Our old gas boiler has broken what to replace it with?

[@davidrunnalls3039]

This is a subject close to my heart. Having had a new Bungalow built in 2018 spent a lot of time looking at the best way to heat it and hot water. Had some experience in Inverness with Air Source Heat pumps. They will not work when outside temperature is below - 5c, but the experts will tell you they do. The council in Inverness had to replace them with Gas boilers after their Tennants had electric bills of £200 per month in the cold winter of 2009/2010. Thought about ground source heat pump but the cost was preventative. Having decided to have a gas boiler but not what the builder was installing. Chose a Worcester Bosch and a Heatrae Sadia Megaflo. After 20 months we had a Heat recovery system installed and this has saved gas usage for heating. About 15% although we need a couple of years to get a better idea of savings as each year's weather is different. The company that installed the heat recovery system also has experienced the same problem with Air Source Heat pumps saying that they are very difficult to set up properly this is here in Dumfries and Galloway. If I was replacing my Boiler now I would still go for a Worcester Bosch but the model that I think is now that is future proofed for retro fit to Hydrogen. Worcester Bosch as far as I know are the only company that have made this work. I was going to give you a link to the video but I lost it!! Its on KZbin somewhere! Looked into electric boilers but as you have found it is really expensive in electric consumption. I am an ex engineer and worked with Oil boilers for a few years, Royal Navy before that.

[@johntisbury]

Thank you David. I will go and search out the hydrogen link. Worcester / Bosch boilers have always had a good reputation and are UK built, so servicing and spares is good. I did look into Worcester and it was a tough call between them and the Veissman. Thanks for the confirmation on the ASHP too, it supports my understanding too.

[@jno5]

Interesting information; I’m in the process of trying to get planning permission to build a bungalow and trying to find the best way to heat the property & the water, I’d like solar with a battery (as John’s) but budget it tight so have to consider what I need and what I’d like, the needs have to come first then depending of budget I can add some of my likes.....

[@peakrider4886]

@@jno5 the solar PV and battery option is great in terms of running the electric demands of the house, but unless you plan on having a very large array and big capacity batteries, I don’t think it’s a good option to heat the house. If you’re building from scratch, I would think ground source heat pumps would be a much better solution-just look at all the Scandinavian countries and their use of this technology. We live in a bungalow, have solar PV, and electric radiators due to no gas supply in the area. It takes a lot of electricity to power the radiators, far more than our 7kW solar system can provide. Plus the fact that inverters output rating will also restrict how much energy you can get from the panels and batteries to do this.

[@philipwoods6398]

Thanks for the video John. My EDF Hybrid Air Source Heat Pump (retaining my oil boiler in parallel) has now been installed for 6 months. The data shows that I have COP results as follows: Oct 4.82, Nov 5.12, Dec 4.56, Jan 3.2, Feb 1.97, Mar 1.81. Electricity use is 2,273kWh producing 7,426kWh of thermal energy (therefore COP average of 3.27). Scheduled hot water is produced by the oil boiler plus any surplus PV diverted to the hot water tank.

[@johntisbury]

Thank you Philip for your stats and data, that is most helpful. May I ask what other work was carried out to install the heat pump. Larger radiators etc?

[@philipwoods6398]

@@johntisbury Hi John. No other modifications were made prior to the Hybrid ASHP installation, all the existing heating system remained unchanged bar a couple of new actuated valves. I took advantage of the British Gas insulation offer a few years ago, having the cavity walls and loft insulated for free. EPC certificate prior to install, stated EPC Rating of C70. 183 sq.m requiring 17294 kWh per year space heating and 3330 kWh per year water heating. The Oil Boiler is also measured and has fired producing 4,615kWh in the last 6 months, I suspect around 440 litres of oil used. I suspect that I am now in the mid B EPC rating. Comfort levels have dramatically improved as the house stays at a constant 20DegC. If you would like a copy of the Hybrid ASHP data spreadsheet for the last 6 months, let me know. Thanks again.

[@johntisbury]

@@philipwoods6398 Hi Philip, just spotted that you'd commented on here. Your last comments on my August and Sept solar stats videos I get notifications and when I go an look they have gone, which is most odd. I added a note to my Community tab in case you spotted it to make you aware I was not ignoring you. kzbin.infocommunity

[@peakrider4886]

Thanks John. It’s certainly a conundrum, like peering down the rabbit hole or black hole more like. Given me a few things to think about, especially about the type of windows, as we plan to change these, and have a warm south facing front to the house, and a cold north facing rear of the property.

[@johntisbury]

Thanks for watching. I've only just dabbled into window and glass research, but it is more involved than just choosing frame material and how many openers you want. It's good to know this beforehand, rather than after the fact.

[@almoyes3758]

How very timely! I had just started my voyage of discovery when I saw your video and your clear explanations have saved me hours of confusion! We had already decided that a new front door should be the first step since our hallway is the coldest part of our house and a new boiler (prob Worcester Bosch) and (mixergy) tank being the next stage. Our previous house had triple glazing (noise) and we really noticed the difference when we moved here despite the double glazing being new. Looking forward to the next vid!

[@johntisbury]

Don’t you just love it when that happens! Thanks for watching. Next video being researched

[@chrisnewman7281]

You may have mentioned it in one of your other videos. Also recommend that you get a energy audit done of your entire house to work out what other measures you can take to improve the energy efficiency of your house. Generating heat is only one part of the solution is also important to consider heat conservation. Doesn’t make a lot of sense to generate the heat then have it escaping out through single glaze windows or having draughts under doors.

[@johntisbury]

Thanks for watching Chris. I have been doing just that over the past 18 months or so. We have just had a full heat loss survey too prior to getting a heat pump installed, videos to follow on this. As you point out the cheapest energy is the energy you don't use.

[@petanders1968]

Great video John. When our gas boiler broke we got some quotes but through research of other heating options we went for Daikin Air conditioner units instead which can provide both hot or cold air. We have a detached bungalow on south coast with decent insulation built in so having these units in each room and being able to control them via a wifi app is great and although we pay a bit more for elec use we save by not firing up a gas boiler and we have removed all our central heating rads ,heating our water is by an elec immersion tank in our cupboard, and our power shower uses that for hot water, our gas bill is now minimal as we only use gas for cooking. Later this year our gas guy is going to completely remove the old boiler and all pipework so more space in the cupboard and the loft area. Peter

[@johntisbury]

Thanks for watching Peter, glad it was useful. Your approach seems very sensible. Time has passed since making this video and gas shown itself even more that it is a fossil fuel that we all need to stop using. Have you looked at induction electric hobs? We have one and it's as fast as gas and as controllable without the mess. It means you can disconnect your gas completely and save on the standing charge which has almost doubled in costs in the recent weeks. Just a thought. Heat Pumps / air conditioning is certainly the answer for many, there's still the thorny issue of cost to retrofit and the price of electricity. I know these things will get worked out over time. Octopus Energy are pushing hard in this area training heating engineers to install heat pumps and bringing the install price down through volume.

[@petanders1968]

@@johntisbury Will look at induction electric hobs, thanks for the suggestion, I see you have a lot more videos so will be looking at some more of them. atb Peter

[@kevinbuck6871]

Hi John, depends what you want to achieve with your heating? We have gone fully renewable for the whole house, as I wanted to stop burning carbon fuels. We have a solar system of 29 panels and 2 X Tesla PW2's and the whole house is fully electric, so gas has been disconnected. We also have 2 EV's as well. I have replaced our 2 year old gas combi boiler with an ASH and hot water tank system. We have a standard radiator system with 15mm pipes. 8.5kwh (output) ASH has been installed and we have just gone though our first winter with it (draws about 2.3kwh when running at full pelt, as rated at 9.1 amps). We live in a 4 bed detached house in Essex and most expensive month was January, at £224. This was for everything in the house, including heating and charging both cars and the lowest month for solar production. Personally, I would recommend the air source heat pump system. It worked fine in the cold when we had the snow and ice in Feb! We are also on Octopus EV Go tariff and the whole system woks really well. Regarding incentives, there is the RHI scheme (Renewable Heat Incentive). We qualified for the maximum and got an £11.5k grant from it for a £13.5k system!. Let me know if you would like to know more, email me at [e-mail]? Kevin

[@johntisbury]

Thank you Kevin, that's good to hear and I'm pleased that your ASHP is working well for you and the costs are sensible. Great news on the RHI too. Thanks for the offer for a follow up too, appreciated. I will take you up on that once I'm in a better position to know what's what.

[@kevinbuck6871]

@@johntisbury no problem John and thanks for reply. Should have also said I'm an engineer (mechanical) and spent about 18 months researching all this, so I've done a lot of the homework and have the spreadsheets!! Our house was a bungalow and D energy rated, due to original 1950's construction. We've added another floor about 2 yeas ago and have now insulated the old 9" brick walls on the ground floor with 50mm celtex and external cladding. This only went on a few weeks ago, and the difference has been very noticeable. I expect the energy bills to be much lower now and in fact March is already looking like about £130 for the month, which includes charging both cars (mines a Model X and I still do quite a few miles a month). if you follow Fully Charged, look out for it in the next 12 months, as likely to be featured on there.

[@johnrush3596]

I have been researching this myself. Currently my research has got me to where you are. Sunamp looks good if you have limited space for hot water tanks, ashp look ok on paper but they are dependent on the heat difference between the liquid in the pump and air temperature to work. The less the difference in temperature the more energy needed to heat the water in the house. Gshp sound good if building a house from scratch and means the temperature into the unit is held at around 8 to 12 c all year round and makes it easier to predict coats. At the moment all I can see is something to keep the water hot and keep the heat loss in the property as low as possible. Finally the more energy produced on site, the better chance of heating the water in the hot water tank or phase change device effectively without huge bills. To be honest the perfect house would be next to a free flowing stream with full ownership rights and enough space for about 15 to 20kw of solar. Wind is not effective on small scale. For us we have 10kw of solar and 70% of the power is generated during end of march until end of October, exactly the months we do not heat the house ! Even with 10kw and producing almost 10mwh of power a year, it is not enough to be fully self generating.

[@johntisbury]

Thanks John, good solid comments and thought process. It will be great when there is long term energy storage and householder level to store what's generated during the summer to use in the winter. Like rain harvesting in reverse, season wise. I'm getting mixed message on ASHPs which makes the decision process a tad more tricky. My thought process is the same as yours at present around ASHP.

[@johnrush3596]

The only way I can think of long term storage is something like hydrogen but that could end up a tad explosive.

[@nickieredshaw7835]

@@johntisbury there is something like than in the trail stage I think . Ask solar Ireland on Twitter John . A good few people are watching with interest as it’s on most people’s radar easy way and cost effective way to store summer excess solar to use in not so sunny weather!

[@ellon118]

Great video John, I have just stumbled onto your channel and right now, I;m in this same place as you, although I do not currently have any solar, which I think I will install first and just hope my gas boiler keeps going for another year! It will be interesting to see your newer videos and see what you had installed and why,. Cheers

[@johntisbury]

Good to hear your plans. Solar first does make sense with a fingers crossed approach to your boiler. If you decide to go ASHP remember it's not a distress purchase option in terms of planning, installation and timelines. My later videos covers what we chose and any and then another covers the installation process from start to finish and post installation perfjoamcne, There's 3 or 4 in total I seem to recall.

[@cunningiain5594]

Hi John Just to give you a insight on what I have and my current thinking! I have a SW facing, 1950’s bungalow on the south coast and over the years have improved in my view items. So my current EPC is 100 but remember this is purely on heating costs so a ASHP only rates as medium efficiency compared to gas. My electricity coast 0-18p normal & 0-11p Economy 7, gas cost 0-03p/ kW. I no longer use gas and am getting my gas meter removed but then will come the cost of ‘making safe’ the gas supply, it will be expensive. The rear elevation of the bungalow has a NW facing conservatory and is good at providing a protective rear wall and the SE wall of the bungalow has a attached garage along it. Loft 300mm insulation and cavity filled walls. Two years ago my 35 year gas boiler needed replacing and I went down the route of a Nibe ASHP, upgraded radiators and this year upgraded my hot water cylinders. I have 29 PV panels giving about 9.6 kW of power but the DNO has limited me to a maximum export of 6 kWs. A myEnergi Eddi heats my 3 hot water cylinders and a de stratification pump circulates the water during certain points of the heating of the hot water. I have 2No Tesla Powerwall2s and Gateway 2. Two of my PV systems get FiT and I also get a RHI. Currently I make about £1000-00 a year after deducting electricity cost but excluding RHI payments. No EVs, as no EVs at the moment are capable and approved by the manufacturer of V2H. Vehicle batteries still has some way to go before this V2H capability is up to standard. I would say 3 months of the year I underproduce / import electricity, 2 months of the year I break even and 7 months of the year I overproduce/export electricity. All in all I would say get the thermal efficiency up of your house up. Thick insulated curtains work well. Keep doing your research and look into all your alternative, you still have time before your boiler breaks down again.

