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Central Heating in flats

(18 posts)
  • Started 6 years ago by rob_88_rover
  • Latest reply from sallyhinch

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  1. rob_88_rover
    Member

    Hi there,

    Would anyone have a rough idea of how much it would cost to install central heating in a typical 1 bed tenement flat?

    I am looking to buy a flat at the moment (to live, not as an investment) and have previously been put off by flats with electric heating. But could I potentially buy a lower value flat with no heating and then install myself, which may be cheaper than buying a flat with central heating installed?

    Or is is best to stay way clear of any property with no central heating?

    Thanks for any feedback you may have.

    Bob

    Posted 6 years ago #
  2. jsh
    Member

    It’s probably pretty variable, I’d suggest it’s thousands, but not tens of thousands for a 1 bed flat. The plumbing for our relocated kitchen in a flat was about £5000 18 months ago, which included a new boiler. If you don’t need a new boiler, it would be quite a lot cheaper.

    Much of the cost is likely to be in the labour of running the pipes and fitting the radiators, so if you want to cut the cost you could have the boiler fitted professionally, assuming that the one the flat has already doesn’t have a central heating circuit, and do all the radiators yourself. They’re pretty straightforward to fit, especially when everything’s on one level. Standard radiators and pipe are not expensive.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  3. sallyhinch
    Member

    Electric heating does have the advantage of decarbonising as Scotland's electricity supply increasingly comes from renewables. If you install a gas boiler, you're basically locking in fossil fuel use for another 20 years. Good electric heaters are flexible in that you should be able to set the temperature of each room individually and can be run on timers. That said, the bills will be a lot higher than gas (although storage heaters might be a bit less eye watering).

    Posted 6 years ago #
  4. MediumDave
    Member

    It cost me 4500 in 2013 for a full central heating system including Vaillant boiler and various bits of plumbing including lead pipe removal. My flat is 2 bed so you can probably knock a bit off for yours. Incidentally I barely run the thing at all for heating - maybe 4 days in the past winter.

    Check there is a gas supply in the flat before you begin - getting a brand new supply installed is rather long-winded, especially if there's no supply already in the building.

    Personally I've never had a good experience with electric storage heating. Maybe it has got better in recent years but somehow I doubt it. When my boiler comes due for replacement I will look into heatpump+heatstore cylinder solutions.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  5. MediumDave
    Member

    Oh, and radiators are splendid for leaning your bike against. No marking of the walls!

    Posted 6 years ago #
  6. Snowy
    Member

    An article in the Independent a year ago said Scotland sourced 68% of power from renewables in 2017. And hopefully that'll be even higher for 2018.
    Our gas boiler is now well over 20 years old and the radiators are even older, so I'm mentally prepared for it to all collapse in a heap soon.
    Top choice would be a move to being completely electric. Allegedly our lecky supplier Octopus uses 100% renewables (other suppliers are available...).

    Posted 6 years ago #
  7. EdinburghCycleCam
    Member

    A little off-topic, but I can highly recommend Tibor of Blue Dot Heating for all your heating installation needs.

    https://www.trustedtrader.scot/Edinburgh/Blue-Dot-Heating-Ser-0000281.html

    Posted 6 years ago #
  8. sallyhinch
    Member

    We did replace crumbling storage heaters with modern programmable electric radiators, which have been fine - very flexible. I think the Economy 7 deals are less and less worth it anyway and I never found storage heaters much use

    Posted 6 years ago #
  9. gkgk
    Member

    Gas is nice but it costs a lot up front - £2k boiler + £100pa servicing, before it even turns on, is the same cost across a decade as running a 3 bar 1200W halogen heater 7hrs a day, every day. If I saw a nice no-gas flat, I'd still go for it and just stick in an elec shower, elec mini water heater at sinks, and a tumbler for clothes.

    Worth bearing in mind, many first-time buyers sell and move within just a few years.

    Home Energy Scotland / Energy Saving Trust were giving 25% off replacement boilers and spreading cost over 5 years, for example. They prob have something similar for new installations.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  10. Trixie
    Member

    The cooncil recently replaced my ye olde storage heaters with modern, programmable ones (Dimplex Quantum). They use a wee fan to push the stored heat into the room at set times and up to a set temp so they are actually useful (versus the old ones that were like burning fivers for heat). I was sceptical but they are as good as 'proper' central heating in terms of performance. So all electric heating is not the same.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  11. Klaxon
    Member

    Another vote for Dimplex Quantum in a gasless 1-bed. My leccy is about £55/mo averaged over the whole year and the performance is great, and it doesn’t overheat either. Traditional storage would easily turn your place into a hot yoga studio if you misjudge the charge level required the night before.

    I have just a single radiator in the living room and leave the door open to warm up the rest of the flat.

    Just make sure you’re on Economy 7 for a storage heater system otherwise there’s no point at all

    Posted 6 years ago #
  12. neddie
    Member

    Not sure it’s really a good idea to use electricity for heating, unless you are going to use a ground- or air-source heat pump, which are 3 or 4 times more efficient than standard “heating element” type heaters or boilers.

    The problem is, around 50% of the UK grid is gas generation and when using gas to make electricity, around 50% of the primary energy goes straight up the power station chimney. It’s far better to use that gas directly for heating.

    Some say that the electricity from the south of Scotland is low-carbon (~130gm/kWh) and high in renewables and therefore electric heating might be slightly lower carbon than a modern condensing gas boiler. But even if you are using that green electricity locally, CO2 emissions are a global problem, and that electricity is still displacing green electricity from the UK grid.

    The UK grid is more or less self-contained and runs at around 200 - 400gm/kWh, depending on wind conditions.

    The snapshot below was taken just now (a very windy Sunday 24th March 2019 at 8:30pm) and is about the most favourable I've ever seen it in terms of being low-carbon.

    Untitled by Ed, on Flickr

    I'll take another snapshot later, during the day, when it less windy, to compare (but I would expect it then to be around 50 - 60% gas generation and 300 - 350 gmCO2/kWh)

    Posted 6 years ago #
  13. unhurt
    Member

    This thread has had me off googling better insulated french windows (I think that step one to make my heating produce less CO2 is definitely reducing the amount of warmth that flees through them) and have discovered that there's a British Fenestration Rating Council (BFRC). How pleasing!

    Posted 6 years ago #
  14. neddie
    Member

    Looking good for solar at the moment (20% of the UK grid !!!)

    Monday 25th March 2019 13:05 - sunny, some wind

    Untitled by Ed, on Flickr

    Posted 6 years ago #
  15. sallyhinch
    Member

    Living rurally, we didn't have the option of gas, only oil, which tipped the balance further towards electricity. We could have gone for a pellet boiler, but I'm not sure the technology is quite there yet. We have installed solar panels at least to add an extra drop to the renewable ocean.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  16. unhurt
    Member

    Guessing your house would be too drafty for a ground source heat pump (I mean aside from the expense)?

    Posted 6 years ago #
  17. sallyhinch
    Member

    I don't remember why we didn't go for that option at the time. Possibly because we needed to move in quickly, it was August (and hence we'd need some heating pretty soon) and it requires a fairly major piece of groundworks. Also, we didn't have enough garden for the cheaper, shallow trench version.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  18. sallyhinch
    Member

    We're not particularly draughty but we are in a 'high wind-driven rain index area' - basically exposed at the top of a hill, in Scotland

    Posted 6 years ago #

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