Outcome of Level 3 Survey

[DevilDamo]

A house I am looking at buying has had the following mentioned within the Level 3 Survey…

 

”The property is heated by wall mounted radiators that receive their hot water from the electric boiler to be found in the cupboard in the main bedroom. I am told that this was installed 2 years ago by the current owners. This type of installation is unusual, it is possible that the electricians understanding
of such systems may be limited because of this. It may well be the case that hot water supply may be a little limited because of the size of the reservoir. It is suggested that a plumber is consulted for a more definitive commentary.”

 

Does this ring any alarm bells? In my current place, I have electric storage heaters so this is different in that water is now running into the rads?

[DownSouth]

I’ll leave someone more qualified than me to reply to your question - but just wanted to ask Is the cupboard insulated? I’d be worried about getting woken up every time the heating kicked in. 

Edited February 15 by DownSouth

[DevilDamo]

Tbh, I can’t remember and will check that during another viewing. If not, I’m sure it’s something I could sort. 

[Alan Ambrose]

I don’t think it’s much of a practical problem - except for running cost depending on the insulation. Plenty here have ‘willis heaters’ with wet UFH and good insulation - so same principle. Worth visiting while the weather’s cold and seeing whether there’s enough ooomf to get to comfortable temperature. Also maybe the size of their dec/jan elec bill. We have UFH with an elec boiler, one of the smaller things on this page:

 

https://www.heatraesadia.com/products/heating-and-ventilation/electric-flow-boilers

 

Works fine, but a bit expensive to run considering the insulation is not PH standard. Also a bit slow to heat the place from cold.

 

[JohnMo]

My niece moved into a house with an electric boiler, it got removed after the first month in the house as bills were hideously expensive. 

 

Ask to look at the electric bills. But with a smart meter you get a decent time of use tariff to make costs acceptable. Octopus Cosy for example is for heat pumps or electric heating.

[DevilDamo]

Thank you both. I currently have an electric boiler along with panel/storage heaters and on Economy 7. So because of that, the new house should not be a lot different in terms of costs.

 

I’m currently with EDF and will definitely look into Octopus. 

Edited February 16 by DevilDamo

[ProDave]

Electric boilers have always struck me as the most stupid idea.  Why heat water with direct electricity in a big box and then pipe it to rooms via pipes into radiators?  If you are going to heat with direct electric, just fit panel heaters.  WHY the complication of an electric boiler?

 

And most installs of an electric boiler just use a direct heated HW tank with an immersion heater, the boiler play no part.  It would be just as absurd to use the boiler to pipe heat via an indirect coil to a hot water tank.

 

The only electric boilers that make any sense are electric storage boilers and only if combined with something like an E10 tariff so you can heat the water at cheap rate and draw it at any time to heat the house.

 

I suppose the only good point is having the pipes and radiators there, then there is a chance of relatively easily converting to an air source Heat Pump? 

[SteamyTea]

9 hours ago, ProDave said:

Why heat water with direct electricity in a big box and then pipe it to rooms via pipes into radiators

It is so you can charge and discharge at different times and powers.

Just a more controlled storage heater.

[ProDave]

1 hour ago, SteamyTea said:

It is so you can charge and discharge at different times and powers.

Just a more controlled storage heater.

If it is a storage heater then yes, the central storage boiler is likely to retain heat better than a normal storage heater until you pump the hot water round to the radiators.

 

But as i understand it this one is not storage.  It is just a collection of electric heaters in a tank, i think they go up to about 12kW, that heats the water as it goes round.  So it draws electricity when heating the radiators and not when it doesn't.  Pretty useless on a TOU tariff unless your house is really well insulated.  Most I see are on a normal single rate.

 

My point is, if you don't have the advantage of storage and a TOU tariff, I fail to see what an electric boiler gives you that individual electric panel heaters does not.

[Alan Ambrose]

I guess it can be converted to gas or ASHP fairly easily - at least in theory. I think a lot of people here are assuming that electricity prices stay high - it could be that electricity becomes very cheap in the 3 seasons except winter. 

[MrPotts]

I think an electric boiler could be a good option for replacing a gas boiler but only if the government/energy suppliers reduce the price of electric to gas price level. The system we have at present for electricity pricing is a scandal!

[Alan Ambrose]

>>> The system we have at present for electricity pricing is a scandal!

 

It's a bit simplistic but I guess the gas peakers, which are important to the system, wouldn't bother to turn their stuff on unless they were making a reasonable profit.

 

Maybe some longer term pricing arrangements than tomorrow's 1/2 hours would help?

[SteamyTea]

58 minutes ago, MrPotts said:

The system we have at present for electricity pricing is a scandal

The last unit, marginal pricing, is not used in new contracts now, it was set up to encourage investment in renewable generation.

It has worked as we now have a lot of wind and solar generation, and a stable grid.

Contract for Difference is now used. This is basically a price guarantee, based on installation price and generation capacity.

 

Electrical generation is not like buying fuel for a car, it is dynamic, so would be more like driving with just 1 litre of fuel in the tank and paying difference prices depending on how busy the fuel stations are.

[Alan Ambrose]

V good analogy.

[DevilDamo]

Thanks all.

 

Currently, I have an electric boiler/tank along with storage and panel heaters. The heaters are on their individual switches. The storage heaters store and release the heat throughout the day while the panel heaters are manually turned on/off accordingly.

 

This new boiler is somewhat very different. Firstly, it is a lot smaller than what I have now and there is pipework running to all radiators.

 

Converting to a heat pump is something I could be interested in. The survey threw up the potential of asbestos in the ceiling. Would that impact any heat pump installation as I know some suppliers will not touch a property with asbestos?