Heating without mains gas

If you are planning to buy a rental home, or you're thinking about what to do with one you have just acquired, this is the place for any questions about starting out in the rentals business.
Tomsk
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Guest space

Post by Tomsk »

The first floor will be one third terrace, with glass balcony and country views - so plenty room for table & chairs.
At the start of our journey!
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Cymraes
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Post by Cymraes »

newtimber wrote:

You need to get someone else to do the EPC. The modern ones want internal wall insulation, floor insulation, solar panels and wind turbines!
Crazy isn't it! Apparently if I followed the recommendations I'd save £150pa!

I do actually have internal wall insulation on one side of the house but that apparently didn't count
zebedee
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Re: Guest space

Post by zebedee »

Tomsk wrote:The first floor will be one third terrace, with glass balcony and country views - so plenty room for table & chairs.
Sounds lovely! What part of the country?
Tomsk
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Re: Guest space

Post by Tomsk »

zebedee wrote:
Tomsk wrote:The first floor will be one third terrace, with glass balcony and country views - so plenty room for table & chairs.
Sounds lovely! What part of the country?
Black Mountains / Carmarthenshire.
At the start of our journey!
J B
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Location: We live in England and have rental properties in N Wales and Paphos, Cyprus
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Post by J B »

zebedee wrote:
J B wrote:
All electric heaters are cheap to buy and expensive to use.
Don't be fooled by the magic heaters with 'moon dust' in them - 1Kw of electricity will give out 1Kw of heat whether you use a simple £20 heater from Argos or a £500 (?) Fishler (for example) one.
.
I beg to differ. Take a look at the Rointe D series. They are very low energy to run but provide excellent heating.
Differ away if you wish :lol: but the simple laws of science decree that, with electricity (*) input = output

* = excluding A/C or Air Source systems
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CSE
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Post by CSE »

Glad to read about a balcony.
Still looks like electricity is the only answer for heating and hot water.
Never try to out-stubborn your guests.
newtimber
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Post by newtimber »

J B wrote: Differ away if you wish :lol: but the simple laws of science decree that, with electricity (*) input = output

* = excluding A/C or Air Source systems
The reason they may be more efficient is that they can deliver heat instantly, thermostatic and timed. So depending on your lifestyle, they can be efficient - for example if you are out most of the day and only want to heat a room to exactly 20 degrees between 6 and 9pm mon-fri and another room heating to 8 degrees at different times and days of the week - storage heaters and central heating systems cannot do this efficiently with varying room occupancy and so people will tend to have the heating on in all the rooms even if it's only needed in one room.
zebedee
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Post by zebedee »

Rointe D use a combination of convected heat and radiated heat. There are several other reasons why they are more efficient than standard radiators - I did suggest readers take a look....

IMO EPCs will require a review in / after 2025 when gas boilers will no longer be fitted into new builds.
newtimber
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Post by newtimber »

zebedee wrote:Rointe D use a combination of convected heat and radiated heat. There are several other reasons why they are more efficient than standard radiators - I did suggest readers take a look....
.
Rointe heaters are more effective than standard electric heaters ie they warm the room quicker and more evenly. If you need to heat a room quickly and are then are going out, it will cost less than the standard electric radiator which you would have to turn on earlier and would continue to produce heat long after you'd left. But depending on your requirements and how you use it, it may not make a great deal of difference.

Efficiency is the amount of heat produced for the amount of heat input. All electric heaters are 100% efficient. Gas boilers are less efficient as lots of the heat goes up the chimney etc. Heat pumps are about 300% efficient - 1 kW of energy produces 3kW of heat.
J B
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Location: We live in England and have rental properties in N Wales and Paphos, Cyprus
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Post by J B »

newtimber wrote:
Efficiency is the amount of heat produced for the amount of heat input. All electric heaters are 100% efficient. Gas boilers are less efficient as lots of the heat goes up the chimney etc. Heat pumps are about 300% efficient - 1 kW of energy produces 3kW of heat.
But with 'leccy being three times the price of gas, efficiency and cost are different! :)
ianh100
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Post by ianh100 »

We have an 12KW electric boiler (Sadia Heatrae) this works with a standard hot tank and radiators. It works very well but can be expensive in the winter. Summer is OK as it is just hot water (£15 a week for a 3 bed 2 bath barn conversion).

We get quite a lot of bookings over the winter, our costs are about £1,100 a year.

Ideally I would add air source heat pump or solar for water but not too easy for us.
Lilyofthevalley
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Location: Cornwall

Post by Lilyofthevalley »

We have Rointe heaters in our FHL cottage in Cornwall. Recommended by our electrician and installed last year - they certainly function well but too early to tell how expensive they will work out. Rointe offer a model that is Wi-fi enabled I.e.can be controlled remotely, but these models are expensive - about 50% more, so we didn’t go for it. We have now decided to swap the plug sockets each radiator is plugged in to with a BG ‘smart’ socket, i.e. a plug socket that we can switch off or on remotely via Wi-fi and the BG app. We’ve tested it at home, and though we can’t set the radiators’ thermostats remotely with this, the ability to switch off radiators after a guest has checked out is a huge benefit. Electrician says it is all OK certificate-wise, so we are going for it.
newtimber
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Post by newtimber »

Lilyofthevalley wrote: We’ve tested it at home, and though we can’t set the radiators’ thermostats remotely with this, the ability to switch off radiators after a guest has checked out is a huge benefit. Electrician says it is all OK certificate-wise, so we are going for it.
Rointe have a frost setting though that will prevent the house from freezing up. If you switch it off at the mains, your insurance is invalidated as you can't keep the unoccupied property up to the required minimum temperature. You also lose the settings for the clock etc that effect the timers you have set up on the heater.
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