hi.

i’ve got a house, an old solid council house in a village in sussex. it’s got ancient night storage brick heaters and open fire places, and an electric water heating thing for bathroom.

does anyone know the best way to heat the place and get hot water so the kids can have a bath?

there’s no gas in the village.

should I install a second hand aga to cook on and heat the hot water/house.

or should i get calor gas delivered and radiators/boiler.

or good old oil fired central heating.

or wood burners x2 and just burn wood all winter, and a solar panel to heat the bath water!

damn, no idea. anyone have any experiences they might want to offer up.

budget is bl 00dy tight.

any advice greatly appreciated

nick

Aga – like having a range rover parked on the drive on tick over….(owned one, loved it and really want another but costly)
Oil Central Heating is good but the price is unstable.
Bottled gas is expensive

We lived on wood burners for years when I was a kid with central heating with and electric immersion heater for a boost. We did have our own wood though. There is faff and hassle associated with it and if your not prepared you will use the electric.

Currenly living in Tasmania and have solar and it’s amazing, paid for very little hot water at all this year.
Got a mate installing it in the UK with some other options, gets good results especially in the south.

should I install a second hand aga

Mrs North’s great aunt has just had to have her second hand aga repaired ata cost of 1200 quid. Mind you, it was at least 10 years old when she bought it. In 1948….

Bottled gas is expensive

I live in a midcentury* house, which is reasonably insulated, and £500 a month in winter on gas isn’t unusual.

*what fashionistas call the 1960s….

Regardless of what you do, you need to reduce whatever heat is needed. So, you need to deal with the building itself first. Insulation, draughtproofing (double glazing?), that sort of thing.
I’d certainly look at either blocking up the open fireplaces (temp for now) and putting in at least one woodburner. Whether you can get a back boiler on that and plumb it into the house hot water system is not a call to make over the internet. Just ensure you still have enough air flow in the house to stop dampness etc.
There are so many variables that you need someone to look at the house and give you a proper idea of what is possible and what the costs are.
If you sort out the house to reduce any energy, then learn to use the storage heates and immersion heater to best effect that would be a start. Both work to hear the house and water.

keep it simples.. the advice above re reducing loss is essential.. then go electric.. sure put a woodburner in to burn free wood but put leccy rads in the rooms and a modern pressurised hot water cylinder.. go for an electric shower as well..

Also agree with tootall. Poor the money into the insulation first. I very nearly went the other way when renovating our house until a good friend made me see sense. Now we can keep the house warm ny gently running one wood burner all day and boost a bit in the evening with rads.

You wont enjoy winter mornings if you just stick in a woodburner….

Based on experiance of waking to -20 and having no oil for a month.

Totalshell and tootall talk sence here.

Oil ranges will cripple you , fitting an oil boiler will cripple you compared to fitting leccy heating. Will take alot of running leccy heating to get that back.

1200 for tank and possibly double that for a decent sized combi boiler plus rads and pipes depending on size of house.

Air source heat pump for hot water. Very economical.

That can be used for space heating to, but your house must be very well insulated first.

have a look on google, there may be grants available to help with the cost.

oil though, what i installed, i would not do again. it costs more now for 500l that it did 5 years ago for a full tank (over 1000).

We live in a cottage which dates from 1822, being listed precludes us from having double glazing. There is no gas in the village so only heating we have is electric plus a wood burner in the lounge. We have an Aga but we only use that for cooking although it does heat the kitchen. Did explore possibility of installing air source heat pump – but was advised that the unit would be too close to neighbours, so didn’t proceed

I had an Aga, converted it to Gas as soon as I could then ran a hot water tank off the back boiler, it was not enough for the two of us I’m afraid to shower never mind run radiators.
I ended up installing a gas boiler for radiators and piggybacking both hot water tanks into one big one in the utility romm, ’twas only then that we had enough to heat the house and shower.
Cottage was three down, two up, 1 utility and a basement.

ahh wow cheers chaps i’ll have a proper ponder over this when i get to work today ! thanks for the responses, the garden in this old house is actually quite big, which was normal’er for post war councill houses, so i wonder if there might be enough for ground source heat systems, and solar panels. not sure if I can afford though, i’ll look into the money side today

gav – what does electric cost these days ? gas ? petrol?

my oil costs for a 3 bed semi kept warm in the morning and evenings (18 degrees warm) in exposed location are similar to the gas costs for my rental 1 bed flat in town – which was always cold (nee damp) due to insulation.

in all honesty though id have quite a few other options had i had to buy a tank and rads ..

as it was all i needed was a new boiler and i got delonghi rads for 20 quid each from the merchants due to marks on the back.

worth noting that you can save a heap on your lecky by changing to LED bulbs – plenty places knocking out cheap branded LED bulbs that are more than adaquate for filament replacements with instant lighting if your careful about what you buy. We have them all through the house now and bills have dropped by about 10 quid a month. – they even reduced my DD.

