Fed up of boiler problems and leaking radiator plumbing, want to move to electric heating - what are the best options?

[flameport]

My boiler is 19 kW and only just enough to heat all rooms,

Severe lack of insulation.

 

[robinbanks]

And/or air tightness detailing..

@dragonfly101 if you're seriously looking at using electric to heat your home consider insulating and draftproofing well (should be done in all cases) and take a look at air-to-air heat pumps; these can be even better efficiency than air-to-water ones..

..though it still leaves you needing to heat your hot water

To answer another question, yes you can get devices that heat water on demand, either small under sink devices or bigger central ones such as a Stiebel Eltron DHC-E, but they won't hold a candle to the ability of a 30kw combi to churn out hot water

 

[ericmark]

Severe lack of insulation.

I should have included in a reasonable time. The idea today is heat only as much as required, when required, so reheat speed is very important, it seems geofencing does vary make to make of control system, but few people work more than an hour from work, so even the best geofencing has just one hour to move the home from Eco setting at say 16ºC to comfort setting at say 20ºC, this clearly rules out under floor heating, that's a non starter, and with the larger house, likely room at a time, so need the TRV to be geofencing. So the kitchen has the furthest setting, then dinning room, then living room, and you also need large radiators.

This is where my home has a problem, the radiators are simply not big enough to reheat within an hour, and with micro bore even if bigger not sure enough flow to reheat home fast.

But to reheat the home fast, either the heater has to be big, or you need a heat store, my brother-in-laws last house had the heat store, two massive cylinders on a reinforced floor to take the weight, with coils inside to take the heat from solid fuel, solar, LPG or electric, and combine them into one heating system, and yes he could go on holiday to Germany where his daughters live, and on return it would kick in and reheat house from the solar energy stored so nice and warm on his return.

But two things, one it used water which you seem to want to avoid, and it was installed when the house was built, when he enquired about installing in his current house, he was quoted £24k which is clearly a silly amount for a 70+, it can never pay for its self.

The fan assisted radiator seems to be best option, the new versions have a 5 speed motor, which changes speed to adjust room temperature, only the inferred heater can reheat any faster, but when I looked two major problems, one is the cost of the Myson iVector radiator, and the second is the cost of the building management system.

It is easy to say a heat pump can both heat and cool the home as required, but cost is some thing else, all pipes need lagging or condensate will form and the water can damage the ceilings etc, and each radiator needs a condensate trap, and a pump to get rid of the condensate, which is why may heat pump installations only heat, they do not cool as well.

Why the builder felt my pipes did not require lagging I do not know, but my attempts to only heat rooms when required has helped, but the transfer room to room means rooms never get cold, just a little lower than the rooms in use. OK I have 14 heated areas, two never turned off (bathroom and shower room) 4 grouped together controlled with motorised valve rarely used in winter, and 8 with programmable TRV's 4 of the TRV's can have geofencing set, as can one of the wall thermostats, I don't use the TRV geofencing, and the wall thermostat will turn down the heating when both mobile phones are out of the house, but I normally over ride it manually before return, as not fast enough.

As to a non water based system, to fit controllers to vary the output of electric panel heaters to do the same at the programmable TRV heads would cost a lot more than I paid (£15 each) for the TRV heads, likely around £50 per radiator at least, and it would need some building management to ensure one did not rupture the DNO fuse, and this is the problem, the control would be a silly price.

Yes commercial freezers use inverter controls which vary the motor speed rather than turn it on/off, and a heat pump could do the same, and vary the amount of power used to suit requirements, most heat pumps are inverter driven, but mainly to get rid of the inrush problem as the motor starts, not seen one which varies output.

And be it water or refrigerant they work using a liquid, so they still have plumbing of some sort.

So all the ideas may work in theory, but in practice they are only found in cloud cuckoo land. The cost of installing and maintaining these fancy systems means in real terms only found in places like Machynlleth, not been for some time but The centre for alternative technology may well show these things working, vernacular railway working on water coming down the mountain looks good, but how many people live on the side of a mountain with a handy stream?

They have looked at heat pumps and I have to admit I have noticed in my cars how loss of refrigerant has slowly resulted in the AC working less and less efficiently, with a boiler in the main it works, or it doesn't work, it does not tend to gradually loose performance, but I test my freezers from time to time, and have had my cars AC's recharged, so monitoring the performance of the heat pump is important.

 

[brig001]

Modern storage heaters seem to work well from what I have heard. Paying 16p per kWh overnight on economy 7, but still not as cheap as gas. Will also need a hot water tank/unvented cylinder

Brian