[@johntisbury]

Thank you Iain, you have been busy. A suggestion on you gas supply. Once you gas meter has been removed, then rather than pay to get disconnected the iDN (Cadent, SSE, Wales and West etc) not sure where you are geographically has a legal obligation under the Gas Act to disconnect your gas supply if it's not been used for 12 months. The cost is on them, not you. They call it a GSR Cut Off in the industry. OFGEM are keen to see these unused service pipes made safe and disconnected. Good suggestions on thermal efficiency, that's certainly my plan.

[@nickieredshaw7835]

Thanks for your video very interesting we been looking a new heating for last 2 years and had quotes from 10-15 k£ ! For air source heat pump and after much research 🧐 we found out if you got the money it’s a good way to heat your house but 50% + say it’s not a cheap way to heat the house with electricity prices of late ! So to wipe out £200-300 gas bill it’s not worth the hassle as most say radiators need replacing in our 35 year old bungalow .

[@johntisbury]

Thanks for watching Nickie. 100% agree with you, my research and investigations have drawn the same conclusion as it stands today. I do however feel there will be movement on this very soon. Electricity is heavily taxed on CO2 emissions, even though more and more is produced from renewables. Gas is not taxed and as you know is about 1/3rd of the price of electricity, and is a fossil fuel so emits CO2 emissions. I think the government will level up the playing field and make electricity compatible if they want to meet their 2050 target. Heat pumps certainly work and I think that they will soon be mainstream. I watched a very interesting video on Hydrogen and the difficulties and physical issues in supplying it to a domestic premise. Leakage due to the very small size of the molecules, physical volumes that need to be pushed down the pipework, plus a 20% maximum mix of Hydrogen means we will still need to burn 80% gas in the mixture. So despite the noise around it being the future for domestic heating, I don't now feel that it will work having watched this KZbin video. Big Oil, energy transporters (Cadent), boiler manufacturers want Hydrogen to work, there's big money trying to push their agenda.

[@davidstorm4015]

It makes a lot of sense to have a hybrid system, i.e. a heat pump together with an efficient gas boiler. This also depends on your house and how the heating is currently configured. We have a large Victorian stone house which has 3 floors and 15 rooms, a cellar (full size of the house), a ground floor and a first floor. The cellars largely have wet underfloor heating, except for one room which has oversized (triple) radiators. The ground floor and first floor have oversized radiators. Our heating system consists of a 16kw Samsung Air Source Heat Pump, together with a Vaillant 32kw gas boiler. The heat pump takes care of heating for the entire house if the outside temperature is above 5c, whereas at temps of 5c or below, the gas boiler is used. The gas boiler also heats our water (300l insulated cylinder), unless we have spare capacity from our solar panels, in which case the panels are heating the water, via a solar i-boost device which is connected to the hot water cylinder's immersion heater. This ensures the heat pump is always operating at a high efficiency and that the lower heating temperatures it provides are sufficient for heating the house. We are considering adding more solar panels (currently have a 4kw array) and a battery system to improve our efficiency and reduce reliance on the grid. EDIT: we have 15mm pipes throughout the house for our central heating,this was not changed when the heat pump was installed. We've had no issues with our system in the 6 years we have had it and have been pleased with the performance / energy usage. Our bills are roughly half what they were with our previous heating source, which was an old gas boiler. Also, we were not heating the cellars with our old boiler, so we have managed to halve our costs whilst heating 33% more cubic metres of space.

[@johntisbury]

Great points David and thank you for your input, stats and background to your system and setup.

[@James-zu1ij]

Is the gas boiler a passive part of the ASHP when not in use. Eg is it in series with ASHP outlet. Could they work at the same time? Not heard of a hybrid system.

[@davidstorm4015]

@@James-zu1ij no, the system has either the gas boiler or the ASHP on, not both at the same time. The only caveat to this is when the gas boiler is heating our hot water cylinder, it can do this at the same time as the ASHP is providing heat to the house. It's all triggered by the outside air temperature, you can alter this but at the moment it's set for the ASHP to work at temps above 3c, then the gas boiler kicks in when it hits 3c outside. This ensures not only that we get max efficiency from the ASHP, but also that we are not asking it to heat a large and old house when it's really cold outside and it could struggle to supply enough heat.

[@James-zu1ij]

@@davidstorm4015 thanks David

[@JustMeTalking]

We've got a similar hybrid system in our house. We have an Air to Air Heat Pump which provides heating and cooling to living spaces. Which is great in Summer as we get Air Conditioning powered by our Solar Array. In the colder months, the Heat Pump takes the cold edge off, and heats our house using Solar Array. During Winter we switch over to a Gas Central heating system with water radiators. Ideal for wet rooms and towel rails. Works great.

[@lynnfisher4396]

Hi John Coincidentally our replacement combi is starting to be fitted today , a Viessman 35kw 100. We went through the same process as you are and there are many common themes shared. Our old combi packed up and was repaired albeit we knew it was temporary. Gas boiler wise it came down to a choice between a Worcester Bosch 8000 and the Viessman. The stainless steel heat exchange and copper pipe innards of the Viessman trumped the WB even though the WB had a 12 year guarantee over the Viessman 10 year warranty. We stuck with gas as the move to hydrogen will be 10 years or more coming and we are sure that current new boilers from Viessman or WB will be able to be retrofitted to burn hydrogen. We looked at air and ground source heat pumps but for reasons similar to your comments decided against them. It was the disruption to the house and our site which precluded their use. Like you we are now looking at improving the insulation. Out home has a south facing front which retains the heat well, the rear where the living room is is always cooler. We are considering external insulation on the north side of the house even though cavity wall installation is present. Triple glazing to the northern rear is on the cards too. Loft insulation is to current standards. Finding a knowledgeable insulation company is proving problematic too and it may be common as the Government Scheme just finished obviously found a shortage to deal with the demand. The payment of installers was an issue too though. As you rightly say, the whole heating arena is very confusing. Our take on it is that the more you learn you realise how deep your lack of knowledge is! We look forward to your next video. Cheers

[@johntisbury]

Good luck with your boiler install, I'm sure you will notice the difference in performance and gas usage over your old boiler. I'm pleased to hear a positive affirmation on the Viessman. I'd not heard of them before I started looking into boiler replacements, however they soon appeared to be in the top quartile for quality, performance and features. Seems to be a common theme for many people who want to do the right thing in terms of reducing their carbon footprint and upgrade their current home technology. The solutions at present don't seem to meet the needs of the outgoing fossil fuel technology for all situations and circumstances.

[@edc1569]

@@johntisbury I put a Viessmann 050 Combi in to my home, cost me £1600 fitted in central London with weather comp and a system flush, along with the filters. Seems like a great boiler, modulates well, only complaint is it takes a bit of time to produce really hot water, but that'll be unique to the combi.

[@lynnfisher4396]

Hi John Day two of our boiler fitment. Having had a British Gas Homecare plan for years we mistook their yearly service for guess what? A service. Well it wasn’t, it’s was an efficiency check and no servicing is done. Consequently no inhibitor was added since the old boiler was put in 11 years ago. Not being gas engineers we didn’t know any different. Today we have had the system power flushed which because of the sludge and filth in the system took all day to clear. Some contractors offer a chemical flush rather than a power flush which doesn’t dislodge the truly grubby bits. The power flush includes a chemical injection but also allows the system to be flushed in both directions. I am not surprised our old boiler had given up the ghost given the colour and consistency of the discharged water. The power flush was an additional cost over a chemical flush plus we have had a filter added too as is common on new installs. We live and learn. Lesson 1. Don’t bother with a BG Home Care policy.

[@johntisbury]

Good old BG! Interesting to know about powerflush vs chemical injection, makes sense when you know. You’ll be able to drink the central heating water now!

[@mikepeever4714]

Thanks for doing this,will await your conclusion with interest and a side note we have oil heating as there is no town gas only LPG which is the most expensive method anywhere

[@johntisbury]

Thanks Mike. It's unfortunate if you are limited based on location to available fuel types. As you say sometime you have no choice.

[@MyApole]

Hi John, I've been using a hive heating controller for many years and it works well. However recently added hive smart trv's. They don't work and lots of bad press. I do think smart heating control and trv's make a difference worth considering though. I have a combination boiler and trying to add a thermal heat store or alternative is providing hard, the sums don't add up.

[@johntisbury]

Thank you. I read that as smart TVs to begin with LOL, that confused me for a bit. That's a good call as we have TRVs but they are 20 years old, so suspect things have moved on. Plus the Hive would be a good improvement too.

[@barryroberts9302]

great info john i will continue as you are researching. thankyou for sharing clear information.

[@johntisbury]

Thanks for watching Barry, glad it was a useful video for you.

[@jeff4493]

Thanks John. We are on a similar journey. Our planned solution has involved/will involve : low temperature air source heat pump, Sunamp battery, radiator replacement, improving loft insulation ( Green Homes Grant secured), Renewable Heat Incentive ( Heat Pump), adding another 5KW of solar and moving to the Tesla Energy Plan....

[@johntisbury]

Thanks for watching Jeff. That's great plans you have there and a joined up solution. The TEP needs for you to have a Tesla Powerwall with an optional Tesla car, if you have the car you get a cheaper rate. Have you already got the Tesla battery or have Octopus changed the joining parameters?

[@jeff4493]

@@johntisbury I already have a Powerwall2 and have been with Octopus for a year with phase 3 and a SMETS2 meter , and import/export MPANs so I am hoping the switch to TEP will be straightforward.

[@johntisbury]

@@jeff4493 ah good news. Tesla will want to see the DNO approval for the Powerwall.

[@jeff4493]

@@johntisbury They will the Octopus application process needs submission of documents- I have a DNO ( UKPN) ‘no works’ agreement for 15KW installation ( 5KWH existing solar + 5KWH existing Battery + 5KW new solar) with an export limit of 10KW

[@tonyc4068]

I'm fascinated to learn what you've decided (or are considering). We have abandoned our ASHP (Air Source Heat Pump) project and are now looking at a WHIR (whole home infrared) heating system. Infrared appears to have lots of advantages over ASHP… • Similar running costs (possibly less according to quotes). • Very little maintenance - No moving parts. • Panels can be positioned on ceilings freeing wall space for other things - Actually one of the most efficient locations. • Panels can be used as mirrors and pictures. • A better way to heat your home - Some consider infrared superior because it doesn't circulate air in the way convection heaters do. • Not directly affected by opening windows/doors - Infrared heats objects and you, not the air. That's why infrared is used for patio heaters. • Far easier to control - Individually controlled radiators with thermostats, motion sensors, timers, etc. • Easier to adopt - You can simply start by plugged one in. • No ugly heat pump occupying space and generating background noise. • Upfront cost is similar to replacing radiators for use with ASHP. Bottom line If you find yourself replacing radiators to accommodate an ASHP you might be better off not going with an ASHP at all. It would be great if the government thought this way and started promoting other types of green heating options other than heat pumps, which may not be the best option, even if you do have space for one. Putting £5,000 towards a WHIR (Whole Home InfraRed) heating system would go a long way towards transitioning most homes to a greener heating future. We had been seduced by the government's endorsement of ASHP and their generous RHI (Renewable Heat Incentive) scheme, which would, ultimately (over a period of 7 years) recover a large proportion of the upfront cost, estimated to be about £10,000. But then what - you're left with an very expensive piece of kit which simply allows you to keep using an outdated central heating system with all it inefficiencies, maintenance overheads and doesn't actually save much on running costs (not enough to justify the huge upfront cost and maintenance bills). And, ultimately, will need replacing at your expense. We're now thinking about putting the money we saved from the ASHP project towards a roof full of solar PV panels. Hence we stumbled across your videos.

