That is the heating that I have. It's not perfect but suits me. I live very close to the Severn Estuary. We get a warming effect from the South-West air-stram during the Winter. Therefore, it never gets very cold.
First off. There used to be heat pumps that used ground water. I am not talking about those. Although very interesting they never really caught on. All of my heat pump experience here in the US tells me that they MAY be cheaper to run, but less comfortable when you are used to real?? heat. Because they are using the difference in air temps to help them achieve their goal sometimes they do not seem to heat very well. Especially when the air temp is close to the house temp already. Where using electric baseboards can heat you up fast. I have only seen that rarely. Gas/Oil/Propane are used mainly here whether they are for hot air. mainly used where it doesnt get very cold for long like here in the south. or to heat water/glycol for baseboards they always heat your house very well. The heat is actually hot. With the heat pump it is merely warm. Heating oil is king if you live where it is cold here when speaking about just heat. Where the oil burner heats up the water/glycol and circulates it through the baseboards. BUT in recent decades where even in cooler areas all houses now get central air many switch to Hot Air for heat because you will be using the same ducts to push the AC in the summer time so why have 2 completely different systems. Instant hot water heaters using CNG seem to be all the rage now. Rex On edit I should say that Hot Air is always done with either CNG or propane. Both are reasonably close in cost. Plus when the SHTF you have propane until there is none left. When the CNG is shut it's over...
Cheers... I was (am?) genuinely interested in your point of view. My preference is warm radiators placed near cold spots. Humans tend not to like warm air blown at them, even if it is at the perfect temperature it "feels" colder than it is. The advantages of Air to Air Sourced heat pumps comes to single or double rooms, away from the main heating system. We have both in our 4000" home and the AC is only used for cooling. The very best heat pumps use river water to source or reject heat.... a near constant temperature "ON" and the "OFF" flows down stream.
Yeah, radiators are baseboards. The best for warmth where it is cold. They typically run along exterior walls here in the cooler areas. One really nice thing in favor of oil is that like the propane you get a bunch delivered at a time so you have a supply for a while if something else goes wrong. But mostly because you can spill it/have it leak out... and then throw lit matches at it and it does not ignite... When I lived on Long Island in NY I installed many of the water heat pumps. LI is a glacial moraine. The glaciers stopped right there. So under the loam the entire thing is just gravel (Round, natural, what some consider river rock) and sand. So we had fantastically clean and great tasting ground water. If you dug a hole into the gravel you could put a 2 inch fire hose in it and it would never fill. So with ground water a constant 55 degrees it was fairly easy to cool with the water in summer and heat with it in winter. all you did was pump it up and let it flow back into the ground. as cheap as it was to just pump some water it never really caught on. Side note. One of the main reasons the US got into the Ice breaking business was the conversion from Coal to heating oil in the North east US. Coal came by train. Oil came by barges across the great lakes. If the ships could not get through the ice the Northeast houses and businesses would not have heat.
We aren't allowed to burn wood or fossil fuels except Gas in our Cities and bigger Towns. Propane is much more expensive per BTU than mains gas, that's gas that is delivered direct into the home by pipes from a mains supply. Oil and wood burners are used more in the country, however our M25 orbital motorway around London has homes inside it that have no main sewer or gas supplies. In the UK of someone is considering replacing an oil/propane burner or tank then an air sourced heat pump is definitely worth considering. Better still a ground sourced, however you really need a back hoe on site and an excuse to dig +2m down to drop in the slinky. It's pricey... E.g. New build 4 Bedroom large house in Surrey.... +£24K for ground sourced heat pump and under floor heating 95% coverage.
Had a visit from two guys from Fisher today to check that my house would be OK to install their water heater. They had a look round and no problems. I asked how long would it take (thinking in my head about three days), "About 2-3 hours, we've done two today, already", they said. When they do it in September, it is going to be really interesting to see if it is as good as it's supposed to be. My gas water heater now works perfectly after I took the cover off. One of the guys is a gas-safe engineer. He told me that he could report me for taking the cover off the gas heater! Only about 6 weeks to go...
I'm Gas-Safe also. I strongly suggest you DO NOT run your water heater with no outer cover fitted. Co poisoning is very likely if you continue to use it.
But it's not air-tight and there is an extractor fan sucking up the exhaust and blowing it out of the flue.
Anyway...I've just ordered a CO monitor from Amazon. I only need it for a few weeks but that will settle it. As I've only got gas for a few more weeks, so one could say it's a waste... BUT for £30 it's worth knowing if I am killing myself! I spend much more on Ducatis and they have come pretty close to killing me!
I'm not going to preach to you as it's your property. I'll only say by removing the outer cover you are changing the air/gas ratio which COULD cause incomplete combustion which WOULD lead to excessive amounts of Carbon Monoxide being produced. I'll say no more.
Not enough air would cause CO, but with CO2 being formed from plenty of air, I don't think there is a problem. I get a nice blue flame. If anything, I get more CO with the cover on and the CO sensor shuts the boiler down. When I run a shower, I am nowhere near the heater which is in the kitchen. At this time of year, plenty of Window vents are open. If I suddenly stop posting, then you'll know that I was wrong!
Sussed it now (I think). The CO sensor is faulty. That's why it is problematic with the cover on and not with it off. So, if it all wasn't being scrapped in a few weeks then I'd get the CO sensor replaced - but I can't, as the heater is prehistoric and I couldn't get parts, so any gas engineer if going to say, "replace it". I am, but not with gas. It interests me, that when I started this journey, I contacted numerous local "gas engineer". Not one contacted me back. So you are working in a dying industry and a new potential customer gets in touch. You think, "F****'em, I've got more than enough work to do in my booming gas industry!". Mystifies me.
We have air source heat pump which replaced an oil fired range cooker come boiler, running costs are lower water is at 55C and it has proven to be much more reliable. Government payback covers the total electricity bill plus a bit, we also have solar
I was going to look into heat pumps but I got a visit from Fischer first. I was convinced that this solution was better for my house. I am contemplating going solar as well. No one else has got it in my close and I always wondered why. Then I sussed it. I;m the only one with a south facing roof! After the Fisher water heater is installed I will replace the night storage heater with theirs. That will mean that I can dump low rate electricity that mens you pay way over the odds for daytime leccy. Then I'll get solar. I reckon that I will be nett feed in and so leccy will cost me hardly anything.
In regards to Worcester Bosch, when we replaced our boiler a few years back I spoke to a few plumbers about the choice for replacement and when discussing the new offerings from Worcester Bosch they all pulled a bit of a face and seemed to say that the more basic ones were a better more reliable option, so at that time we went for the plain old Greenstar 34CDi Classic. It's still internet connectable and has been great so far, we got a 10 year warranty.