Put on a warm coat and woolly jumber, it can get quite cold on some of those commons and carparks.

Agas/Rayburns are lovely, but they cost a packet to buy, and cost a packet to run. If you can afford to have it ticking over, it’s a gorgeous thing, but we certainly couldn’t afford that.

I swear you could actually see the oil tank meter dropping when you ran the thing on full chat.

As above, insulation, insulation, insulation. If I had the chance to do it again, I’d probably go for a woodburner with backboiler, and the most efficient boiler I could lay my hands on. But even woodburners are an expensive way to heat a house unless you have access to a supply of cheap wood.

Don’t even consider Calor gas. Condensation hell.

FYI we still have an Aga at the farm, it’s coal fired (cough) and it’s a right real pain in the rear end.. stoking/topping up/cleaning what a faff of the largest order. Parents will not, absolutely will not get it converted and sometimes I wonder about thier sanity.
Yes it’s warm, yes it’s actually pretty darn fab but it heats 2 cups of hot water a day and then it’s had it. Ok, the farmhouse is ancient and needs insulation but even so.. We have offered to convert the thing to gas or oil but thiey’re not having any of it.
Steer clear of coal fired ones, day is carp.
To add insult to injury they have sitting in thier kitchen a gas rayburn still in the original crate from 8 years ago that was suppose to replace the Aga, jeeeeeze… I get toooo angry about that sometimes.

As for rads, in our cottage we ran 3 in the living room (kitchen attached) none in the spare, none in the bathroom, one on the landing two large ones in the bedrooms..

I would hav another (looks like we’ll inherit that bloody Rayburn) so looking forward again to “Aga” toast..

Oil boiler and, if you want a range cooker, a second hand (electric) Everhot. You won’t get the same level background warmth- but it’ll be bearable in summer. It’ll cost a lot less to run and install (they come ready assembled) and no servicing required.

Cheers,
Jamie

Watching with interest as we’ve just bought an old cottage in a place with no gas supply. As we have access to wood we are in the process of putting in a 30kw wood burner which will be hooked up to all the rads.

It’s going to be like Rocky III trying to chop all that wood, minus the montage.

My Gran insisted on having her Aga moved with her to her new place – loves the constant warmth, hates the £2000/yr oil bill! Would never have one of these even if gas wasn’t an option; the purchase/installation costs would never be worthwhile even if oil was cheaper. I’d go electric I’m sure.

Our house was built in the early 1800s so probably rather worse on the insulation front. We’re both at home all day. The wife likes it tropical.

We have oil central heating and two log burner. One log burner was used every evening and all day on colder days (probably no more than 2-3 weeks). The second log burner was probably used for 2-3 weeks too.

Last year, which had a ludicrously long and cold winter…

Oil came to £1600, plus the equivalent of 8 builders bags of logs.

As above, deal with the heat loss from the fabric of the building first.

Check with your local Council, to see if there are any community energy initiatives running in your area…

If its solid wall & electrically heated you should be top of the pile when it comes to part funding external solid wall insulation from ECO (Energy Company Obligation), but you need to move quick on it. Paying for it through Green deal is expensive in the long run (7-8%). I say move quick because a few of these initiatives are popping up & they normally kick off with doing a certain number of homes for free, providing you’ll take part in publicity photographs, an open afternoon etc. They will do internal insulation also, if its in a conservation area.