[@johntisbury]

Hi Tony, thanks for watching and giving such a detailed response. I'm like you and feel that heat pumps do work providing the circumstances are right. However there are not the only solution. I've fitted two Infrared Panels; 1 in my photography studio and the other in the garage to keep those locations heated. They work fine, the heat is interesting as initially you walk away from being infant or under the heat source and you don't feel the heat. Once the room gets to temperature they are great. The adage of fabric first is still vital, heating a leaky box is just as inefficient be with using gas, electric or some other fuel. We've still not made a decision which way to go and are biding our time. Our old boiler was repaired and still works. I'm running it now on the lowest temperature setting to see how the low temperature flow is working. So far so good, but we've not have any really cold days yet. House thermostat is on 18ºC and the house is warm. Octopus Energy are doing a massive push on training heating engineers and want to get the cost of a heat pump down to 5K with the cost to run it the same as gas. So we will see how that pans out. They are already running trials and have invested in a huge building to house training and admin teams to support this initiative. Knowing Octopus they will get it right as they listen to their customers and know that technology is the key to reducing costs and improving efficiency.

[@tonyc4068]

@@johntisbury Hi John, Thanks for sharing your thoughts on infrared heating. We are arranging to try a Herschel 800W panel soon, so hopefully we'll discover we like it's style of heating too. The more I think (and find out) about infrared heating the more I'm convinced that we made the right choice abandoning our ASHP project. Surely using electric to heat water and pump it around a "wet" central heating system has got to be inefficient. Even if an ASHP can, on a good day, operate with an efficiency of 1kW in to 3kW out (i.e. COP of 3). Why not use the electric to heat your home directly with all the efficiency and benefits that offers. Phil Steele at Octopus Energy seems to think so too. His blog about NexGen's electric wallpaper neatly presents all of the benefits. octopus.energy/blog/nexgen-electric-wallpaper/ In my view, it's all about the running costs, never mind the COP (Coefficient of Performance) and RHI (Renewable Heat Incentive). At the end of the day if two alternative heating systems are likely to have similar running costs but one has (appears to have) significant advantages which would you choose. That's the big question ;-) I'm not sure that biding our time is really an option. If our oil boiler breaks down again, beyond repair, we'll be in a difficult place if we haven't been proactive. We would like to stop burning fossil fuels and really don't want to find ourselves pressured into simply replacing the boiler because it's the easy option.

[@johntisbury]

There is certainly a fork coming up in the road for domestic heating. There's key things that need to be put in place to make mass adoption of electric heating viable. The main one is the lack of comparison between gas and electricity pricing. The green levies on electricity needs to be redressed without leading to increased fuel poverty. I know the government / OFGEM are looking into it. The proposed 5K grant is all well and good to cushion the installation price of a ASHP but does nothing to protect the consumer from higher electric bills as a result of going all electric for heating. For me this is still early adopter territory and whilst it's the right thing to do the stopping of burning fossil fuels. It's not something that has been joined up to make adoption a sensible option without incurring financial penalties to the householder on daily running costs. I totally agree with all your points and IR heating does make sense for the longterm in terms of fit and forget and no maintenance. Have a follow of Chris who has installed a few IR panels around his home and uses an electric boiler in a wet radiator system. kzbin.info

[@peterjones6640]

Another piece of information you may care to review is IQ glass, they have a product which is super insulating glass, it combines double glazing with one to three pieces of transparent film, therefore the glass is effectively triple or quadruple glazing but without the weight. I believe one version of this glass was used when refurbishing the Empire State Building.

[@johntisbury]

Thanks Peter.

[@RyanEmery]

Have you considered or looked at the Viessman Pt2 fuel cell boiler? The fuel cell produces heat and electric from natural gas. Has a top up boiler and a cylinder. All in a unit the size of an American fridge. Uses gas but is ready for 20% hydrogen mix. I cannot see air source heat pumps being viable for anything but newer homes. For older homes I expect they involve excessive cost in upsizing radiators and not convinced they will work efficiently in winter. Have ordered a Pt2 myself. In 15 to 20 years time at its end of life there will likely be other options.

[@johntisbury]

Thanks Ryan. Our original boiler was repaired and is still going. I did look at Viessman and was very impressed with the products. We’re looking longer term to not use gas. I don’t believe gas/hydrogen will happen for domestic homes, despite industry lobbying to save their market.

[@garywinter4291]

Plus 1 for ASHP. We changed 2 years ago to ASHP have not looked back. As others have said it really needs a well insulated draft free house if you are sticking with radiators. We changed to ufh downstairs it was consistently -2C this winter for several weeks house was always 21C. We are on octopus go faster Run it flat out during off peak charge up powerwall and run it off that till it’s empty.my highest bill this winter was £140 in January. House was built in 2006’isnt well insulated and has the same draughty double glazing and doors that you do.

[@johntisbury]

Thank you Gary, this is heartening to hear. Not the draughty double glazing and doors bit! LOL

[@garywinter4291]

Another option is air to air heat pump i.e. air conditioners then you can keep your boiler and rads. Then you get cooling in summer aswell and can do it piece meal by room. They are often overlooked for heating but are becoming more common.

[@johntisbury]

I attended an Webinar on Friday on a deep EnerPHit retrofit and they had air to air heat pump. He said it was very good.

[@batandball617]

I’ll be following your progress with interest....

[@johntisbury]

Thank you, hope you will find it interesting going forwards.

[@nicksportster8711]

Excellent video as always... If it were me i would be 'swapping' the old gas boiler for a new efficient one thats guaranteed for 7-10yrs and carry on with the cheaper heating for the moment. Let technology v's price catch up until then. Air source heat pump... hmmm, we too have micro-bore heating and from what i've read they only give a low level background heat. Plus its recommended that you increase the size of your radiators by 50%. One of our neighbours installed one when he had an extension put on and took the gas boiler out. 2yrs down the line they moved out, new peeps in and after 18 months they ripped the air source heat pump out as it kept breaking down and when it did work the house was never 'cosy' in the winter just barely warm apparently. We have solar pv (only 3.6kw) we also have a Solar iBoost to heat the hot water, and can thoroughly recommend it. We're currently getting quotes in to have a home EV point put in and a home battery storage system too. Our house is only 30yrs(ish) old, yet we've had two electricians tell us we need to 'up the size of the 'tails' to the consumer unit from 16mm to 25mm' goodness knows why, and other quotes not even mentioning it.... baffled.? so am i....

[@johntisbury]

Thanks Nick that's sage advice. I'm leaning that way at present, a new gas boiler that is. There's no doubt heat pumps work, but the installation issues for our location and the cost to install are the two big drawbacks. As you say once they become more mainstream the price will tumble much like solar panels. We already have an eddi for hot water boosting from excess solar. I can recommend JOJU Solar Ltd and Stratford Energy for your EV / Battery install, I have used both of them.

[@salibaba]

John good luck on finding something suitable. We have been in the same situation recently. Knowing we may change to electric ie new tech in the coming decades. We decided to leave off changing our working heating system when doing major renovations taking down walls, full rewire. Now found to have a knackered heat exchanger 3 months later. I’ve been researching myself and for our 84msq. semi, I don’t think heat pump stacks up, much as I really really want it to. We did the same with the fabric of the building and started there with a new back door and solid external wall insulation with a grant from energy saving trust. Draughts stopped in their tracks. When enquiring about GSHP we were looking at figures £18,000 and up. For an ASHP we would be looking at approx £12,000 and were advised that in order to get as much heat as possible transferred from the system to the air in the rooms would require much more surface area of radiators meaning we would need either oversized radiators or underfloor heating if it was possible. The RHI only covers about 3/4 of our install figure and I’ve taken into account how much we would have spent on a gas boiler anyway. Perhaps my next system could be an ASHP, unless I find one too good to be true, maybe in the middle of Lidl 🤣

[@johntisbury]

LOL, the middle aisle at Lidl will sell ASHP! It's not an easy choice and the heat pump costs don't seem to justify the 'savings' that you will make. Yes there's the RHI but that's only for 7 years. What happens after that, you have a mega electric bill.

[@salibaba]

@@johntisbury at this point in time I’m close to making a seperate decision on PV and a battery so if long term I can shift my consumption to cheaper times with the battery charging overnight, adding another one to the system may work out viable to run the ASHP when we need at a cost better to justify the system.

[@nickieredshaw7835]

@@salibaba yer we looked at next heating system for our 35 years old bungalow and couldn’t come to a decision so spent the money on solar and battery system and selling our excess electricity to the grid to make credit in the summer and offset the price of gas heating in the winter as it’s cut bills massively and been using oil filled radiator from the solar or overnight electricity to fill the battery and all is working great 👍. Would love to got 100% fossil fuel free but 200-300£ gas bill is not worth the 10-15k£ to get ashp or the 50-100 kWh a day mid winter for electricity boiler ! Maybe 🤔 something with come up in next few years but now it’s gas boiler for us im afraid 😩🤔😢

[@LoremIpsum1970]

Glad I found this vid as this journey (or rabbit hole!) mirrors my own, though I'm starting with having not run the gas boiler for the last 5 or so years since it broke down...No, I won't touch any type of heat pump! as I'd rather spend that money on solar panels and a battery...If greenflation is going to hit gas prices then I might take a gamble on an electric boiler and underfloor heating... We're in a 62m^2 floor area 2 up/2 down semi.... Looks like a lot of reading in the comments too!

[@johntisbury]

Thank you, it is a hot topic with rapidly developing technologies and solutions. As ever every house and household is different which means the system chosen needs to meet those needs rather than a recommendation from someone else who is happy with their heat pump, infrared panel, wind turbine, heat store and so on. It really is a bespoke setup for every household and not a one size fits all. Which I'm sure you already know.

[@SkellyMr]

Hi John, this is a subject that I’ve been casually researching too, with the view of being as informed as possible when facing the inevitable boiler replacement within the next few years. Thermodynamic Solar panels with associated heat pump is something to consider, although probably not for whole house heating at the moment. Infrared panels and/or NexGen infrared wallpaper is also getting my interest . As someone already has said it’s a big subject, will watch your updates with interest.

[@johntisbury]

Thank you for watching. There is a mass of technologies out there. I've just installed a Far Infrared bar heater in my photo studio. Plus I have 2 panels going into the garage when I get round to it. They work very well indeed. I have no more space on the roof for any more panels, we are loaded with solar PV, which is a shame.

[@nickieredshaw7835]

@@johntisbury what power draw Is the infrared heaters and how much do they warm the room up ? Thanks

[@johntisbury]

The suspended bar heater in the studio is 1800w although you can also run it at 900w. The other two flat panels I purchased are 720w each. Far Infrared don't heat the air unlike radiators or normal heating, they heat objects. When you get near the heater it's the same feeling as being outside when the sun comes out, you feel the heat from the sun on your body. They are used in warehouses, large buildings where you want to heat locally where people are working / sitting. In a smaller room / home environment they will heat up the room over a period of time as the fabric of the building gets warm. However, like a heat pump, it's a slow gradual heat on the fabric. If you stand near the heater you will feel the heat right away as it warms your body, move away and you will notice the colder air.

[@fredflintstone1428]

In 2006, our combi boiler that had been fitted new in 2001 gave up the ghost. As the internet was quite new still back then, a visit to a plumber's forum confirmed to me that it wasn't worth fixing....the forum was strewn with stories of 'unreliable, temperamental...ditch it' advice. So I bought what was at the time one of the cheapest combi boilers...A Biasi (Italian make)...at around £379 I decided to buy two, as the work involved in changing the pipework at the boiler was extensive, I thought it was better to get a replacement when the Biasi should go tits up in say seven years. I'd already converted the loft as part of the house renovations, so left the boiler in the box and it sat in a corner. Fast forward to the present day. The Biasi's digital programmer has seen better days and the buttons are a bit temperamental, but the boiler has never been serviced in 16 years. It still burns with nice blue flames, although the pump's bearings whine a little on start up. It has been the best boiler I've ever had.

[@johntisbury]

That was a sound purchase for sure. You will be able to sell the mint in box version for a song in the near future.

[@MultiOutdoorman]

Problem for most renewables owners is we can sometimes generate too much energy in the summer, when it is required less, and insufficient in the winter, when it is needed so much more. My next "upgrade" is to install an air-conditioning unit to burn off the spare Summer energy for cooling our house, when all other loads are in less demand. A heat store battery for winter heating might be handy to charge a battery system cheaply, during the "off peak" discounted periods at night, as we currently (no pun intended) do with our Electric Vehicle. Lets hope a cost-effective solution becomes more mainstream in the near future ?

