Advice needs on central heating.

[Bugsy]

A question for heating experts.

We have a reasonably new, well insulated hot water tank.

With oil prices spiraling would it make economic sense to have an emersion heater fitted to heat our hot water instead of running our boiler.

Some idea of costs involved would be welcome.

Thanks

[andyh4]

The answer will depend on whether you thonk they will continue to spiral or whether you think that in a month's time Libya (and the rest of the oil producing world) will be quiet again and oil back to under 80$.

 

Long term oil will increase - but do you want to invest now for 20 years ahead - or alternatively should you have invested 5 years ago for 2008 and now?

 

And if oil does continue to spiral, what happens to electricity prices?  I know France is nuclear, but rising fossil fuel prices has never stopped EDF raising their prices in line.

 

Tough question to answer

[crossy67]

BTU per BTU electricity is about the same on standard rate at the moment but electricity is much cheaper on cheap rate, night time.

[Babbles]

We put 2 large electric hot water tanks for the guest part of our accommodation, Ist due to price of oil as our boiler is out of the ark and secondly when its really hot in summer when we are at our busiest I don't want the boiler heating up the back stairs and our accommodation when its running for just water.

In the near future we are going to change the boiler but I'm not sure wether to change it over to town gas,

[NuBeginnings]

We also opted for independent hot water tanks in each of our guest bedrooms, makes life simple when we have guests turn the tank on. As for heating, when we brought our place it had a 100KW oil boiler installed in the main house. As we were renovating a number of outer building that would require heating, we decided to install a 100KW bio fuel boiler it can run on pellets / wood chips and logs in an emergency to heat the whole estate.

The idea being to to cut and chip our own wood, we have 15 acres of mature forest. I am also going to plant about 5 acres of saplings next year for future fuel.

So this year we brought pellets but by next year I hope to be using our own wood to heat the whole estate

The oil boiler, then became our back up system and is used to top up the bio boiler when temperatures hit -10 !

You can get significant government rebates if your changing your system from  oil to wood.

[IMG]http://i1116.photobucket.com/albums/k562/NBeginningsFrance/DSC_0050.jpg[/IMG]

[Anton Redman II]

I think it depends on how efficient your oil burner is when used just for heating the water as opposed to water and Central Heating.

For 8 months of the year we do not have the CH on. Three years ago we installed an electric cylinder total costs excluding my labour about € 200. Savings per year versus oil for hot water about € 200. Note the oil fired combined system heating the laundry / boiler room to the point where it was on comfortably hot in summer despite installing an extractor fan. A more efficient oil water heater was not a cost effective option as we do not plan on keeping the house long enough for pay back

[sid]

Bugsy, we have exactly same situation; an oil boiler which is about 7 years old and runs well, and a separate hot water cistern with a coil (ie, the hot water tank is not contained within the boiler casing). We run the boiler all year round for the hot water production and only have the CH running during the winter months. It works well for us and I particularly like the fact that it can produce a full tank of hot water in less than an hour compared to the several hours required for an immersion heater. This is more important in the summer when we have guests in the gite. I have no comparison costs though, but am satisfied with our oil consumption which is fairly low.

I have wondered about changing the system to include an immersion heater on the split tarif, but at this stage I don't want to spend anything more and I'd rather wait until the boiler or the water tank need replacing, which could be ages yet (I hope!).

If your tank has the necessary "hole" to fit an immersion heater perhaps that would be the cheapest way forward for now to enable you to try it out?

 

[Quillan]

[quote user="NuBeginnings"]We also opted for independent hot water tanks in each of our guest bedrooms, makes life simple when we have guests turn the tank on. As for heating, when we brought our place it had a 100KW oil boiler installed in the main house. As we were renovating a number of outer building that would require heating, we decided to install a 100KW bio fuel boiler it can run on pellets / wood chips and logs in an emergency to heat the whole estate.
The idea being to to cut and chip our own wood, we have 15 acres of mature forest. I am also going to plant about 5 acres of saplings next year for future fuel.
So this year we brought pellets but by next year I hope to be using our own wood to heat the whole estate
The oil boiler, then became our back up system and is used to top up the bio boiler when temperatures hit -10 !
You can get significant government rebates if your changing your system from  oil to wood.

[/quote]

Dont plant trees plant "Willow Tips". Much faster turnround (3 years) so you need three areas to rotate. Plus once you get started they are free.

http://www.energysavingcommunity.co.uk/coppiced-willow-for-energy.html

 

[Bugsy]

Thanks guys.

This has come to mind with the crazy oil prices currently being charged.

I had a delivery yesterday and it had gone up 3 cents from when we ordered it 1207 euros for 1254 litres 0.96 cents a litre.

I've bought cars for less.

I think I'll do what Sid suggested and fit an immersion heater and just try it.

That said, it looks like electricity prices are set for a huge increase in charges shortly in an attempt by government to increase competition.(not sure how that will work) I didn't even know that there were competitors to EDF.

.

[Théière]

What about a solar heating system for your hot water, even if it only provides 70-80% of your hot water requiring a top up that would save some over the years. Several ideas available that don't require replacing your existing tank so saving a fair bit on the costs.

One example Here

 

[NuBeginnings]

Quillan

Thanks for the tip some one else had mentioned willow, but the link you supplied was very informative. I have the space to rotate the crop. So it will free heat soon !