We’ve had our house externally inslutated over the summer, & now that the nights are getting cooler its really noticeable. Heating just doesnt even come close to coming on as the temp doesnt drop.

insulate
insulate
insulate
insulate
insulate

if budget is really tight, I’d suggest a few electric rads this year, and maybe buying in a half ton of coal to burn in the open fires. its getting a bit late to be stocking up with wood.

and next year…

oil – our neighbours have an oil fired aga, they used it for one month, when they first moved in, five years ago. used their whole oil tank pretty damn fast. they also have oil based CH, which is ok, but the oil is still fairly pricey to run on

gas – have a look at calor’s website – for propane (external tank) installations, they look to be footing the cost of installing the gas tank at your property, and they refill it when needed – its a close approximation of normal town gas (ie nice cheap combi boilers)

solid – wood is great and all, but if you’re buying it (not scrounging it or getting it from your own land) its not particularly cheap, and you need storage, lots of it, and you need to already have bought this years supply back in summer – most of that goes for coal too. also, stoves cost 1 or 2k to install and will not be as easy to manage as a CH boiler.

all I can say is that we’ve got solid fuel heating (woodburner in lounge, plus a big kitchen range that runs a number of radiators) and we’re looking into getting a propane tank & system boiler installed sometime over the next few years, so we can retire the kitchen range, so I guess that would probably be what I’d go for in your position.

“its a close approximation of normal town gas (ie nice cheap combi boilers)”

ok what does 1kw of energy cost in bulk propane .

7.6 pence based on 50pence a litre – no idea what current p/l is as its quite well hidden if its availible at all on calors website.

oil at 60pence a litre ( which is 4 pence more a litre than my last 1000 litres 5 weeks ago) is roughly 6 pence a kw – we have an ultramodern woopetydoo condensing combi grant system.

calor will do a free “upgrade” from oil to their gas – to tie you into their costings esp when you realise that its quite bloody expensive. their websites a bloody good marketing tool for the nieve actually , we had calor propane in a 1 bed cottage that was built/restored recently to modern insulation regs.

calor nearly bankrupt us – and we were used to oil. – our neighbours had ripped theirs out and stuck oil back.

town gas is 4.8. – propanes 1/3rd more

hmm, I think I might be confusing propane with LPG. The figures I’ve seen show LPG as around 7.5-8p/kwh, as compared with town gas at 4.5-5p/kwh.

Bottle propane is complete no go, that’s around 2 – 3 times that cost.

Maybe we’ll stick with the coal fired range – we’re expecting to use around £800 on a mix of coal & wood, for the whole winter.

bottle propanes scary.

im looking into it just now as an option for getting a gas hob as i hate my induction hob.

LPG is just propane under pressure – making it a liquid.

Our next doors run a propane cooker, it works for them.

I quite like the induction hobs, miles quicker/better than other electrics, at least for how we cook. Shame it doesn’t work with a wok though!

incidentally, for comparison of unit costs of various fuel options:

http://www.confusedaboutenergy.co.uk/index.php/domestic-fuels/fuel-prices

nice graphs – little misleading though

they use 0.66/l for the oil.

thats 10p/l over the recent rate i filled at. – course if you fill up on a snowey day in december when the rest of the uk is trying to do the same youll get 66p a litre.

im sure stoner or bear had a graph that showed taht data using the reasonably live uk average data.

course it is only going up – but so are gas and electric…… unless your man in the gov has his way….. moron that he is

LPG + 2 woodstoves here. To heat a three bed 1850’s cottage, inc hot water. Averages about £200 per month for gas through the year (£2400 total), and about £300 in logs (don’t have my own source).

Additional problems with siting the gas tanks – must be 3m(?) from any residence and with a sight line to the road.

the garden in this old house is actually quite big, which was normal’er for post war councill houses, so i wonder if there might be enough for ground source heat systems, and solar panels

Fabric First – not bling on the outside. Reduce the need to use energy first!
You’d have to be down 2m or so for a GSHP. I don’t know what Sussex has that deep as far as rock goes.

i looked into the GSHP – first of all , costs an arm and a leg secondly – to benifit from it you really need to emphisise on the building construction and insulation.

long term i plan to integrate a solar thermal system and thermal store with my combi – i bought the boiler i did because it allows me that option easily but to do the whole system in stages as the money becomes availible.

FWIW – we are 1950s ex council house also , solid brick thing with a massive garden. we went for insulate ( we have cavity fill , 300mm roof insulation, thermal drylining on the cheeks of the dormers where we cant insulate conventionally and underfloor insulation between the oak/tiles and the concrete) then a new boiler as the old one was knackered and did either hot water or heating not both without manually switching it. – the two things that made the biggest difference to my percieved temperature was fitting bathroom and kitchen fans with backdraft prevention shutters – stopped a force 9 coming into the bathroom/kitchen when ever there was a northerly making it feel colder than it was

Sounds almost identical to our place, so I’ll be watching this thread with interest!