[@johntisbury]

Yes this is very true. It's a changing technology at the moment with new products appearing arriving almost every day. Exciting times for renewable owners.

[@antoinekurukchi283]

Thank you, I am interested in this even though I moved into a new build 3 years ago. I think the other part of the equation is you don't have to heat the whole house up all the time etc. Having a more intelligent heating system should save too. So for example when everyone else is out and I'm working in my office, I can set my office to be 19-21 deg C but the rest of the house is to hold 15 deg C. There are a few systems out there. I put in the wiser system in my house and it does seem to work well. probably take a good few years to pay back but so far I think it has saved me money. The other bits I've heard of is the use of hydrogen in the future instead of gas but I suspect that is a long way off.

[@johntisbury]

Thank you Antoine, this is a great point about zone heating with smart TRVs. I shall investigate the Wiser system.

[@antoinekurukchi283]

@@johntisbury Honeywell do the Evohome and there's Tado too. Honeywell and Tado are supposed to be great as well but I couldn't justify the doubling of the cost(or more) for just better UI.

[@johntisbury]

Awesome, thanks. Will check those out too.

[@mikey8156]

@@johntisbury I have an Honeywell Evohome system and it has been excellent.

[@johntisbury]

@@mikey8156 thanks Mikey, good to hear another recommendation

[@peterjones6640]

One piece of equipment you may want to research is from Viessmann which combines a fuel cell ( provides a small amount of electricity and heat ) and a gas boiler when more heat required.

[@johntisbury]

Thanks Peter, I will indeed.

[@nickieredshaw7835]

Sounds interesting 🧐

[@ram64man]

The fuel cell system uses 1.5 the amount of gas then an domestic a rated 30kwh . The difference is it generates 750w to 1kwh depending on model from the Panasonic fuel cell thus the cost of electric due to hit 50p per kWh (a rip off if you ask me) will make the electric generated over the day if left on low would actually be more cost effective since it keeps most of your daily base usage covered . It’s had a recent name change but is the same product ironically it doesn’t have a hydrogen acceptance pipe without going through the electrolier. Tippo is not any different than every other electric boiler it’s 1 for 1 so don’t be fooled, the difference is it can store 40kwh equivalent of energy which uses. Reverse fridge element to heat a smaller water store. It assumes your electric bill won’t equalise . But with many off peak rates just being 4 hours on average it doesn’t fully charge off peak , it’s best used with 8kwh on the roof . Heat pumps heat pump heat pump don’t be fooled , first of get a energy servey if you have 10 year old windows standard not great , 35 mm of roof insulation (2023requirements) block your fireplace with a removable grate when not in use) heat pumps can work on microbore but on average if your rads aren’t 5-6ft long doubles they will have to be changed to cope with the lower 35c temps , those that have underfloor heating won’t notice the difference but rad user will notice the difference going 65c down to 40c often feeling just lukewarm so will best remain on all day to get the thermal store of the house warmed up . I had this fitted in America a Mitsubishi Dan eco flow split , temps in the area often dip to low -18c once it reached -6 it swaps from mainly heat pump to internal electric boiler heating 1 for 1 , the bill ran up to 2000 dollars a month. And we were cold all the time so we ended up adding 3 mini split air to air with the sub rooms heated via the conventional duct work (something U.K. homes don’t have) air to air is far far superior for heat and really made a difference the second winter but they are crap for heating hot water as most air to air are low temp units . What they don’t dell you is the buffer tank has to be quite large those with old copper tanks with have an equivalent size buffer tank added . This is where sun amp can make an appearance they say a 10kwh battery can cover your needs don’t believe it. Many I know have 3 10kwh tanks to cover there needs in parallel these are no different than a electric boiler in energy usage the difference is it can be multi fed to thermal change the materials we looked at that long and hard before deciding against it . Importing a a rated high gain twin core 250 tank from Canada under the Panasonic brand (did a bit of research and it’s branded ovo cylinder instead for the U.K. and marketed as a heat pump cylinder) the first heat pump heat store had a twin stainless 28mm connection tank. People say you don’t really need it but they are wrong heat foil wrap, the add a U.K. cylinder jacket then wrap again in foil saves 6kwh of heat loss a day. Now with mainly air doing most of the work and the other mainly water and 30c underfloor when it get cold (4 cto -6) . Total cost 18,000 dollars so no I wouldn’t do it again. Boilers don’t rule out vivien there really big in American and the new 700 series is really good but they big units e.g. 40kwh plus , I would not go vitodens ever again I had one with my U.K. home when it broke (just out of normal warranty) I had it replaced, the lockdown didn’t help but on average if a part wasn’t in stock it was a 6 week wait , the plastic pipes were rubbish often clogging and needing cleaning , the computer was changed twice and the heat exchanger often blocked even though I had a filter fitted . And ioniser /zink in line that was swapped yearly could have gone Wooster 8000 30kwh system but went intergas hrt instead due to its hot water priority on open therm, in the 3 years after fitting we had zero issues before moving stateside just regular yearly maintenance to keep its service. If I did it again I honestly would have gone down the gas route especially for heating the hot water tank and had air to air heat pump for heating , one thing I would say is if you upgrade your cylinder to an a rate fit a energy diverter, between March an mid November the energy diverted via the 3 amp unit heated the cylinder and met our two family situation without any issues you can do the same with off peak energy it’s just the same as a direct electric heating using approx 16kwh to heat a 250l cylinder but do not go down the electric only boilers the energy usage is shocking we had one when moving in to the us home it used 22kw per hour per to heat and daft U.K. regs making communal gas vent non usable it’s hard to run a vent out the side 4+ floors up so can make some sence to use in a flat were energy usage is lower but I would still look for a sub 25kwh combi if I could fit a pipe that modulated down to 3kwh such a the Bosch Wooster 4000 10 to 1 ratio. Regardless if your a multi outlet simultaneously always look for a system with cylinder first

[@bigbark4627]

I don't envy UR task of searching 4 the info. I had solar put in about 5 years ago, the amount of information I had 2 learn as 2 not B ripped off was ridiculous! Good luck with with it all, UR project is probably long completed! 😁

[@johntisbury]

Yes it's an information minefield made more complicated by misinformation, out dated information and general biases. We still have our old boiler, it was repaired and we've been running it at low temperature so not to put undue stress on it. Products have moved on since recording this, like you my knowledge has improved and increased. New heat pump models are becoming more efficient, able to deal with microbore pipework and run a hotter temperatures if required. In 2023 we will be moving across to a heat pump and ditching gas. First thing to do is a heat loss survey so we can scale the size of the heat pump we need for our home. Our boiler is oversized at present, so don't want that to happen with our next installation.

[@bigbark4627]

@@johntisbury It's all really interesting. Appreciate you logging UR project on KZbin. It's not even the misinformation for me, John. I find the trades so money hungry, if U don't know wat UR getting in2 they R charging extreme amounts, no care in wat's actually best 4 the customer! It makes starting any project intimidating as evrythng needs huge amounts of research 1st! 4 me personally, this has definitely become worse over the Covid period! Trades have lots of wrk on, no need to negotiate a price, no need to do a proper job, just move on to the next customer! It's really frustrating & a lot of stress for customers!

[@davidramsay6142]

I changed from a valiant system boiler to a viessmann combo boiler sized to our hot water needs so a 35kw boiler the 100w with a turn down ratio of 6:1. I coupled this with a Honeywell smart TRV system which works very well. I time radiators as to needs and this also amends heat demand absolutes i.e. Maximum as I am never starting to heat all the house at one go. I phase in 2/3rds of the load with hall and bathrooms on old TRVs so always on. I ripped out the header and storage tanks. The new boiler transformed the comfort in both hot water and heating. As a DIYer I did the wet side by replumbing in the summer, we have two electric showers and one hot water supplied shower so no big deal. I bought the boiler and glue which cost £1400 and then hired in a heating engineer to final fit and commission which took less than 4 hrs as I helped by cementing the outside flue vent in place and plumbers mate... The fitting and commissioning was £400 and fully HETAS compliant. Total £1800, house transformed. My house is a 5 bed 1895 Victorian house which I am slowly upgrading to Enerphit as best I can. Utilities currently c. £1200 with electricity at avg 11kWh per day gas seasonal.

[@johntisbury]

You have been busy over the summer. The Enerphit model is a good sound approach until you come to wall insulation and thermal barriers, then it gets into a whole new ball park. The Viessmann boilers are really good products and allow you to run at lower temperatures so you get efficiency from self-condensing and weather forecasting. Sounds like you have a good core system there now.

[@davidramsay6142]

John Tisbury the insulation is a labour of love. I strip off the old lath and plaster though I an leaving the cornice on in the ground floor rooms. What I then do is restore the internal sandstone wall by repointing it on the inside then I restore and reinforce the vertical wooden 1 inch square batons which are fixed to the wall with wooden wedges, I add a few nail troughs to the baton supports more weight than before. I then glue 25mm insulation between the nations and aluminium tape the wooden batons to complete an airtight curtain, I then put up insulated plaster with between 12mm and 50mm of PIR insulation. Minimum insulation is 37mm maximum is 112mm which allows me to retain internal features. Expensive and slow..... 100mm is the Enerphit target. I am installing a whole house ventialation system slowly and refitting triple glazed sash windows with U 0.85. One room at a time but I should get to a self heating house largely. I am a petroleum engineer by the way.... You are correct on the ideal condensing return temperature. I measure the return and ended up with 65c as my circulation temp which gives a 45c return which is fine. I was too low at 60 for a while. Best to measure and find the sweet spot which is different for every system and house. I may put up videos of what I am doing though yet to get a video editor for the footage I have. I have had to invent a few techniques and methods for this old house. My first degree was physics and I studied RE as a module subject also being doing house renovations for years so figured out how to get these old houses back to working as they should, once done way better than new build.

[@johntisbury]

That all sounds fabulous and as you say it takes time but at least you know it's done correctly and you will improve the insulation and air tightness of the fabric of your building. Videos would be a great idea, but they are a labour of love. There are free video editors around for PC / Mac so you don't need to splash out to do basic non linear editing.

[@AllElectricLiving]

Nice video John I’m in a similar position as you apart from when our gas boiler failed last year I took the plunge and bought a electric boiler and 210 litre water tank and that was a purchase I had to make quickly and was rushed, it was good in the first year when agile prices were low but it’s been very expensive the winter just gone to run, so I am also adding to the fabric of the building and should have triple glazing in the north side within the month, looking forward to the journey we both seem to be on and how we get on with it. Good luck and keep us informed

[@johntisbury]

Thanks Chris for watching. It's good to share experiences and information about these things. I look forward to your updates too. Great news on your triple glazing on the north side, that's a very sensible option.

[@AllElectricLiving]

@@johntisbury I will be looking at my neighbours epc rating and chasing other drafts down

[@johntisbury]

@@AllElectricLiving it was a good resource to be fair. I found it very informative. The Draft Chasers! LOL

[@AllElectricLiving]

@@johntisbury lol, I’m hoping there will be some incentive for external wall insulation, I heard the government are moving the ghg to local authorities ( not sure what it will be called ) but no time soon

[@edc1569]

@@AllElectricLiving if you seal your home up too tight you'll have to consider hear recovery ventilation as otherwise you're going to have air quality and moisture issues.

[@johnbodnar3720]

Good luck, currently in same position, also stuck on solar hot water or heatpumps. Something for you to think about, multi foil insulation, if you have wooden wall studs, foil cover them aswell. This is only if you remove plaster wall but the list goes on, some you may have or know. Also if you have blackouts, what's your backup? Good luck!

[@johntisbury]

Heat pumps have come on since record this video. We will be going down the heat pump route. We have a portable battery pack.

[@salokin1]

Thanks, John, mentioning various things to go and look at ... or be lazy and wait for you to give us a start! A bit less choice for us at our location as there's no gas in our village.

[@johntisbury]

Thanks Nick, no gas does limit your choice for sure. Thankfully there are more and more solutions coming online. I'm still weighing up the pros and cons of each solution. The gas option is an ethical conundrum.

