How do I make my house warm?

[herbalholly]

Hello!

I really hope that you'll be able to offer some help.

I'm just about to get the key to my new (old) house. It's very exciting and I'm having fun thinking about curtains and rugs and stuff but when it comes down to the fundamental (bit boring) stuff I don't have any idea what would be best.

How can I best have a warmish house, a shower, and some hot water at the kitchen sink?

At the moment there is no central heating, no boiler, no range and no electric shower etc. There is a fireplace in the sitting room, kitchen and in the two bedrooms. As far as insulation goes - the windows are double glazed but that's about it. There's an attic room but the roof space isn't felted or anthing. My partner and I agree that we need to be able to have a hot shower without having to light a woodburner and wait for the water to heat... so maybe an electric shower... But what about the rest? We don't need or particularly want radiators and would be happy enough to have heat only in the rooms we were using at the time and be wearing thick socks and jumpers etc...but it's got to be fairly comfortable...not so cold that you get back ache and blue toes :)

What does anyone think about a small second hand gas range/rayburn/aga in the kitchen so that it's always comfortable in there and we can dry clothes in it etc. We both work full time so think that a woodburning range would be to slow to get going to be warm and cook on when we get back in from work at 6 in the evening....does it take ages? I was hoping for a woodburner in the sitting room, because I love them.

Hope that's not too long for a first message. Any hints or tips would be really appreciated. My Dad is telling me that I'm being unrealistic in thinking about heating water with a range or with a woodburner - he says it'd be miserable!

Thanks very much.
Holly

[TheGoodEarth]

What is your budget Holly?

[Annpan]

Ha, ha your dad should meet me.... 2 years of heating water in a pot on top of my wood burner for cleaning (though we do have an electric shower)

Anyway, we have a similar set up to you and we are in the final stages of moving ahead and getting lots of work done in the house... here is what I recommend (which is how I am doing it)

Insulate, insulate, insulate and then insulate more
Solar hot water panels on the roof
insulate
Woodburner in the livingroom and/or range in the kitchen
Insulate (including nice thick curtains)
Have a hot water tank that takes heat from the solar and the woodburner... you could run a few radiators off of this if you like, I think you might need a heat sink at any rate, so a radiator in the bathroom might be good.
We are going to include an electric coil in our hot water tank because there are nights you come home to late to light the wood burner, or you are feeling unwell, and you need hot water and don't have time or energy to heat by other means.
Insulate
Paint walls where sun hits directly with a dark colour of paint (doesn't need to be black, deep red or green work - we did this in our crappy hall and it is amazing the difference it makes, certainly 2 or 3 degrees warmer in there.)
Insulate

and... Insulate...

There is no point in spending lots of money getting it all done if you can't keep the heat in (which is why I might have mentioned to insulate once or twice) but it is amazing the amount of heat a wood burner can pump out, the newer ones are especially efficient.


Hey, your way down in Sunny Devon... you'll be fine

[contadina]

We have a 6kw woodburning stove with a back boiler which burns so hot we've had to fit radiators in other rooms in order for us to burn it at the desired temperature. It takes the chill off a room in a couple of minutes so is a darn site quicker than a radiator. If you want it to still be toasty in the morning just leave a big slow burning log in or some acorns and close it right down. We work from home and just need to add a little kindling and it lights itself every morning by using this method.

We installed a wood-burning cooker late last winter so will be using that for cooking and heat during the day and the stove during the evenings. If you don't work from home I'd personally go for the stove rather than cooker option. A cooker makes more sense to me if you are going to be around cooking things on it throughout the day whereas a stove is more for sitting around in the evening.

Probably worth mentioning that our summer hot water is supplied via solar panel and the same boiler (very doable in southern Italy) but maybe not Devon, so you need to think about your hot water needs when there is no need for a wood-fired stove or cooker.

Look into insulation grants too as this is the most effective way of heating a home http://www.government-grants.co.uk/

[herbalholly]

Hi GoodEarth and Ann Pan,

Thanks so much for your quick replies!

My budget is pretty small about £500 - £800 but we don't need to pay out for someone to fit whatever kind of system it is as I've got some handy friends and my dad who are great at that sort of thing. We'll be looking at second hand stoves or ranges, and my dad has a spare electric shower to give us that he thinks we'll like/need.

Woodburner in the living room sounds nice, there's a green enamel one in the paper that's good looking and only £60. Would it have to be a special sort to be able to take hot water off it? Is that the sort of thing that can be cobbled together or does it need to be bought specially designed?

Range in the kitchen...Sounds good. Have you got a wood fuelled range in the kitchen? What do you think about gas? I love the idea of a wood fuelled one but then it'd be really cold in the house when you got home wouldn't it? Maybe that's not so bad.

Where do you get your wood from? Is it expensive? In the future we'd like to buy a little woodland to manage, take care of and carefully use wood from but that's a way off and in the mean time we'd be buying it in.

That's a great idea about the paint, I'd never have thought of that. Insulation too...ok so thick curtains (maybe even lined with wool blankets from charity shops?, roof insulation, big wool rugs...