Just need to work out is solar is going to be cost effective as EDF just phoned to say our bill is €4000 for the month of December, can't be correct! They are sending some one out to inspect ;-)

[mint]

Don't want to upset Bugs or anyone else but take a look at this:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financevideo/8359992/Niall-Ferguson-Oil-could-reach-200.html

Scary or what?

[idun]

Before gaz de ville came to our village we had an electric water heater. It only ran during the cheap electricity hours, but there was never enough when we had guests and sometimes not enough for us either. I would hope that a good quality new one would be very well insulated, so cheaper to run, also I would suggest getting a bigger rather than smaller one.

Solar sounds like a good idea and something I have been thinking about, even in northern England.

[PaulT]

Install one anyway. If the boiler breaksdown you will not have any hot water until you find a man to fix it. The immersion heater enables you to heat the water by another method.

As you have it fitted you can now carry out some comparisons.

Paul

[Quillan]

[quote user="PaulT"]

Install one anyway. If the boiler breaks down you will not have any hot water until you find a man to fix it. The immersion heater enables you to heat the water by another method.

As you have it fitted you can now carry out some comparisons.

Paul

[/quote]

I am now going to tempt fate. [:'(] We don't have a secondary backup although I can do some clever things by opening and closing valves to make one tank feed more than one room. What your saying is quite correct especially if you have a business like a Gite or B&B, you can't leave guests without hot water. I always get confused with the names because it was so long ago that I installed mine but basically there are two types of hot water tank, one being a little more expensive than the other. The more expensive one has a heater element that is inside a shroud and does not come in to direct contact with the water. This means you can change it without draining the tank as nearly all the tanks have heaters that are bottom mounted. The thing is these things always seem to fail at the most inconvient time like whe you have a full house all dining in and they fail at five in the afternoon.

[Araucaria]

[quote user="NuBeginnings"]Quillan

Thanks for the tip some one else had mentioned willow, but the link you supplied was very informative. I have the space to rotate the crop. So it will free heat soon !

Just need to work out is solar is going to be cost effective as EDF just phoned to say our bill is €4000 for the month of December, can't be correct! They are sending some one out to inspect ;-)

[/quote]

We have a similar boiler to yours - it runs on woodchips, sourced very locally indeed. But I've added some solar panels to the system as the woodchip feed system for the boiler is noisy - and the boiler itself sheds a lot of surplus heat into the house - in the hope that in the summer months we will hardly ever have to run it.  I'll find out when/if we have a summer this year. It's annoying trying to keep the house cool in the summer and at the same time running a large boiler just for our domestic hot water. I appreciate that you are heating a larger establishment and the amount of solar panels/tubes you'd need would be much larger.

In cost terms we'd probably have been as well off with an electric immersion heater, but I kept the costs to a minimum by doing the installation entirely myself, and it does press some ecological buttons too.

[JohnM]

[quote user="NuBeginnings"]We also opted for independent hot water tanks in each of our guest bedrooms, makes life simple when we have guests turn the tank on. As for heating, when we brought our place it had a 100KW oil boiler installed in the main house. As we were renovating a number of outer building that would require heating, we decided to install a 100KW bio fuel boiler it can run on pellets / wood chips and logs in an emergency to heat the whole estate.

The idea being to to cut and chip our own wood, we have 15 acres of mature forest. I am also going to plant about 5 acres of saplings next year for future fuel.

So this year we brought pellets but by next year I hope to be using our own wood to heat the whole estate

The oil boiler, then became our back up system and is used to top up the bio boiler when temperatures hit -10 !

You can get significant government rebates if your changing your system from  oil to wood.

[IMG]http://i1116.photobucket.com/albums/k562/NBeginningsFrance/DSC_0050.jpg[/IMG]

[/quote]

If you have posted this info elsewhere in the forum please just point me to it. If you haven't, since reading this I have been quite taken by the idea of pellet / chip heating. Such that I've spent quite a few hours surfing, however, there are a couple of things I'm not sure about so thought I'd ask somebody who has got the system.

I assume that they can't have a pilot light, but get the impression that they can be lit at the push of a switch. Is this so? Because my place is for holiday only and in a cold area, I have always planned that my central heating would include the box that would switch everything on if I sent DTMF tones to it as I left the ferry at calais meaning that I'd arrive to a warm house. Do you think one of them would connect to a pellet system?

Cheers

John

[Araucaria]

John - the pellet/woodchip boilers are lit by an electric hot air blower. A bit like (well, exactly the same as) a hair dryer, but funnelled into such a tight space that the air is really hot. Think about those hot air paint strippers you can buy.

So there isn't a pilot light, and they light themselves automatically whenever needed (it's all programmable).

The boilers are not cheap. And mine needed three-phase electricity too (to work the archimedes screw that feeds in the woodchips). But at least the fuel is cheap and renewable. Wood that has been chipped-up dries out very quickly, so it can be burnt soon after cutting and chipping.

Mine is available with the module that lets you send it a text (or whatever) to turn it on. I expect most of them are.

It is worth saying that for the woodchip alternative you need a large storage space to keep the woodchips in (20 cu meters or so), near to the place you put the boiler. You'll need to ask someone else about granules. I know mine is able to burn them, but I don't actually do so, and know nothing about it.

[JohnM]

Thanks Araucaria.

Ermmm..... I've got three phase and quite a large cellar that could hold a boiler and the chip/pellet hopper so things are looking interesting. The text message option is nice as well! How long ago did you have yours and what sort of price was it? Are there many installers? There isn't an agent for Froling in my dept. What make is yours? Sorry, I know I'm asking lots of questions but I am quite taken with the idea.