[@bengoldthorpe311]

Another technology to throw in the mix - a gas boiler that produces electricity too? Ceres Power CHP (combined heat & power tech). I don’t work for them, just know of them. They have a production plant where I live. Boilers that convert gas to electricity locally in the house or onsite - I expect more companies like Worcester Bosch will use Ceres tech in their next gen. Boilers. Still the best way to keep cost down is insulate and have a lower need - consume less or waste less!

[@johntisbury]

Thank you for that, wasn't aware of their SteelCell innovation. Not sure it will have legs in the long run with 'natural' gas making an exit stage left in the coming future and hydrogen already all but dead in the water for domestic heating. The government aren't convinced hydrogen is right as a home heating fuel. 100% agree with your point re insulate and reduce consumption. It's an approach I've been taking in 2021, there's still more to do in our house, but we've already seen major benefits.

[@taptaps8432]

Hi John, many thanks for your excellent insightful coverage of this problem. I have no gas option - but do not see that as a limiting options. Maybe the government could make EnerPHit cheaper by at least not charging VAT on retrofits and they could tax CO2. I have 1980s Storage heaters(Dimplex XT) that are very inefficient. I just bought 2 IR heaters to see if it worked, so far they seen more efficient than the Storage Heaters. I am keen to see what your findings will be.

[@johntisbury]

Thank you for watching. There’s plenty of scope for targeted government intervention, at least with recent UK announcements on climate targets we should see some initiatives appear with funding support.

[@MrCobraRam]

You have a sealed system (central heating) and an open vented hot water system with a cold water storage in the loft. A good video and as you say , a bit of a minefield in which way to go. You didn’t mention much on the heat pumps, so I was wondering if you realised that you would need to add more radiators or increase your current ones by 50% which could be an issue. Underfloor heating is best suited for heat pumps but I’m like you in that I feel the boat may have sailed on that after hearing reports of high running costs, but still may be the way to go for new builds. The country’s electricity production still heavily relies on gas and fossil fuels and that needs to change before the majority start to switch. Also throw into the mix hydrogen as a fuel source which will start to be mixed with natural gas up to 15% I think, but with heavy support from the big 6 and manufacturers into full hydrogen boilers. Lots to consider and I wish you well in deciding .

[@johntisbury]

Thanks Danny

[@MrPstapleton]

Hi John, Great video, thank you! We got our home late last year and have started looking at heating efficiency. We have started with loft insulation, and over next couple of months, get to use a thermal imaging camera and plug draughts. Our boiler is very old so will be looking to replace next year, and (like you and others) want to get away from gas. Wondering how your getting on? One new company i saw (which I bet you have researched) was Caldera, but aimed for houses with LPG/Oil heaters. Looks like great technology. If storage could heat for 1+ day, I wonder if the economics would work better (charge overnight at lower prices). An added benefit to heat batteries (and Tepeo) is it removes the need for a cylinder, creating space in the home, but electricity prices are just too high. Electricity to gas prices is now more like 4x! It hard when you have a smallish budget, but want to make a significant difference to our carbon footprint. This is all very new to me, so a steep learning curve and staying positive! I'm heading to the fully charged show this weekend to try and get a better understanding of it all. I'm especially looking forward to speaking to Daiken (ASHP). Have you had any luck with you ASHP research?

[@johntisbury]

Thanks for watching Phil and explaining your current situation and approach. I did lots more research after making this video and the thing I've realised that this ASHP technology is a bit of a moving feast. Currently there's just too many constraints for us to retrofit a ASHP; high electricity costs, high installation costs, issues with microbore and flow rates. However, Octopus Energy have invested millions in a brand new training and development venue and aim to get the cost of a heat pump install to under 5K in the next 12 months. Although our boiler is old (20 years) and not a condensing boiler I have been playing with reducing its temperature to get a 40ºC flow temperature and we will run that this winter to see how that works. I'm hoping with the other measures I've taken around insulation and draughts that this will be enough. We shall see. I'm not in a position to spend upwards of 10K on a new Heat Pump / Energy storage solution just yet. I think we may look at putting in a Mixergy tank for our hot water which will be ASHP ready. There's discussions in the right circles around the price of gas compared to the price of electricity. Being that gas is a fossil fuel it the price point needs to change. However, this is a tricky problem as you can't just increase the price as you plunge more people into fuel poverty. Not sure what the approach will be, however I can see government intervention to help us improve the efficiency of our homes and move away from fossil fuels. The Fully Charged Show will certainly highlight many new technologies, however it will be early adopters who take up the mantle with installing them. So the mainstream price point won't be reached for a number of years until the volumes are ramped up. As you can tell, I've not made any decision to invest in new boiler technology. If the worst happens and our boiler dies we will most likely go with a more efficient gas boiler as a stop gap until the market catches up and the technology is at a sensible price point.

[@MrPstapleton]

@@johntisbury thanks for all the great info :) I quite like the mixergy tank too. My partner wants to take the opportunity to create more space, which is where the heat batteries would be really good, but if I can move a cylinder up into the loft at a reasonable price that would be a great solution. I just fear changing pipes is an expensive job. Something to find out this weekend! Some great points aswell John, especially around ASHP and energy prices. One hopes the government will announce something soon!

[@Group51]

Thank you for doing all this research for me. Subscribed!

[@johntisbury]

Thank you for subscribing - a fair swap.

[@Group51]

@@johntisbury Thank you for the EPC checker. I just checked the EPC for a house I’m buying. I noticed it had an old boiler (1980s?) on the wall when I first visited. I presumed it was a combi, but it also had a small (waist height) hot water tank upstairs. So, I’ll have to wait to get there to figure it out. My main concern with it is availability of spare parts. Anyway, my presumption is that when the time comes, I would replace the boiler with a new efficient combi and replace the water tank with a Sun Amp. But as you mentioned, the information on the internet is very confusing and the heating/hot water is very complicated/unknown to me. So I’ll watch you with great interest.

[@bathfun]

Great video, you are far more methodical than me

[@johntisbury]

Thank you Sanjeev, I more than suspect you shine in other areas that I'm not good at. We work to our strengths.

[@daviddawson9099]

Have you thought about the control side too more John. Some systems control the hot water temperature as I believe the lower the hot water temperature circulated the more efficient. So when the system kicks in it is as hot as it can be to warm the house up quickly but then lowers the circulating temperature to as low as possible to maintain the house temperature. Also on individual radiators you can get programmable thermostats so for example you could have the upstairs heating in your bedroom only on later in the evening and first thing in the morning so only heating when your likely to be in there. Some systems too know when your away and will only put the heating on when you get close to home or you could delay the heating remotely if you know your not going home as early as planed. ( may be more useful under normal times). They also learn when they need to come on to give you a warm house at the time your going to get up rather than coming on too early and having the house up to temperature too earlier than necessary. They can even take the outside temperature into account so kick in earlier on cold days. For hot water have you considered the vacuum tubes if your going to alter your system might be something worth considering. The centre for alternative technology might offer some guidance on such stuff. If you removed gas altogether you could save too perhaps on the standing charge perhaps you need to ensure you calculate that in though not sure if there is a premium on single fuel supplies. Just thoughts love the videos by the way. Dave

[@johntisbury]

Thanks for watching David and for your thoughts. The control side of things is something that we need to improve. We have TRVs on all radiators but they are 20 years old plus we only have the old fashioned central thermostat in the hallway. I've been looking at Nest and other systems to incorporate into the new setup. It's an area where we can be more efficient and make savings in heating bills for sure.

[@daviddawson9099]

@@johntisbury probably something you could do prior to changing the boiler. I think Worcester Bosch do have their own control system if you buy their boiler that can be integrated. Worth a look at. I was told it was more reliable than some of the other retrofit control systems but only hear say. I have fitted a few simple wireless controllers for family and friends that you can set different temperatures at different times even that made a massive improvement over a single old fashioned wall mounted thermostat.

[@rodlewis3544]

Hi John, i have been going through a similar thought process to you with many of the same considerations. 20 year old house, similar size same ideal boiler and number of rads with microbore,same vented system. (i would not be suprised if our houses ware the same builder (David Wilson) we have retrofitted cavity wall insulation, windows and doors - we have 300mm loft insulation. I have 4kWp of solar on FIT (8 years ago) and 10.6KWh of battery storage. We are about to take delivery of an EV and Zappi. (Octopus Go) I have litereally been around the houses with this one for months with similar conclusions to you. My thinking presently is to replace my unvented cylinder with a 150/180l Mixergy - use solar divert and overnight cheap rate to provide hot water all year round. and replace my boiler with a high efficiency small capacity one just to do heating and potentially HW boost occasionally. The new Mixergy heat pump cylinder has thrown a curve ball as what would seem a more efficient all electric hot water option, which may then provide an Air to Air heat pump heating only option. Again, head and heard in conflict as i want to be greener but the gas boiler if only for heating seems a much more exonomical option (capex) with very similar runnig cost -given i would already be utilising all my excess solar. i would be very interested to hear if you have solved the puzzle and how. cheers Rod

[@johntisbury]

Hi Rod, this is odd as I can see your full comment in my notifications on my iPhone, but when I reply here there's nothing to see! So hopefully to recall what you typed! Yes we too have a David Wilson home, so it will be almost identical I'm sure, ours is their Galleywood model. I have landed on a decision after 2 years of research and data collation. The problem is also that new products come onto the market and you have to then compare and contrast those to the ones you had already earmarked as possible replacements. I see you've had the same conundrum with the Mixergy. We want to get off gas for a number of reasons. The proposed hydrogen blend scares the wits out of me. Its high leakage, highly explosive, corrosive to metal, expensive, low calorific value, etc etc. I also feel strongly that we should stop burning fossil fuels. Those 2 reasons we be why we are not be going down the gas boiler route. I believe gas will become more and more expensive as time goes on over the next 10 years or so. More and more people are moving away from it. Getting their meters removed and the standing charge is stopped. This will have an impact on revenue over time. I believe the tide is starting to turn on gas. Any new heating system will be in situation for 15-20 years, so I have looked longterm. We have made a decision and I'm about to pull a video together to explain what we are doing and why. So stay tuned for my next video.

[@rodlewis3544]

@@johntisbury thanks for the quick reply. iI will keep an eye our for your video. yes, i had not really considered the Hydrogen point but am of a similar mind with Gas prices. potentially 25GW of floating offshore wind in Celtic sea by 2040 combined with the grid ballancing potential of progressive tariffs such as flux does suggest Gas and electricity converging towards parity in the next decade or so.

[@johntisbury]

The government / OFGEM have previously announced that there will be a parity between electricity and gas prices in the future. I'm seem to recall they have a deadline date set of 2030. Not sure how they are going to do this as 90% of UK homes are on gas central heating and there's a risk of fuel poverty. However, they have stated that the green levies and other charges currently on electricity and not on gas will be changed too. Interesting times for pricing going forwards. Agree with your point about offshore wind, Hornsea 1, 2 (3 will be all be online soon). Hopefully onshore wind also picks up momentum with the removal of the red tape. Onshore is quicker and cheaper to build compared to offshore.

[@freddypeeler1033]

Hello John, I have been looking into the sun amp system as they have a mode that works with a solar system and gas boiler. I was a bit confused at first but found out it heats the mains water before the boiler for hot water so the boiler doesn’t fire up if you have a combi system. Not sure how it would work for your system. I have cavity wall insulation but still suffer from cold west walls as my home has open fields on that side so no shelter from cold winds. I am considering using VIP insulation on the outside and render over it. These two items would make a considerable difference to my heating costs without having to go through expensive pipe work changes. My boiler is 20 years old but has just had the innards replaced so basically new boiler. A 12 wk heat pump for my property would be £5000 ( supply only ) and a sun amp would be £2700 ( supply only). Remember heat pumps need good insulation so you are right in tracking down the heat loss in you house. Good luck . I will keep an eye on your progress. 👍🏾

[@johntisbury]

Thanks for watching Freddy. Fabric first is certainly the way to go, your thoughts on insulation that west facing walls is a good step in the right direction. I'm still a little confused about how the sunamp would work with a 'traditional' boiler and wet central heating system. It's on to-do list to research in more depth.

[@freddypeeler1033]

@@johntisbury I did watch a review on here. A chap had 3 in his house . One for water and the other two for central heating. Sung its praises. I unfortunately have emailed the manufacturer and 3 other fitters for info but had no response ( obviously don’t need the custom 🤦🏽‍♂️) . I will try and find the review and send you the link.

