Currently we live in a 1950’s terraced property which we had fitted with cavity wall insulation and the world’s supply of rock wool in the loft. That along with double glazing and oil fired central heating has kept us toasty at minimal cost.

However, yesterday we accepted an offer for our house, and then had our offer for my wife’s dream house accepted.

Only problem is, my wife’s dream house is a 150 year old stone cottage with 1950’s night storage heaters (allbeit with double glazing). First job will be loft insulation and replacing the double glazing with new more efficient stuff, but any ideas what to do with the heating? Are new night storage heaters better, or are oil filled radiators the way to go? Any other options (short of fitting an oil fired boiler)?

woodburner, with oil heating as alternative/backup is only way to go if you want to be warm

Unless your windows are very dated and tired, I wouldn’t bother changing them. The cost savings would not offset the capital outlay for 20 years plus.

Regarding the heating, storage heaters offer no flexibility so oil is better, but obviously both electric so not an economical option. I’m afraid old houses have charm but expensive quirks to go with them. You can’t have your cake and eat it!

What wall insulation is there?

Wood stove and AGA in our stone built house – bloody expensive though.

Main problem you may have retaining the single glazing will be the condensation.
Our place solid stone, had to dry line walls with insulation backed plasterboard & some double glazing plus what ever you can get in the loft. With solid stone, if you can get enough thermal insulation in the place & if not to exposed could look at air source heat pump.

woodburner

Nice big open fireplace, so could fit one easily. It’s in the center of the house as well, so not a bad idea. Only slight trouble is the house rambles about, so it might be tricky to heat the whole house this way. I like the idea though…

Unless your windows are very dated and tired, I wouldn’t bother changing them. The cost savings would not offset the capital outlay for 20 years plus.

Good call. Looking into it a bit further, seems to be not worth replacing. There are 2 single glazed though, so those will be on the list with loft insulation.

I’m afraid old houses have charm but expensive quirks to go with them.

Yeah. My wife does love it very much though! Sometimes the heart has to rule the head a little bit. I’ve accepted we’ll get no where near the economy of our previous house, but just trying to soften the blow a little.

What wall insulation is there?

Stone, plasterboard. Nothing else which makes me think this:

dry line walls with insulation backed plasterboard

is a great idea. I’ll look into this more.

Seems there’s no super duper NSH replacement on the market though…

Our house is IRO 400+ yrs old n parts: single skin walls all round, converted loft, minimal insulation up top, proper old skool lead lattice windows with wonky wooden frames, etc. 8yr old oil boiler and decent rads means we’re toasty in even the coldest weather without having to get even close to stretching the capacity of what’s available.

A friend has a similar property but without the loft conversion and only storage heaters. It’s frigging freezing.

Woodburners, Fire etc all very nice but PITA day to day if you rely on them.
Boiler and Radiators is top of my list having lived in a variety of places old and new. Use them for primary heating and fire is a bonus.

Sat under an air sourced Heat pump (air con running backwards) and it’s OK for 1 room, noisy and blowy.

I have a ducted ASHP in my place and while it works and is cheap to run i do not actually like it. Noisy, not zoned so whole house gets the same feed so varying pressures.

Long as you have wood delivered cut the woodburner really isnt a pain- although thats probably because i grew up with an open coal fire which was a pain….

How ever folks like to push a button and be warm ,so something with radiators will add value .

What you will realise is you really dont want to let your new place with stone walls get cold-once your thermal mass ( the stone) gets cold – it can take days to get the house comfortable again as the stone sucks all the heat from the room

Long as you have wood delivered cut the woodburner really isnt a pain- although thats probably because i grew up with an open coal fire which was a pain….

Having grown up with Coal then wood, moved on to Gas & Electric, then oil fired with stove extra etc. and now to the strange world of heat pumps my money still comes down on something automatic for base fire for nice.

If you HAVE to light a fire to heat your house then you loose the usability having the heating on while your away, boosting for the morning when you get up and nice frost protection. Also when you have a long day and get back late you don’t have to clean and light a fire just to get your house warm.
Wood delivered cut and split is good but you also need to factor in storage and the odd load of crap wet wood.

