Preparing for the worst....

[TheOldFellow]

Been thinking about my heating system, a mixture of UF and rads. Oil, modern condensing Mistral boiler. What happens when the oil gets to =C2=A310/litre (est: 2020, when we'll both be 70), and electricity has risen in price along with it.

I need a backup 'plan B'. The obvious thing is a wood burner, as I don't have the land for a heat pump. Is there anything else?

Is it possible to plumb in a wood burning boiler alongside an oil boiler?

I'm thinking how does one turn it off and on? Damper and heat-dump radiator in a big thermal store? Run the thing through a thermal store anyway?

R.

[Appelation Controlee]

Arson?

[Tim Lamb]

In message , TheOldFellow writes

Split the house and move in some civil servants? Less to heat and a secure income plus on site care provision!

Hmm.... I want to know where all the wood is going to come from. Judging by the lead time on anything suitable for use in a smokeless zone, half the world has the same idea.

Apparently. Dunsley-Baker neutraliser or thermal store. There are some circuit diagrams on the Dunsley site.

Yes. Be aware that the *clean burn* and *airwash* claims may not hold for stoves with wrap around boilers.

regards

[Dave Liquorice]

Ah but will it 2020 could be when our new nuke stations are coming on line, if the government pulls their fingers out and the anti nuke lobby =

don't get their way. If the latter then oil at =A310/l will be the least= of your problems finding food will be much more important.

Except that every one else will be wanting wood to burn and it's price will sky rocket as well.

You can get heap pump systems that work with boreholes rather than burri= ed coils of pipe. Dependant on what is underneath you though, worth an investigation?

More jumpers and better insulation to the house.

Yes. Best to plumb it, the oil boiler and thermal solar panels into a decent sized heat bank. You can't turn a wood burner on and off that quickly and if the plumbing is anything but passive you loose one of te =

big advantages of having a heat source during power cuts.

[Clive George]

I reckon the cool walls make the things a lot more tempramental.

If your experience with a wood burner is eg one of the norwegian ones which seems to heat a room on two twigs (*), a water-jacketed one would be a bit of a shock.

Still, we're middle-class so we have one. But that was to replace storage heaters - if we'd had oil in place we'd have just used that.

OTOH a non-water jacketed one to replace an open fire is a great solution - they really are so much better.

(* though a lot of that is of course decent insulation)

[Michael Chare]

May be LPG as it is not so suitable for powering road vehicles and aircraft, and hence its price may not rise so much.

I am not sure that you could have a fully automatic wood burning boiler that turns itself off and on like an oil or gas boiler to meet demand, or that you coudl store the heat in any convenient way.

The problem with heat pumps is that the temperature of the water that they heat tends to be lower requiring a different heat distribution system.

Perhaps in 20 years time they will get nuclear fusion to work.

[Adrian]

Not necessarily. We have a ground-source heat pump (Hautec HCS-Pn 42) which provides central heating via radiators (it was actually retro-fitted into a house which was originally run by an oil-fired boiler).

ISRT that Hautec heat pumps come in different versions - one for underfloor heating (low temperature) and the other type (like ours) for radiator heating.

Works fine so far - been installed for nearly 2 years

Adrian

[R]

What *is* "Middle Class" these days? Thought the "Class" heirarchy fell apart when Thatcher left Parliament.

[Pete Zahut]

I beg your pardon? LPG is a brilliant road fuel - my mate's Saab has covered over 60,000 trouble-free miles on LPG and my own Nissan Maxima QX 3.0 V6, converted 8 months ago has done 11,800 trouble-free miles so far.

[PeterC]

You're fired!

[The Medway Handyman]

He was only arson about :-)

[Michael Chare]

So why are there so few LPG vehicles! The vast majority use petrol or diesel.

[Michael Chare]

That is interesting. Did you choose the Hautec yourself?

The Hautec web site is not as helpful as it might be

[Pete Zahut]

Probably because it costs about 1,700 quid to convert and people don't want/can't pay that initial outlay. Also a lot of people have misconceptions about the safety aspect or remember the early systems that caused backfires strong enough to blow your air filter two blocks away, whereas modern sequential injection systems are every bit as good as petrol injection. I'm certainly well chuffed with our conversion anyway.

[Steve Firth]

It's still difficult to find filling stations, not impossible but it takes thought. The conversion costs are high(ish). The tanks tend to be small, hence only good for a limited range. Some conversion are vile, and involve putting a 100litre tank in the boot, hence 100 litres less for luggage.

[Derek Geldard]

Very important this because everybody but everybody knows that once he's got a captive audience that has made a substantial investment in the hardware Gordon Mac Shite-Features will stick a socking great tax on LPG road fuels as soon as the volume is such that it's economic for him to do so, and will take almost all the benefit for the "treasury".

There has to be a better word BTW a treasury is where you keep your money - we only have debts. :-{{

Presumably if you have to go out of your way to get LPG, that in itself will nullify some of the benefit. I used to have an ASDA credit card that gave me 2p / litre off road fuel bought at ASDA. I've stopped using it despite buying DERV, 54 litres at a time, because if I went more than 2 miles out of my way the "benefit" of using it was negative, and that's not counting the extra time.

[Steve Firth]

I considered LPG conversion for the 4x4 since it would be possible to at least break even on the conversion costs and having a 100L LPG + 100L petrol tank would give a much greater range. However the local garage charges 54p/litre for LPG and the supply is variable. I see "out of order" signs on the pump most weeks. At my usual destinations I'm only aware of one location having more than one LPG station in easy reach. In Europe LPG seems to be available at every service station or at least in every town.

[PCPaul]

Got room for a shed? Have a vertical heatpump instead of hyuuuge coils.

[Harry Stottle]

I have often wondered how long this underground heat source would last if say everyone on an estate had these heat pumps fitted.

In wintery conditions, if that heat is being transferred to houses in close proximity from underground, then that heat would not be replaced very quickly, therefore wouldn't the temperature underground cool to near the temperature of the surface? I appreciate that in summer, some heat might be replaced through cooling some houses, but I would expect this to be much lower than the heat taken out in winter.

[Dave Starling]

Fritter away all your assets on lavish holidays while you are still able bodied then claim all your fuel and other living costs on benefits. If you have got unemployed kids or care for someone then you will rightly get more cash. This isn't meant as a troll response - just another option which I see many people do with great sucess. They just know how to work the system. You only have to go to your local post office on payday to see it in action!

Dave