[@johntisbury]

@@freddypeeler1033 I think that will be Johnathon Porterfield up in windy Orkney. I've seen his review of the sunamps and his reference to crisp packets. Does appear some companies do not want the trade.

[@Jazzynet100]

At the same point, looked at all sorts of things from new gas boiler to heat pump etc but then ended up with a £600 electric boiler. Used all the existing pipe work, hot water tank and fancy pump I had. Yes it will cost more to run but at £1000 installed was hard to ignore. Solar PV will help with cost as will the Tesla battery and My Energie Eddie. The decision took a couple of years and may quotes of air con, heat pumps, other electric boilers in the end though a simple inline super slim one from heatrae is what I went for. I live very near you, 1990 build 3 bed.

[@johntisbury]

Thank you for watching. An electric boiler is certainly a good choice, almost 100% efficient and convenient. I'm sure going forwards when electricity prices become more parible with gas prices that will prompt even more people to make the swap too. Congratulations on being an early adopter and making the change.

[@simonbroddle754]

Great video. The biggest loss from a central heating system is probably the plethora of copper heating pipes between the ceiling and floors which lose heat with amazing efficiency! All ours are fully insulated. The other area is our bedrooms are much colder than the lounge etc, so when we put new ceilings in we added 250mm of insulation between the ceiling joists so as not to lose heat into the bedrooms. Is combined heating and hot water possible under £1.00/day?

[@johntisbury]

Thank you for watching. What a sensible approach and idea. Thanks for sharing.

[@Highlander247]

I love hearing the research youve done john its some rabbit hole youve gone down haha. Have you looked into tech like opentherm controllers that talk back and fore to modern boilers and smart thermostats like google nest or hive so the boiler doesnt overshoot on temp when heating up? Would love to hear your thoughts on a smart thermostat to go with the new boiler!

[@johntisbury]

Ah good point. A whole new field of research opens up! Thanks Alan - I think. :-)

[@JasonGardnerUK]

Massive subject when you delve into it. I look forward to hearing more as your journey continues. Have you come across any useful resources for updating/repairing Upvc window seals ?

[@johntisbury]

Thank you Jason. yes it's a bit like Topsy when you start looking into it! No I've not looked at resources for that, however I only did my windy draught test today, so it's an area to look into. There's the old fashioned sticky back foam draught strip, but that may not be good enought. I will post something if I find a good resource. If it was cars, then I could give you loads of links / resources! LOL.

[@johntisbury]

www.handlesandhinges.co.uk/upvc-gaskets-and-double-glazing-seals/ here you go. Lots of different profiles here and based in Bolton in the UK.

[@mikey8156]

Could you not just squirt expansion foam into the gap?

[@johntisbury]

The draught is coming in from an opener window, so not a great option to use foam in this situation.

[@chrismcardell8137]

If you can get rid of gas entirely for cooking and heating you will save the standing charge too, Electric oven and induction hobs work just as well as gas.

[@johntisbury]

Thanks for watching Chris. We only use gas for heating, all cooking is on electric. Which makes the choice somewhat easier.

[@iareid8255]

John, I believe heat pumps are over hyped. They are not as energy efficient as they would have you believe, because they omit all the losses from generation, transmission and distribution. I suggest you get a new gas boiler while you can for running costs, effectiveness and reliability. I wonder how many heat pumps will still be running in twenty years time without expesnive replacement parts being needed.

[@johntisbury]

It’s a fair point. Thank you.

[@mikey8156]

The reason why electricity is 3 times the cost of gas is at the moment most of our electricity is produced by burning gas. 2/3 of the energy is lost up the cooling tower.

[@johntisbury]

Thanks Mikey. In 2020 gas accounted for 30% of the UK generation mix in Q3 and 41% in Q4, so it makes sense what you are saying.

[@edc1569]

@@johntisbury there's also a lot of operational costs in running an electricity network - gas is a lot easier to store and get to people to meet their varying demand. With some of the better performing gas plants they are closer to 50% efficiency - quite remarkable - but you've still got transmission losses.

[@justinlouis3171]

Evening I’m very new to your channel did you finalise your choice on the boiler matter? Keep up the good work

[@johntisbury]

Hi Justin, a very good question. No is the short answer. I need to pull together a follow up video covering where I am with my thought process and why I'm treading water on making a decision, there is some thought process behind my inactivity and it's not down to procrastination.

[@justinlouis3171]

@@johntisbury it’s fine and I know it’s hard I’m a builder and had the exact same problem when looking at what to install when I refurbished my home, with experience in the field I think there are many factors that affect the decisions. Just to name a few -Location in the country -property insulation( can it be improved) -rads or underfloor heating( I know u said rads) - warranties on boilers depending on manufacturers -then tank or mega flow (is your incoming water main big enough to have a mega flow) -solar I boost ready tank I could go on and on but the top few points are the most important factors I feel aswell as budget. Good luck with it and I’m here if you want any of my views

[@deth3021]

Don't forget the expansion function of the f and e tank, so its a safe way for the hot water to escape, otherwise you have a pressure cooker aka a pipe bomb.

[@beardsyASMR]

Very interesting! I'll be following this keenly since we are likely to have to replace our oil burner in the next X years because of legislation where I live. Can you say which thermal/infrared camera you used? Did you buy it or rent? It's a toy I'd like to treat myself to!

[@johntisbury]

Thanks for watching. I purchased the Thermal Imaging Camera I got a HiT model number HT-A1

[@beardsyASMR]

@@johntisbury Thanks! The price is right on that one. Would you buy it again?

[@johntisbury]

@@beardsyASMR yes it's good. The image files output are small in size, so if that's important to you then maybe look at other options. Images come out at 320x240 pixels from the camera.

[@ted_maul]

Would it be worth looking at removing the cylinder altogether and just fitting a modern combi? I know it's not very sexy, but especially with just two of you in the house it would be very efficient.

[@johntisbury]

Thanks Mark, good suggestion. I had pondered that as a potential scenario, however I still want to benefit from solar surplus heating the hot water. So a combi would work but we'd lose free hot water heating.

[@waynecartwright7276]

After 2 combis i prefer my megaflow, can shower in a power cut, wastes less water (can turn on and off and no waiting for it to fire up), lifetime warranty and its a battery for my PV

[@christianjackson9534]

The Green Homes Grant scheme can cough up 2/3 towards increasing domestic energy efficiency. I looked into it for solar thermal.

[@johntisbury]

Thanks Christian, the government announced on Saturday night that they were no longer doing this GHG scheme. Nothing in the announcement about any alternative.

[@christianjackson9534]

Really. That's a shame. The govt really does need to do something to help us all go greener - the sums just don't add up at the moment. For us, pv is coming out at 13+ yrs payback... And that's if I buy it all and fit myself. Only 5% vat would make the world of difference. ASHP is a non starter for your house. They only really work out well if you can keep the flow temperature below 45C (40C ideally) which means large surface are rads, or forced air rads. We have an open plan house with large downstairs, under floor heating and tiled floors - on paper ASHP should work well. However - I run a refrigeration and air con firm with 20yrs experience and access to excellent trade pricing....... But we still have a gas boiler - that says it all. Will most likely go gas/ashp hybrid when the time comes to replace boiler.

[@johntisbury]

Thank you Christian, that's good to know that as ASHP won't work well in our house based on our current pipework etc. That was my worry too.

[@JJalexHH]

I have heard lots of negative feedback regarding heat pumps including my neighbour across the road and one of my best friends. My friend has had his heat pump installed for approx. 4 years and he's not a happy bunny. He says it cost £16k for purchase and installation and costs more than he was expecting on electricity (even though he has solar panels) and the system doesn’t heat the house up sufficiently during particularly cold periods. He said the fan broke the other day and it took several days for someone to repair it so he had to purchase a few cheap and cheerful fan heaters as a temporary solution. Totally agree about self-generation of electricity with battery storage but should we really be heating our homes with traditional water fed systems? Heat wastage via pipework can lose up to 50% heat energy! My brother in law has installed a smaller modern electric water boiler specifically for tap, shower and bath hot water coupled with advanced Lot20 electric radiators to individually heat rooms to precisely the right temperature thus avoiding wastage. Think we will go down the same route as he said the whole set up was simple and scrapped his old ugly radiators. He also said the running costs were less than his old gas central heating system (factoring in the KwH usage). The purchase and installation cost was around £2500 for his system which seems pretty good value.

[@johntisbury]

Thanks for your thoughts. This video is now 18 months old and the UK heat pump industry has seen some massive changes with new products and designs. What was true when this video was launched is not true now. I have circled round on this topic and it's fair to say over the past 18 months I have spent time studying many heat pumps installations, watching and hearing form people who have had a professional installation, have the data to support the efficiency. Heat pumps can and do work, however they are not a panacea and require a good system design and installation. Many older installations of heat pumps, those 3 - 5 years ago will not be as efficient as those installed today. Whilst heat pumps have been around for decades, they are relatively new for heating here in the UK domestic market We've been 80% gas boilers with wet radiators. As a result the system design and installation of many heat pumps in residential homes has been less than optimal. The first and most important step is fabric first. Improve the insulation and draught reduction of the building. Then do a heat loss survey. That will determine the size of heat pump needed. Without the heat loss survey it is a best guess on the size of heat pump needed. Many installers will over size a heat pump, as they have done with gas boilers in the past. This leads to much higher running costs for the customer and less efficiency. Electric boilers are great however they will only ever be 99/100% efficient in producing heat. A 1: 1 ratio of 1 unit of heat out for every 1 unit of electricity in. A well designed heat pump installation will be 3:1 up to 5:1 so three to five times the heat output for 1 unit of electricity. Making them cheaper to run than a gas or electric boiler. Heat pumps are still in the early adopter stage here in the UK domestic market. However, if properly designed and well installed they will work. There are new heat pump models coming onto the market each week that can run at higher temperatures to cater for our traditional wet radiator systems here in the UK. They are not perfect, but hey our gas boiler broke down and we had to wait a week for a new part. Which was the trigger for making this video in the first place.

[@fredflintstone1428]

I've been thinking of the old storage heaters (Economy Seven in the UK). Aren't they like bricks that heat up and slowly give off the heat in the next 24 hours? If there were any good solar days in winter could they not heat these up and use the grid when it's not enough?

[@johntisbury]

Yes they could, although they are rather blunt instruments for supplying heat and using power effeciently. There's better solutions around now for example phase change materials (PCM) for hot water and/or heating. Sunamp thermal stores is one such brand, there's plenty more around.

[@davidshipp623]

Have you considered a straight swap to an electric boiler, or considered switching to electric underfloor heating? I also wonder what happened to the CHP (combined heat and power) boilers that were much touted some years ago.

[@johntisbury]

Hi David, yes had considered an electric boiler. One of my fellow KZbinrs / Twitter friends has a 12kW electric boiler and it's so expensive to run at current electricity prices. Unfortunately we can't have underfloor electric heating as we have hardwood flooring throughout downstairs which is not suitable for underfloor heating. We have turned down the temperature of our boiler to its lowest setting and only run it for central heating now. The boiler is fine after it was fixed 12 months ago. Whilst it is inefficient in terms of gas more usage as it's not a condensing boiler with limited controls, it's working. Heat pumps will be the solution, however we are holding off until the install prices come down once they become more mainstream and volumes help to reduce the price point. Octopus Energy are going great things in this area, training engineers to design and install them. So I will keep an eye on that area of the market. The green levies on electricity will also be removed, they have until 2028 to do this though. This will even up the massive price difference between gas and electricity unit costs. I suspect they may even swap or meet half way, that's my speculation, so could be wrong. However, electricity prices will not be inflated by the green levies as they currently are.

[@davidshipp623]

@@johntisbury Hi John, thanks for the reply, interesting to hear about the cost of running the electric boiler (although cheaper to buy I understand). I wish I had gone for electric underfloor when remodelling the house around 10 years ago, but have similar flooring issues. Being a light sleeper I worry about the proliferation of potentially noisy heat pumps everywhere. Super abundant renewables is the ultimate answer I guess. Plus insulation insulation insulation!