+ 1 million to insulation. We insulated underneath the floorboards (crawled into the floorspace and added rockwool between the joists heldup with netting, just make sure there is good venitlation underneath through the airbricks), in the loft, got new double glazing, draught proofed and insulated the walls downstairs (re-plasterboarded, obviously only worthwhile if you are redecorating to that extent).

We also added a woodburner to the downstairs room which is a lot more efficient that the open fire. But given the installation cost, it was for comfort more than base heating. You have to consider whether or not someone is at home during the day or if you are all out. Getting a fire / Aga going when you come in means you don’t get the heat for an hour or so.

It depends what you mean by ‘best’. It might be most economical to keep with the electric heaters.

For this winter, if you are struggling to keep the house ‘comfortable’ with what you have just get some mobile electric heaters. The cost isn’t that bad since you don’t have access to mains gas and because electric heating is a lot more efficient than the alternatives. And you might only need them on for a few hours a day.

A ‘wet’ central heating system is good for convenience (if you are out during the day) and the comfort of a consistent temperature through the house, day and night, but it isn’t necessarily going to be any cheaper than running the electric heaters and that’s not including the installation cost.

Also if you find you are running out of hot water and don’t want to buy a new bigger tank, consider installing an electric shower so that the tank is just for washing up and baths.

blimey. ok. well i just want to say thanks loads for everyones replies.

i might be wrong with this, but i am going down this road with things…

1. insulate loft (council grant?)
2. cavity walls (council grant?)
3. replace blown double glazing
4. wood burner in sitting room
5. chuck out all the old dodgy night storage
6. fit new wall mounted electric heaters
7. electric shower
8. electric tank standard heating for the bathroom bath
9. fit aga/rayburn solid fuel (ebay find maybe). this will heat water too in winter.
10. fit electric cooker for summer use! like this but for half the price.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/121179202414?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1438.l2648
11. start choppin’ wood

Drop me a line at timATj-twren.eclipse.co.uk and I’ll happily give you some advice

Aga’s are great, as long as you’ve a house that ‘works’ with one.

New they are a fortune, s/h cheap as chips (the Redfyre we took out went for £1.04, with a split boiler – still worked as a cooker/heater) – and the s/h Aga we’ve just put in cost £200 to buy and then £800 to install.

Oil-wise, last year we got through £3000. But that is with it on 24/7, just turned down in summer. Our house is an 1800’s converted mill and the ‘room’ the Aga sits in is 5m x 12m, plus it heats a couple of towel rads and supplies hot water. Only other heating source is a log burner in the front room, 5m x 8m and about 6m tall. No other heating upstairs (except the towel rads), but open ceilings downstairs means the heat just rises.

House is well insulated, and I’m continually improving this.

We do have an electric shower too, that is a no brainer.

We love our Aga, the oven is always hot and ready for cooking. Anything wet, just dries nearby. And every meal is served on hot plates, from been just sat on them while we cook.

But as said, we’ve a house that suits.

And a wallet that works with one as well of course.

My grandparents have a lovely big enamal green aga – built there house new with it in 1995.

Soon as they retired they stuck in a boiler for heating and hot water and use a second hob and cooker for cooking day to day.

Aga only gets fired up for special occasions or guests .

3000 pounds in oil . Bet you get a calander from your supplier at christmas after that one do you ? – but they are ace for drying clothes.

3000 pounds in oil . Bet you get a calander from your supplier at christmas after that one do you ? – but they are ace for drying clothes.

It’s the same as my parents use to spend on oil/electricity (storage heaters) when they lived here, and the house was never warm. No mains gas. Big property, that we are renovating along the way – so usage should come down.

500 Litres of oil cost me £330 when I rented two years ago I lived in a one bedroom stable conversion and made it last a winter by being really tight ,not using it in the morning and only turning it on for an hour or so in the evening once I could see my breath !!

I’ve got a similar house to to the op, I bought it with no central heating fitted and have replaced an electric fire in the living room (only hest in the house) with a Stovax back boiler and have insulated everything to the nth degree. The back boiler heats 8 rads and and a large towel rail.

My costs last year were £400 with with the heating on every night.

I replaced the water tank with a modern insulated larger tank and this sees us right for our hot water needs and is topped by the electric, I reckon on about a £1000 for my electric and heating for the year which for someone living in the countryside with no mains gas is pretty cheap!