Thank you both
Holly

[herbalholly]

Thanks Contadina,

I'll have a think about that hot water in the summer thing ...maybe we could have an electric shower and make hot water on the cooker in the kitchen...I'm going to have a look at that gov. insulation link now.

Best wishes,
Holly

[contadino]

If you're going to get a stove (which I'd only recommend if you have a reliable supply of decent wood, and space to store it), then maybe this will interest you....

http://www.charnwood.com/charnwood-flue-boiler.asp

It's a boiler that takes heat from the bottom of the flue, as in where it meets the stove. It may mean that you can pickup a 2nd hand stove that's not a boiler model, and still produce hot water from it. However, you need to be a little careful. If the flue isn't warm enough, you'll get buildups in the flue and this boiler would only make the situation worse. If your stove is decent, it shouldn't be a problem but best mention it anyway.

[Milims]

Try here for a grant towards central heating, loft insualtion etc
http://www.eaga.com/products-and-servic ... warm-front

[Annpan]

[rant]Once again a lovley grant that we would only be eligable if OH gave up his job and we lived on benifits....we'd be better off for it too.

[/rant]

[red]

we too have an old cold house.. and er...no cash so we are saving saving saving

we dont even have DG - but do have lots of insulation in the roof.
we have started to swap the windows for DG but as we want to put wooden ones it.. its pricey so we have only done the worst ones so far.

we have already put in a woodburner and plan to put another one in one of the upstairs rooms too when funds allow

we have a gas rayburn. its a lovely thing.. keeps the house just off chill, lots of hot water, and we can run ch off it if needs be.. but oh my the gas bills are exciting! we plant to change it for a woodfired rayburn (when funds allow). we turn our rayburn off in summer, so have to make hot water with an immersion heater when we need it. we are pretty tight with it.. so we can afford the winter bills

we plan to put solar panels on the south side of the roof (after new roof.. when funds allow..)

so what we have done is the short term plan to make life bearable, and then the big plans come later.


i'd start with insulation. see if you can get a grant, you can DIY if not - it will make a noticable diffference.

get one room cosy.. perhaps a woodburner in the living room, and get some nice blankies to snuggle under on the sofa etc.
get hot water - perhaps that electric shower. invest in hot water bottles, thick socks and more blankies

then dream bigger dreams and start working towards them

[Green Aura]

I have to go with the advice on spending your money on insulation and double glazing. After that a little heat goes quite a long way.

If you work full-time I wouldn't recommend being wholly reliant on fires and wood-burning stoves. Getting up to light the stove and re-lighting it when you got home would quickly become tiresome and leaving it lit, even banked up would be just wasting fuel, which all costs money. You also need to consider heating all your rooms at least some of the time, or damp will become a problem.

We've been looking recently at getting a combination of single and multi-point water heaters, so we only heat what we use and it doesn't have to travel more than a few feet. It may not be a problem in your new home - ours is a long, single-storey building.

[John Headstrong]

If you're going to get a stove (which I'd only recommend if you have a reliable supply of decent wood, and space to store it), then maybe this will interest you....

http://www.charnwood.com/charnwood-flue-boiler.asp

It's a boiler that takes heat from the bottom of the flue, as in where it meets the stove. It may mean that you can pickup a 2nd hand stove that's not a boiler model, and still produce hot water from it. However, you need to be a little careful. If the flue isn't warm enough, you'll get buildups in the flue and this boiler would only make the situation worse. If your stove is decent, it shouldn't be a problem but best mention it anyway.

oh, nice.

I have made a few like that (well, that principle) out of scrap years back, while they was a bit quirky and ugly, we did have loads of hot water

[Thomzo]

Make sure the hot water tank you chose will take multiple feeds and that it, too, is really well insulated. A few houses ago, I had a second hand, solid fuel Rayburn installed and, for a long while, it was our only form of heating and hot water. It doesn't really take all that long to get going, you can feel the heat off it in a few minutes. I used to find that if I banked it up really well on Sunday night and then left it, I'd still have enough hot water for a shower on Wednesday morning.

Your project sounds like great fun

Zoe

[red]

If you work full-time I wouldn't recommend being wholly reliant on fires and wood-burning stoves. Getting up to light the stove and re-lighting it when you got home would quickly become tiresome and leaving it lit, even banked up would be just wasting fuel, which all costs money. You also need to consider heating all your rooms at least some of the time, or damp will become a problem.

I totally agree about being out of the house and ranges that you have to feed - did that with a solid fuel rayburn years ago and it was a nightmare - we either had to bank it up or let it out an it was so difficult to light we never let it out...

but.. a good woodburner is a doddle to light.. so i would still have one of those.

re damp.. often a problem in old houses however hard you try.. mine has no damp course, and is lower then the outside (which does not belong to us so we cant put in a french drain)... so .. we are learning to like our damp....

[Thomzo]

Yes, damp can be a problem if you don't heat the whole house at least some of the time in winter.

A good chimney can help, though, as it draws cold, damp air out of the house when the fire is lit.

I never had a problem with condensation in a kitchen when the rayburn was going and drying clothes is a doddle.

Zoe