[@johntisbury]

@@davidshipp623 yes electric boilers are cheap to buy. For me they sit in the middle between gas being the worst option to heat pumps being the better one. That ranking is down to efficiency. Gas least efficient, electric boiler 100% and heat pumps can be 300% efficient. Old heat pumps are noisy, newer models not so you'd hardly hear them. 100% on insulation, if you can reduce the need to heat as you are retaining it then that's the cheapest option. We've done massive changes last year to our heat loss around the house. I've done a video on that too!

[@jamesjulian]

Hello, watching this two years later as just watched your microclimate video, your Ideal classic was standard efficiency not condensing.

[@johntisbury]

Thanks for watching, I thought I said it was non condensing, but can’t recall now. The boiler was made before condensing boilers were available. But ca

[@shaunhambley291]

Can you pair an EDDI with a Heatrae Sadia Megaflo model CL145HE? This is currently heated by an oil boiler in the main, but it does have an electric heating element, which I don't think is working current! Solar being installed in June and assumed the current setup was ok to add an Eddi but now worried it's not! Have emailed Myenergi to ask, but would welcome any comments or thoughts here.

[@johntisbury]

Hi Shaun, in short yes it will be okay if it has 1 or 2 immersion heating elements then you can use the eddi. If it has 2 immersion heaters then it can handle both of them sequentially.

[@kinross24]

By using a heat pump and increasing your existing radiator efficiency by adding new larger and more efficient radiator s the heat pump will manage easily

[@johntisbury]

Thanks Glen. I'm sure you are right with the larger radiators, that's a normal approach. However having 10mm microbore plastic pipework, which has the smallest internal diameter of all pipework may through additional constraints and complications. I don't want to double my electric energy bill because the pump has to work 24/7 at maximum to get a decent flow rate and ambient temperature.

[@kinross24]

@@johntisbury if it’s plastic microbore then it’ll be really easy fir a retrofit to 12 or 15 plastic pipe with very little disruption

[@suzycat2026]

Thanks for sharing. I wonder what you have decided to go with now 1year later. My 30year old Combi gas boiler now caput, 🙀 I can't afford to buy, no heat or hot water for 2months. From the 3 quotes I have had, British Gas fitting the new type Nitrogen ready Worcester Bosch (with condensing pipe from flu) has been the best deal so far at £3k inc.Vat > They even added on £100 to wash out old radiator system, which no other company did, surely unfair. Had an education about needing larger copper piping all way from meter to boiler & radiators. Nobody mentioned replacing my 30 year old radiators (only 4) , but now think they will need replacing too. Any advice is welcome, thank you.

[@johntisbury]

Thanks for watching Suzy. Our boiler, whilst inefficient, is still working. Technology has moved on since making this video and a heat pump does look like the direction we will be going. I want to get off gas. A power flush is a must for your system to clean it out before a new install. The larger diameter pipework will be needed as your new boiler will run at a lower flow temperature which results in less gas usage.

[@suzycat2026]

Good morning @@johntisburyThanks for your reply, much appreciated. Yes, technology moving fast, so a heat pump is probably good for your well insulated house. That's good as you researched well. The cost is prohibitive for me, but in a drafty tenement flat , nobody has suggested it would be suitable for me, & no room for big water tank. Ravenheat combi did well for 30years! Almost feel sad to lose it!☺ I understand if keeping my old rads. they will need a flush, just b.g. the only ones adding extra £100 to the quote. Now on finding out about larger radiator piping, I presume my old rads will need changed out too? ( If the job needs done, may as well do it the best most cost effective way. ) Would you suggest making sure the new gas boiler is compatible with Solar panels, incase I want to add any in future? Anything else I have not thought of? It's a big step for me. Thank you for your advice.

[@johntisbury]

The Ravenheat has done well for you. You will have to raise a glass to it once it is removed. A new condensing combi boiler will be so much more efficient than your old Ravenheat, they run at lower temperatures and use less gas. In terms of your old rads, I suspect they are T1 which could be replaced by T2 (T is the number of panels) T1 is a single panel radiator, T2 is a double panel radiator with metal fins to dissipate more heat. The radiators can be the same physical size, they are just a bit deeper and stick out a bit more from the wall. The T2 double radiators double the surface area which is needed to maintain a desirable temperature if the flow temperature is tuned down. Make sure who ever installs it is going to work to a flow temperature of around 50ºC and they are going to use the modulation feature or weather compensation that will be built into the boiler. The commissioning of the boiler is more important than the actual installation, however, they do go hand in hand. Combi boilers don't need solar. As you won't have a big water tank there's no opportunity to heat your hot water from excess solar.

[@suzycat2026]

Thank you@@johntisbury that's great advice about the commissioning. Rads are the double type, using teeny weeny copper pipes, I think that's reason surveyor meant about needing new rads. Probably a good idea to have them all lagged as pipes in a cold basement. Checking out draughts, a heat gun be handy, my old front door has cracked glass panels, could use new double glazing > that would save lost heat. I will save this video so I can check your advice when the time comes. Hopefully before Winter. Certainly 'Raven' will get a good toast before she goes.🙂 kind regards.

[@johntisbury]

Draughts are your enemy. You don't need any hi-tek equipment for draught discovery, I have done a video on reducing draughts and adding insulation. kzbin.info/www/bejne/jYmtXmuCjdKantU Also the HeatGeek channel has a consumer playlist about installations, what to check for etc. Not all the videos will be 100% relevant to you, but the advise is solid, UK based and 100% accurate. kzbin.info/aero/PLCiiOldyeuCI2IWmRjIvJDeYj5TqceGPA We have micropore pipework to our rads too, it was popular for a period of time. Yes, that's what the surveyor will mean, you probably may not need to replace the rads then if they are the double type. Yes lagging would be a very good idea to reduce heat loss.

[@ninjayx0245]

Hi John. Nice explanation, but you're wrong with your heating system, the system you have is a pressurised system and the tank in the loft is the cold water supply to the hot water cylinder. This is not connected to the boiler or radiator pipework

[@johntisbury]

Thank you for the correct and explanation. Noted. 😉

[@anthonydyer3939]

Heat Pumps: Do this test with your boiler. Dial the central heating temperature down to 40ish degrees celcius. Does your house remain warm on very cold nights? If not, you'll need to upgrade all your radiators and central heating piping. If yes, then you're good to go. I'd recommend waiting until winter time before doing this test. The lower your circulation temperature, the more efficient the heat pumps will work. That's the first law of thermodynamics at work. Heat pumps are far less efficient if you run your central heating temperatures at 65 degrees celcius. Ideal central heating systems will have a circulation temperature that's no higher than the room temperature - not practical in everyday applications (every square metre of every floor, wall and ceiling surface would need to be a heat emitter), but underfloor heating can give you a comfy room with a circulation temperature of 30 degrees celcius. As you can imagine by now, the work needed to prepare your house for an heat pump central heating system is potentially extremely disruptive and expensive. I've got a 10 year old Vaillant boiler, and right now I've not seen any heating technology that would be a vastly superior drop in replacement for it. Until then, it's an "insulate first" strategy for achieving lower heating costs.

[@johntisbury]

Thanks Anthony. Sound advice. I have been working on insulating and reducing draughts before and after this video. Thankfully March and April have been cold so it's been a good time to test it out the improvements. The downside with our 20 year old boiler is that it's not that controllable. A rotary dial for temperature from 1 - 6. It's currently set on 3, whatever that relates to I have no idea. I understand the principles you are referring to, just tricky to calculate / calibrate based on lack of meaningful measurement from the boiler in terms of circulation temperature.

[@anthonydyer3939]

@@johntisbury Since you have a thermal camera, you could measure the temperature of the radiators as a guide. Maybe even measure the temperature of the central heating flow pipe out of the boiler. I'm guessing that a setting of 3 will correspond to about 60 degrees ish, and a settinng of 5 will be about 85 degrees. So you can have a go with setting the temperature to 1 and see how your radiators behave.

[@johntisbury]

@@anthonydyer3939 a very sensible solution, thanks.

[@davidw717]

About to purchase an end-terraced house and it needs a full reno it has no CH so in the same boat. Im thinking Solar Panels and Battery, underfloor heating and an electric boiler... 🤔

[@johntisbury]

If you are at that stage then a heat pump may make a better choice. Electric boiler 1:1 efficiency, heat pump around 3:1 efficiency.

[@davidw717]

@@johntisbury I've heard heat pumps are noisy and seems to get a bad reputation.

[@johntisbury]

@@davidw717 that's old myths David. Some of the models were 5+ years ago, not now. Like most things poor installation / choice leads to poor performance. If a heat loss survey is carried out on the property and the proper heating design done they work perfectly. twitter.com/janrosenow/status/1492086853159301121?s=21&t=nGkcFraGj0PhtMLCFAKKgQ

[@royspeakman1157]

Are not efficiencies becoming irrelevant in a context of constant increases ? I must admit i am now wearing more clothing as the most efficient option ? This has been working well for the past five years . And the results are showing in my bills ! ( three units a day is the target ! )

[@johntisbury]

I guess it depends on your starting point Roy. Our gas boiler is very inefficient based on its age, newer ones are 95%, which makes a large delta between the two. That would not be the case if I was replacing a much more recent boiler with a newer one, then yes the difference would be small. With rising energy prices any improvement will make a difference to the monthly bill. The large that improvement the greater the potential saving.

[@anthonycain6643]

See your note: You may wish to look at Heat Wayv, the new kid on the block, maybe

[@johntisbury]

Thanks Anthony, I did see you Comment before it disappeared. I copied the link and went and had a look at the microwave boilers. Very interesting technology.

[@theoteam4641]

We just bought a house with Fit scheme fitted solar panels so I can use it with AC coupled battery which I will in about a year or 2. I just bought Myenergi Eddi to use excess solar to heat up water. The house has Ideal classic water heater which is 25 years old. It used about 14kw of power last year during lockdown. Ideally I want to use less gas and more solar. I found this video interesting. Have you chosen a water heater yet? I want to go electric when we replace the water heater but with the house having Economy 7 meter I would first need to build a 65-90kwh battery pack from Lifepo4 cells and the AC couple it using multiplus 2 10kva inverter charger so I can charge it during the day with solar or top up hot water with Eddi and at night use and charge the battery system with 5-7p per kw form the grid and then during the day use the solar and the battery. My problem so far is that most electric water heaters are over 12kw and the multiplus 2 10kva is about 8kw with peak 18kw, I would need to have 2x multiplus to run the hot water system etc. that would be expensive to be honest as each inverter is £3.5K which would be £7k plus building the battery system for 65kw is around £7k for about 100kw it’s around £11.5K which can get expensive. To be honest is I had a spare £20k I’ll be able to build it all and switch to electric heater. What are your thoughts?

[@johntisbury]

Our gas boiler was repaired. We've taken steps to reduce the amount of gas by improving the insulation and energy effectiveness of our home. We have also lowering the temperature that the boiler operates at to its lowest setting of No.1, it was on 4 or 5. 6 is full power. This gives us a flow temp of around 45ºC in our central heating. We have not taken the plunge to go full electric yet as the price difference between electric and gas is still too expensive (I know that will change within the coming months here in the UK). There's still too much skewed pricing towards gas boilers in terms of being much cheaper to purchase and install compared to an electric alternative; heat pump or thermal store. Not sure how much solar you have and how much surplus you generate. The winter is obviously the key time, perhaps more solar would be a better option or solar thermal which can work well in the winter. This will pre-heat your hot water and your central heating if you are running a wet system. Using just batteries can work, but a blended system might be a better solution and cheaper to run in the longer term.

[@theoteam4641]

@@johntisbury the system is 3.75kw but your right going full electric would be expensive. I think I would go the option you mentioned. When we get the keys next week I’ll have more play around with it. I have ordered myenergi Eddi already and that would be installed for the water tank. I’ll also have to seal up the garage door as the draft there is really chilly especially with it being north facing. The solar is south facing. I would see how much solar gets produced using the hob from myenergi, it would help me see how much battery to get. To be honest if we don’t get the electric water heater then maybe having a smaller battery say 15-30kwh might be sufficient without having electric car but when we get electric car then 100kwh would be ideal lol. Do you have myenergi Eddi? If so have you programmed it to heat up your water system while making sure that your gas heater does not come on as much?

