I’m after a little advice and direction with regards to a house we are purchasing. It’s a 1965 bungalow that at present has an oil fired AGA which appears to power one large radiator and then electric storage heaters elsewhere within the house.

 

The house had cavity insulation done in the late ‘80s and all the windows are double glazed and appear to be of good quality.

The loft has good insulation although, we will increase this, regardless.

 

The area does not have mains gas, hence the oil system now.

However, as far as I’m concerned, we’re essentially starting from scratch so, what would be the most efficient way of heating the property?

 

I’d like a gas cooker with electric oven as I just like cooking on gas but, I’m more than happy to have a simple cylinder system for the cooker if required - it doesn’t have to be a gas system if there’s something better out there.

 

The property is about 150 sqm and the criteria is to have the most efficient but least environmentally system we can.

 

Ive seen that there’s all sorts of grants available for different systems but, I don’t really understand them all!!

 

Many thanks in advance for any help!!

first thing is get and energy assessment on the house 

energy saving trust  do it for free and suggest how to improve things 

then when you have that ,maybe you will decide to upgrade all insulation etc before or when doing your new heating system 

I.m guessing 1965   it is hard plaster hot plasterboard 

money spent now to improve insulation and limit heat loss keeps paying for itself forever 

rather than having to fit a bigger boiler and trying to heat the world

 you may  find then it might alter your choice of heating system and size  

I was on lpg -changing to ASHP  dropped heating bill by £1000 a year 

so do your homework first 

do you know what energy cost are now for the property ?

if the double glazing is 80,s then it will not be good by modern standards 

Hi. 
I think you should define “starting from scratch” as that can mean a lot of different things!  

Are you taking the floors out to get insulation and UFH fitted or do you plan on replacing the storage heaters with conventional radiators?

In that type of property, if you’re not hugely improving insulation ( eg fitting EWI and possibly IWI ) and draught-proofing the place pretty well then I doubt it could be a candidate for an ASHP ( Air Source Heat Pump ) as the flow temperature is a lot lower and therefore radiators would need to be nearly twice the size of those run off higher temperature eg gas / oil. 
Fabric first please, so we know what we’re dealing with  

1965 house could be due for a rewire as well--so if you can afford to lose a little   room size you could fit insulated plaster board to your walls and  rewire at same time --lots of savings doing things in right order or together 

14 minutes ago, scottishjohn said:

first thing is get and energy assessment on the house 

energy saving trust  do it for free and suggest how to improve things 

then when you have that ,maybe you will decide to upgrade all insulation etc before or when doing your new heating system 

I.m guessing 1965   it is hard plaster hot plasterboard 

money spent now to improve insulation and limit heat loss keeps paying for itself forever 

rather than having to fit a bigger boiler and trying to heat the world

 you may  find then it might alter your choice of heating system and size  

I was on lpg -changing to ASHP  dropped heating bill by £1000 a year 

so do your homework first 

do you know what energy cost are now for the property ?

if the double glazing is 80,s then it will not be good by modern standards 

The double glazing looks less than 10 years old. 
cavity wall and standard render/plaster.

This is my homework.......

10 minutes ago, scottishjohn said:

1965 house could be due for a rewire as well--so if you can afford to lose a little   room size you could fit insulated plaster board to your walls and  rewire at same time --lots of savings doing things in right order or together 

Some of it will be rewired but it will all be chased into the wall.

I will not be replastering the rooms and apart from the extra insulation in the attic, I’m not sure if I could do anything to the cavity walls as they were done in the’80’s?

18 minutes ago, Nickfromwales said:

Hi. 
I think you should define “starting from scratch” as that can mean a lot of different things!  

Are you taking the floors out to get insulation and UFH fitted or do you plan on replacing the storage heaters with conventional radiators?

In that type of property, if you’re not hugely improving insulation ( eg fitting EWI and possibly IWI ) and draught-proofing the place pretty well then I doubt it could be a candidate for an ASHP ( Air Source Heat Pump ) as the flow temperature is a lot lower and therefore radiators would need to be nearly twice the size of those run off higher temperature eg gas / oil. 
Fabric first please, so we know what we’re dealing with  

It’s my intention to leave the existing walls/floors as they are.

The night storage heaters will be removed as they’ve got to be expensive to run and you have no real control over them?