rads to fan assisted units which may look out of place in a period house.
Running a HP at high temp will return very poor efficiencies and you're likely to need a new compressor in only 5 or 6yrs due to the high pressures it would need to create in order to attain these temps.

Hi Condenser!
I was thinking of maybe using the air to water or geothermal to keep d rads at a low temp and then use oil or similar to heat to higher temps. Would that work?
My parents recently put in a wood pellet stove, it seems like a great job but i'm abit concerned about the cost of pellets rising and storing them well.

Condenser

MissSteel wrote: »

Hi Condenser!
I was thinking of maybe using the air to water or geothermal to keep d rads at a low temp and then use oil or similar to heat to higher temps. Would that work?
My parents recently put in a wood pellet stove, it seems like a great job but i'm abit concerned about the cost of pellets rising and storing them well.

It won't work like that as the signal to call in the HP will never come, as the boiler will be constantly keeping the temp in the rads above 50C for example so the only time it will heat is when it first heats up from cold which might total half an hour a day.And running those types of rads during the day at low temp will give you next to no heat.
I'd spend your money elsewhere as heat pumps are all about the right application and yours doesn't suit the requirements to ensure a good system no matter what any salesman tells you.
Are other aspects of the house untouchable, such as insulation?

MissSteel

Thanks for the info condenser. Looks like it wont be an option.
We are hopefully going to insulate the external walls by putting in metal studs to leave room for air movement and place insulated boards on top of the studs.The stone cross walls will be left uninsulated and lime rendered. We are replacing all the windows, are there is currently none in the building that can be repaired. We will be fitting double glazed timber sash windows. Insulating the attic space, and adding a breathable insulation under the suspended floors in the ground floor.
Hopefully all this improvement in insulation will help us to heat it better. There is a large hall and void from the stairwell that we are concerned will be a cold spot, we were contemplating putting a wood burning stove in this area. we had toyed with the idea of putting UFH in this area alone, but i dont think it will be cost effective for just one area in a house.

Condenser

MissSteel wrote: »

Thanks for the info condenser. Looks like it wont be an option.
We are hopefully going to insulate the external walls by putting in metal studs to leave room for air movement and place insulated boards on top of the studs.The stone cross walls will be left uninsulated and lime rendered. We are replacing all the windows, are there is currently none in the building that can be repaired. We will be fitting double glazed timber sash windows. Insulating the attic space, and adding a breathable insulation under the suspended floors in the ground floor.
Hopefully all this improvement in insulation will help us to heat it better. There is a large hall and void from the stairwell that we are concerned will be a cold spot, we were contemplating putting a wood burning stove in this area. we had toyed with the idea of putting UFH in this area alone, but i dont think it will be cost effective for just one area in a house.

You're much better off going that route. Unlike some would have you believe heat pumps are not the cure to all ills and this application certainly didn't suit.
You're right to avoid the ufh in this case also as its harder on oil/gas than a conventional rad system and when its not being installed everywhere which would allow you install a HP down the line then it will just increase your fuel bill.

BuyAHouse

Hi MissSteel,

We are in the same position as you, almost a year-to-the day later (listed house - no central heating - trying to figure out how not to freeze etc). I wonder if we could pick your knowledgeable brain on some issues?!

What heating system did you end up going for and are you happy with it?

In relation to windows, did you get pp for double-glazed? I was under the impression that you could never get pp for double-glazed windows and the most you could do was put in a second window? http://www.dublincity.ie/Planning/HeritageConservation/Conservation/Documents/Windows%20-%20A%20Guide%20to%20the%20Repair%20of%20Historic%20Windows%202007.pdf It would be so great to hear that this policy has changed? Also, how much did each window cost?

Regarding UFH - it's probably no longer of interest to you but someone we know recently put in UFH in their listed house on the "middle" floor. Certain adjustments had to be made for weight but it seems to have worked out great for them.

Any tips would be much appreciated.

MissSteel

Hi Buyahouse,
Yeah a year on and still plodding along on the house! We haven’t moved in yet so no idea how comfortable the house is going to be.. we are internally plastering at the moment. The plan at the moment is to install an oil range to heat the rads.. the range we are getting can heat up to 20 standard rads so this wont be enough in the long run.. we have the pipes in to either install either a log gasification boiler or Air to water system eventually. We are also putting in an inset stove with back boiler.
Are you planning on insulating your house? We went with a hemp lime mix shuttered against all the external walls, then lime plaster over this.. however I was just listening to the radio this morning and Dermot Bannen was talking about some breathable insulation (IQ Therm by Remmer) might be looking into, have no idea what it would be like though.
As regards the windows.. it really depends what shape your building and windows are in. Our house was just shy of been a ruin, with no original features /windows left. All our work was carried out under the scope of repairs under the guidance of a heritage architect.. You should get in contact with one before you approach the council. The windows cost roughly over €1000 each..

BuyAHouse

Thanks MissSteel - it sounds like you are getting there, although I'm sure it has been a challenging process at times!

An oil range - sounds like a good plan. I'll look into that for ours.

I don't think we can insulate internally - we want to avoid having to make a planning application and, in any event, I don't think we would get planning for it as the view seems to be that it interferes with the coving. Basic rule of thumb seems to be that you can't introduce anything modern if you want to ensure you don't fall "materially alter the character" and, in order to avoid the expense of pp, we will probably just leave it alone.

I'm interested re the windows. Ours were replaced with horrible single-glazed PVC some time ago so there are no originals left. However, I have heard that they force you to get sash windows custom made and, if they will only allow given the cost, we will be leaving the horrible ones there!

MissSteel

Yes, we were lucky in a way that our house was so bad to start with. We had no coving or period architrave.. so we were not so restricted. We have an oil range in the house we are living in at the moment and it is the best thing ever. I wouldnt be without it!
I cant see them having a problem with you changing the single glazed PVC with double glazed timber sash.. you may need to apply for section 57 declaration or something of the sort to do it. but it all boils down to the cost really.. they are terribly expensive but I dont think there is any way you could put DG PVC windows in unfortunately!

Idbatterim

can I ask why oil was chose over natural gas (if available) or lpg not?