[@johntisbury]

We have the eddi and the zappi, I have the eddi programmed to boost the hot water at 4:00am for 1.5hrs every night. We are on Octopus Go Faster tariff which means our electric is 5.5p/kWh. We have our hot water set to 60ºC and it takes about 1.5kWh to heat the hot water, we have a 220 litre tank. Gas is only used for central heating, not for hot water. You will find the 3.75kW will not generate too much during the winter months and that's when you really need it.

[@theoteam4641]

@@johntisbury ah that’s good to know thanks for that. The house has economy 7 meter so it’s 2 rates. I didn’t know you can preset Eddi to boost for a set time. I think I would set mine to do that also as at night time I get 7.560p/unit but during the day it’s 27.398p/unit so if I set it to boost for 2 hours before the cutoff time it would still be hot and then can use the solar to keep it topped up and stay hot throughout the day. I think I’ll turn off heater to just heat up the radiator. I also plan to add extra insulation to the loft as it’s currently 150mm thick. Am not sure how much insulation I need but from doing area calculation using google map it looks like it’s 60m2 so I would need about 12 bags lol. Hopefully I would have it done during the first week of moving in so we could see the difference lol

[@johntisbury]

You might like to have a watch of this video of mine which shows the small changes I made to our house to improve the insulation and energy efficiency. kzbin.info/www/bejne/jYmtXmuCjdKantU You cannot have too much loft insulation, just leave some space for air to circulate at the edges of the roof, so taper down towards the soffits.

[@Barrybristle]

Microbore? Surely microbore is defined as 6-8mm. Ten mm is possibly more regarded as small bore and may be adequate. Our New Build "high efficiency" build from a very reputable Building firm certainly has no greater diameter than 10mm. As I commented in an earlier video, We shall have more useful comment to make in September. Meanwhile we remain very interested in your final choice.

[@johntisbury]

Hmmm interesting. TBH I'd not heard the term small bore before. Seems an internet search does not help to define when small bore becomes micropore and vice versa. There's a pinned comment from John Cantor who's book I was quoting. He's mentioned that since writing the book, 10 years ago, things have moved on and now pumps can deal with smaller diameter pipes.

[@bikeman123]

Have you thought about installing electric convector heaters in every room on a central timer? It could provide the centralised control of gas central heating but with fast room heat up. They are cheap to buy and fit, and all you would need is an electrician to setup a new circuit for them. Or you could just put each on its own timer and really cut the cost.

[@johntisbury]

Thanks for watching and your thoughts. I do have 2 infrared heaters on smart switches that I can control. I have them automated to turn on and off based on temperature and humidity sensors within each of the two rooms they are situated in. The downside is that electricity is still more expensive than gas, even at current high rates. Electric heating is good however it's only ever going to be 99 / 100% efficient in terms of energy in and heat out. Whilst that is certainly more efficient than our gas boiler, which is still soldiers on after it was repaired. I don't see a 1:1 ratio as an effective longterm solution as you are still subject to violative rate increases. Since recording this video new heat pump models have come onto the market that can work at higher temperatures and deal with micro-bore pipework. Micro-bore being my main sticking point. For a longer term solution a heat pump is more efficient as it will work with 1 unit of energy in and produce 3 units of heat out. We have been running our gas boiler at its lowest setting and it seems to keep the house warm enough with a 45ºC flow temperature. Our next step is to have a heat loss survey done to understand how much heat we need to keep the house at 20ºC when it is -2ºC outside. From there we can calculate the costs of a heat pump over convector or infrared heating. My feeling is that a heat pump will be cheaper to run.

[@Ironbuket]

If you cut out all the 2second gaps between the sentances, this video would be half as long :P I decided to give up after 5mins because of the above

[@paulne9]

Electricity is 6 time the price of gas I pay 12.93 per kw elec and 2.2 per kw gas also gas boilers are over 88% efficient where as gas power stations are 50% efficient so better off with a gas boiler for the environment . Yes there are air and ground heat pumps but at the most 1lw produces 4kw heat so 13p for electric 9p gas .... at the present time gas is better

[@johntisbury]

Everything is relative on rates and comparisons so some pay more, some pay less. I pay 2.74p/kWh for gas and on average 9p/kW on Agile, hence my three times the price. Good point on efficiency of power stations, not thought of that.

[@paulne9]

@@johntisbury The thing about the Agile tariff it may work out as an average price (10.72 pkw in the north east), but the times your most using ie 16.30 to 19.30 ish it can be up to 35p a unit as the cheaper rate is over night when your in bed, handy if you had a bank of batteries to charge over night and use when the high rate was charged. also handy having gas as I have never had a gas cut but plenty of power cuts so gas cooker and gas fire come in handy.

[@johntisbury]

Absolutely. A home storage battery is a key component for benefiting the most from Agile. We sail through the 4 hour peak on battery even in the Winter months. Gas outages are rare occurrences for sure.

[@srinivasvaranasi1645]

An interesting post.

[@johntisbury]

Thank you.

[@waynecartwright7276]

your cylinder is not well insulated , after 2 combi boilers in 25yrs ive chosen a megaflow eco as its a lifetime guarantee , did want a mixergy but it was too big for my airing cupboard. I have solar pv so my next addition is a myenergi eddi and octopus agile or go. The ability to store cheap rate electric in a hot water cylinder means its very cost effective and having far less depreciation with double the guaranteed lifespan. We had a power cut not long after fitting the cylinder and it was good to still be able to shower.

[@johntisbury]

Interesting point about insulation, it has a foam core around it, I guess another jacket around that won't do any harm - good point. I'm swaying towards the Mixergy solution.

[@edc1569]

Burning gas in your home is dramatically more efficient that burning it in a closed-cycle gas turbine some 200 miles away, this is why electricity costs 4x the gas fuel cost. Sadly as I'm sure you know for long periods of the winter we don't get much wind input, and certainly zero useful evening solar input, so that power is coming from a gas turbine no matter what hippy tariff you're on. I'd stick a decent gas boiler in, setup weather compensation, install some good controls that allow you to schedule zones, improve the performance of the building, and install a Harvi to divert excess solar into the hot water cylinder. If you want to go electric you need to go heat pump and to do that properly you need to rip your house to bits and install everything new (underfloor/bigger cylidners/better insulation/new doors and windows/mechanical ventilation/etc)

[@johntisbury]

Thank you E C that is the conclusion I'm coming to. A half-way house can end up causing more issues with mould, damp and rot if not properly ventilated, or completely deep retrofitted to account for vapour ingress in and out. Efficient boiler and good control of rooms does seem to be a sensible approach for us.

[@mirola73]

There's no government initiative to make our current housing stock more energy efficient....... No wonder why UK housing stock has the poorest energy efficiency in Europe, other countries are at least trying.

[@johntisbury]

Yup 100% this. It's crazy that they want to dish out licences for more oil and gas exploration, yet ignore the long-lasting benefit of reducing the need to use energy through house stock efficiency.

[@Glyn001]

Hi john 1st don't buy a heat pump unless you want to use 50 + kw of electric per day, or if it's -5 and below it could be double. 10 mm micro bore is a definite NO plus your main runs of 15 /22 mm pipe and old radiators will be full of Gunge even if they are flushed out which will block the fine filter in the heat pump. 2 . all know the government wants us all to move from gas to electric boilers but on an average day 30% + of our electric is produced by gas checkout ( electric insights.co.uk ) 3. Loft insulation I have over 500mm just remember your loft space has to breathe so do not push the insulation tight to the walls where the aren't any gable walls unless you have breathable roof felt. 4 electric heating is going to be expensive to run a bit like a heat pump and will use most of your generation for 4 months of the year. 5 heat batteries sound good have looked into it myself but still have a few unanswered questions. So I would go for a gas boiler change that electric shower for one that will run of your hot water tank and use more of that hot water making Eddi earn its keep. I could go on and on but the girls want to go for a walk

[@johntisbury]

Thanks Glyn. Good solid points especially re the sludge in the rads and pipe runs. Thanks for the tips on roof insulation, I am paranoid about causing mould, rot and damp through my actions so will be cautious about installation and location. Enjoy your walk.

[@diddybopper2052]

Another gas boiler… next question 🤣

[@johntisbury]

Thanks for watching Shaun. If you are buying today, then probably yes. I suspect given a few years that won't be the obvious choice. Since making this video there's a whole shift in the cost of energy and the UK Government / OFGEM are looking the wholesale and retail pricing model. Green levies on electricity will most likely be removed and 'natural' gas won't be the cheapest option. Interesting times for the energy markets, locally and globally.

[@IPC0101]

I found this video interesting on ASHP kzbin.info/www/bejne/aqaxfIN6h6qUY7M, Hive thermostat & boiler controls are excellent but I dont think they save you money as I frequently turn the heating on or up when I am out if house is not warm enough. I to am looking at what to do when my gas boiler fails, there is no clear steer from the government.

[@johntisbury]

Thank you, I will have a look.

[@johntisbury]

Good video link thank you. I like Roger, sound chap. Interesting about heat pumps and optimal conditions for them to work - makes perfect sense. Hydrogen ready gas boilers too.

[@IPC0101]

@@johntisbury yes all this adds to my confusion about what my next move is for heating, I look forward to your videos with interest

[@johntisbury]

I've just watched this video with throws serious doubt on hydrogen and where the support for it is coming from. kzbin.info/www/bejne/ZpDFhZ2Zn9aBbMU well worth a watch.

[@dama054]

stay with gas i have looked time and time again at other ways of heating and always end up back at gas, but i will say look at a hydrogen ready gas boiler

[@johntisbury]

Thank you for watching David. Gas does seem to have the upper hand for sure.

[@nickieredshaw7835]

Yer I second that . It’s not great but best if a bad job for us

[@jasonaris5316]

People are happy to keep any equity their house ‘earns’ but wow betide having to fork out to insulate their homes properly

[@johntisbury]

This does seem to be a belief that many hold. Most odd.

[@jasonaris5316]

@@johntisbury great video btw

[@johntisbury]

Thank you. 🙌

[@malcolmaweston]

move somewhere where the sun shines all year round, and houses are cheap :-)

[@johntisbury]

Thank you Malcolm, most helpful. LOL Hope you are well and nice and warm where you are :-)

[@nickieredshaw7835]

Lol 😂 any ideas ?

[@malcolmstead272]

Replace with another gas boiler.

[@johntisbury]

That's not going to happen Malcolm. Since making this video things have changed significantly with heat pumps, gas pricing and wheels are in motion to de-couple the wholesale pricing methodology to change how gas and electricity is priced. Gas will only become more expensive over time. Our plan is to remove gas from our property.

[@clivemarriott7749]

Full disclosure I'm not a believer in man made climate change and if it is changing we are far too puny to do anything about that.. But efficiency is a great thing and I'm all for it. I have to ask if a house can be healthy if you don't allow any air to flow through it in case you lose some heat. This would not be a healthy house.

[@johntisbury]

Thanks for watching. Your point about ventilation is on point and a good question. I would be concerned and agree 100% with you if we had a house that was passive house rated and the limited air flow changes that came with that. It would then need HVAC system to deal with ventilation. We will never reach that point with this house. We still have adequate air changes in our rooms. We have not experienced mould, stuffy or condensation on windows over the winter period. I have purchased an air quality monitor, yet to arrive, to keep an eye on the house's air quality. However, I don't believe it is a problem.

[@JohnCap523]

I’m all about saving energy and the environment, but an electric boiler is ridiculous. Just install a condensing boiler and stop over thinking it.

[@johntisbury]

That's rather double standards though, I want to reduce my use of fossil fuels not leave it to someone else to do it. The pricing structure within the UK energy market will even itself out very soon. OFGEM plans to remove the current bias of cheap gas and higher priced electricity. This will make electricity more in keeping with its generation mix and push gas into a less desirable choice.

[@JohnCap523]

@@johntisbury There’s a valid argument to be made that using electric power over gas isn’t really a trade off of clean vs fossil fuel. Most electricity is generated with fossil fuels. You’d have to quadruple your solar panels to fire an electric boiler, or move your house to somewhere less rainy and gray than the UK.

[@SoloSi2024]

The country is gradually warming up. Just keep the gas boiler. You'll be using it less anyway. Thank God for global warming! Much cheaper bills!

[@johntisbury]

This video was published in March 2021, gas boiler is no longer…

[@SoloSi2024]

@@johntisbury Eh? 🤣

[@user-sd9es4ws9i]

Possibly the most boring video I've ever watched

[@johntisbury]

There's loads of videos more boring than this, do better.