Search the Community

Can anyone give me recommendations or suggest sites where I can find out information on what type of heating system I need as I'm CONFUSED. I'm a first time self builder and navigating my way through all the information and decisions. We are building a 300sqm house (approx 177sqm downstairs and 130sqm upstairs) It's an upside down house with living upstairs and 4 bedrooms downstairs. We are planning to have underfloor heating in most spaces (radiators in bedrooms), 2 log burners and MVHR. It's a rural location, no mains gas. The previous property used oil, we are knocking and re-buliding. We were planning to go LPG gas - but I'm told to meet SAP & EPC calculations we would need to put Solar panels in as well? We've looked at ASHP but get really mixed messages on this. Any advice greatly welcome... (Thank you)

Hi All We're at the stage where we need to make a final decision about our Heating & Hot water system and we would really appreciate some advice. We're building a 230 sq metre, 2 storey house (GF 120, FF 110) in Co. Down, Northern Ireland... Family of 2 adults, 2 teenage boys (long showers, most days) Work/school means the house is unoccupied for a large part of the day Block built full-fill 150mm cavity walls Triple glazed windows throughout Mechanical ventilation with heat recovery Underfloor heating on the ground floor and radiators on the first floor Multi-fuel, back boiler stove Airtightness target of 1 m3/(m2 h) We will have a south facing pitched roof which is crying out for solar panels, but with no RHI in NI both solar thermal & photovoltaic are expensive options. My preference is PV panels and I plan to put all the wiring in place during the build and then at some point in the future add the panels. Mains gas is on it's way to us but won't be available until at least 2 years after we finish the build. I'm working on the assumption that mains gas is the best option and therefore we should put something temporary in place and then switch to mains gas when it is available. We've ruled out Air Source Heat Pump due to cost (we saved £11.5k when we removed it from our spec and replaced it with Oil). I would really appreciate some guidance as my head is pickled thinking of each option and permutation. My specific questions are; With a reasonably airtight/insulated house we hopefully won't need too much energy. Therefore am I over-thinking the whole issue? (In which case Oil is probably the way we'll go) Whichever fuel we decide on, what's the best way to use the energy provided by PV panels on those few days it actually is sunny in NI? We've been advised to let intelligent heating controls (Dataterm IHC) run the UFH, but as the house will be unoccupied for long periods is this not wasteful? Anything else I should consider? Thanks in advance

The caravan is here! My question is do we need an LPG registered gas engineer to connect up to the two 47kg LPG units? And what about when we need to change them? Or can we do this ourselves (the pigtails are already on the end of the caravan and the boiler has been serviced before we got it). For interest, the shed (ex-playhouse) to the right hand side is the outside toilet cum laundry. Fitting it out has kept him indoors happily occupied for a good couple of weekends.....

Not sure if I am doing this bit the right way round .... but have joined this site for help and advice .. as it looked very informative. what I am needing on this occasion is advice on finding the right connector ... I have bought second hand flavel oven..dual fuel .. bought the lpg jets ..fitted them ..but the gas supply fitting at back of cooker is for mains...I only have an orange hose and jubilee clip from my last oven .. what do I need please ??? .. there is only me my dad is 89 now... and he struggles to remember what day it is now .. so any advice would be welcome ?

Our current house is a cool, drafty colander. And to finance Salamander Cottage, we need to sell the colander. [The sublime built next to the ridiculous] So I'm putting Repair-and-Replace plan together. Trying hard not to look at the cost. Done my due diligence , thanks @Ferdinand, @Onoff, @JSHarris , @Crofter , @TerryE and others. EPC for the current house is likely to be X, Y or probably Z. To top it all off, the main heating system is a multi-fuel stove that enchants everyone who comes in and settles down on the sofa. Heats all the hot water, a good few rads and a cat. Bless it, the fire needs daily maintenance and has never yet performed well when there's a blocking high-pressure system. We'll never sell with the current set up. So out with the old and in with the new. E7; never get our money back. Oil; just don't like it. Illogical? Maybe, but that's it. That leaves LPG. Calor are fitting tanks free. Salamander cottage is 20 meters away. Any reason I shouldn't use Calor for both properties? Too simple?

Not sure if this is the correct place for this topic! Just fitting out the kitchen and we are having a 2 ring gas hob as a backup for our electric hob. The cylinder will sit outside and we have to run the pipe through the wall. I know we need to use 10mm copper and I assume the best option is to get a pipe spring so we can fit it without any solder bends. As the hob will use very little gas we see no point in having more than one cylinder. We shall make a box to cover it from the weather. So we need to get the correct connectors for this as well. Terry has done quite a lot of plumbing but not with 10mm for LPG. Would be grateful for your suggestions

Excerpt from a previous thread. A member asked..... Following on from discussions regarding the desirability and availabilty of low output room sealed wood burners I have been looking at the alternatives. I need something that will satisfy our desire to have a "real fire" while at the same time having a controllable output of around about 2kW. Has anyone looked at using bioethanol burners as a compromise solution in this situation ? Do I need to make any special allowances for flue-less fires in the house or should a standard MVHR system be able to cope ? Are there any building regs to consider ?