Not knocking the wood burner world crew but having tried and lived with most options it’s not where I would go.

im not saying have a woodburner period…..just saying i dont find it a pain – how ever i did shun stoner and bears idea of fitting pellet or log boiler as like you say – you loose the usability when your away for extended periods

id probably live with the storage heaters and fit an auxiluary stove – but thats me – due to my use pattern i dont think i would see the value of the replacement heating system – but as i said above id probably replace it before i left because storage heaters put folk off big time.

you loose the usability when your away for extended periods

❓

pellet burners can run automatically for 6 months+ with no user input and even be controlled remotely via your wireless router.

Not to mention most have ports for immersion heaters.

The biggest question for the OPs houser though is whether a wet* heating system can feasibly be installed at all. If so it opens up a range of heating sources. If not, then it’s far more limited.

(*or blown air)

aye but stoner i work off shore , im not in the city earning the big bucks to put a system like that in 😉

Radiators and woodburners – I have a 350yo stone house with single glazing and meter thick stone walls and this is my approach. The woodburners let me get vast amounts of dry heat to warm the thermal mass nicely, takes a day to get it warm if I have let the house go cold in winter then we are sorted!

We tend to use the radiators as background heat and the woodburners as a boost – more as we have a toddler and a baby so messing with the fire can be a bit of an arse when they are being fractious!

A wet system could be installed, but due to the size of the house I think it would be prohibitively expensive. Minimum of 9 radiators would be needed I think, with all the piping and boiler. The village is not on the gas mains, and the garden is cottage sized (that is to say, small) so an oil tank would be a bit of a pain.

I think the key is going to be better insulation (loft,DG and plaster boards), a good wood burner and more efficient night storage heaters. Or perhaps panel heaters.

I’m with everyone else on blown air. I work in Iraq and the constant drone of AC in the summer and heater in the winter is a drag I couldn’t put up with in my own home.

If you are seriously considering storage heaters or any other electricity based system, but have the capacity for some wet circuit emmitters then Id look at an ASHP.

Personally I dont like the idea of heat pumps in ANYTHING other than the above situation – i.e. where storage heaters are considered the alternative, because even if the COP (coefficient of Performance) of the ASHP gets nothing like the claimed 3x or 4x it will at least nearly always be >1x and so make every unit of electrical energy input go further.

Linked to a small water tank, with maybe an immersion, it would supply DHW and CH more efficiently than using storage heaters and a separate DHW electrical heating system. You could even link it to a solar thermal array in due course.

Radiators and woodburners – I have a 350yo stone house with single glazing and meter thick stone walls and this is my approach. The woodburners let me get vast amounts of dry heat to warm the thermal mass nicely, takes a day to get it warm if I have let the house go cold in winter then we are sorted!

Just to be clear, the heat you put into the stonework is going straight outside – proven by the fact if you stop heating it quickly goes cold and takes a age to heat up.

We’ve also an old place with +2ft thick walls, fully studded on the inside with 100mm of insulation and the plasterboard. We’re also quite open plan (plus open ceilings to floorboards) and its warm enough with a huge woodburner at one end and AGA at the other.

But, what you need to do is get into your head you’ll never be as toasty as a newbuild (previous house we wore minimal inside and would open a window if too hot 😀 ), and then you’re fine.

more importantly, how you going to heat the bike shed?

Just a garage and a 8 foot shed unfortunately. Good bye man shed. 😥

If wet system is difficult/expensive & you can get the place reasonably air tight then you could look at MHVR with ASHP to boost such as the Nibe system.
Also you could look at waste heat recovery on your waste water. if its solid stone then you have the thermal mass its heating that thermal mass in the first place.
Dont forget to look see if any grants available for what you are doing.

Walls first as suggested above then under the floor. I lived in an old house with flagstone floors, they were so cold they got slippy with condensation even in summer.

Do not even consider a ASHP unless you are insulating to better than part L, installing underfloor heating and possibly MVHR.

And don’t consider the NIBE either too many horror stories with them.

Can you run Ground sourced / air sourced heat pumps from an Economy 7 circuit?

I’d look up your local ECO / Green Deal agents, & get on the case. Yours should be classed as hard to heat so you’ll likely get a good contribution towards solid wall insulation. Given the age, probably internal but if not in a conservation area possibly external which is less messy.

As regards heating…no idea.

I’d learn to knit

tree-magnet – what’s you budget?