Replacing an oil system hopefully with something 'green', too many options, advice please.

[tam203]

We've recently moved to a 1960 bungalow. Reasonably insulated, double glazed, retrofitted cavity wall insulation, fair loft insulation. The house has a modern (2009) large extension, feels well insulated but with lots of glass and rooflights. The extension has underfloor heating, everywhere else radiators.

It has an oil fired system for the heating with an immersion tank and gravity feed for the hot water. There is no mains gas.

We are looking to replace the system. And want/don't want:

* Something greener, I think both environmentally and I guess financially oil isn't a good long term bet.
* Don't want absolutely huge radiators, not significantly bigger than what we have
* No tank in the loft, places where things can die in your shower water seems like a bad idea
* We want to move the current boiler (to make WC), we have room in the utility though outside would be a bonus
* a warm house and hot water for a family of four.
* Something for the future, we plan to live here 20 years plus. It feels that electric is a good bet, long term solar PV would be good, likely an electric car in the future, it could ask work harmoniously

Complicating factors:

* Very low water flow rate. The pressure is ok but the flow into our house is very poor. Water comes to us via a 1cm diameter plastic pipe for about 500m from the mains. (This is official South West Water property so we are seeing if they will improve but no big hopes). We have been told this means no combi without a accumulator (more space... but an option)
* We already have a tank full of oil, I don't know what to do with this if we don't go oil fired.
* Not keen on biomass, but willing to listen to arguments.
* We intend to have a loft conversion at some point but not yet, may or maynot effect decisions we make now
* We have no heating so need to be acting on this soon!

Budget

Around £10-15 K. If something was clearly a great investment we could get a loan to cover more but the retrun would need to be clear. (e.g. considering solar pv and storage, and an electric system).


Current thinking
Current thinking is an air source heat pump. But I'm not sure if we will need much more radiator real estate for this and also it doesn't help with our low water flow.

Am considering just re investing in oil

Also thinking about PV, storage and electric...


Any options really gratefully received!! Thanks.

 

[muggles]

Stick with the oil. Electric is far more expensive to run and will be for a long time yet, and an ASHP will require bigger radiators. Oil is currently cheaper than mains gas. A decent oil fired boiler will last a long time and in years to come could run on biofuel

 

[dal5band]

Yes ! Stick with oil.

 

[Diver Fred]

Look at ground source heat pump if you have the land space. That will heat water for driving wet radiators.

In my experience Air Source heat pumps internals are similar to an air con unit but at low level.

 

[tam203]

Thanks @muggles and @dal5band . I hadn't considered bio oil, I'll look into that.

@wgt52 the install and maintenance of ground source seems a lot more expensive than air source (ground was my initial thoughts). When you say

In my experience Air Source heat pumps internals are similar to an air con unit but at low level.

I wasn't sure what that meant in practicality, good, bad, ugly?!

 

[dal5band]

Surely its fancy words for an air conditioning unit mounted inside out. The cooling part is outside and hot part inside. Trouble is when the outside temperature is low, the unit has to work very hard to cool the outside (hence extract heat).

 

[ianmcd]

Stck with oil, definately dont go for solar PV it is a total rip off, Solar Thermal for your HW might be an option but you say you have a poor water supply so maybe not suitable

 

[endecotp]

ASHP can be noisy, like aircon; do you have a suitable space outside for the unit where it won’t annoy you or the neighbours?

Re radiator sizes, you could turn down the temperature on your current boiler to match what a heat pump provides and see if that keeps the house warm enough - except you can’t really do that test in July....

Future costs (medium to long term) will depend on tax policy. It may shift to make oil and gas more expensive compared to electricity. Or it may not.

 

[lostinthelight]

Neighbor had Ashp installed ,they had no room to use larger rads so fitted aluminium ones which give out 50% more heat for the same size

 

[tam203]

Thanks @lostinthelight and @endecotp .

I'm really not sure. Thanks all.