home heating?

[Ja1983]

we have the delights of an open fire with central heating via the back boiler... and in all honesty i wouldnt change it for owt else!

everyone keeps asking if we`re going to go to gas, but that would mean
a) connection charge
b) replacing/fitting new central heating
c) altering and re-routing all the plumbing
d) big boiler filling otherwise ueseful space
e) the gas bill

...quite frankly i prefer the warm, fresh house, and the atmosphere of the open fire, GCH seems stuffy and stale to me, although i apprechiate not everyone can be RSed cutting wood every other weekend!

....free wood from work/local skip hire (a non fossil fuel, sustainable = enviro brownie points!) has a big part in it aswell!

apparently theres a lot of people going back to coal fires/solid fuel!  8)

probably costs less than £10/month in chainsaw consumables/chimney sweeps, and firelighters - with some coal in reserve for over cold nights (through winter) in summer this is £0, as the fire is rarely lit...

installation cost - well it was in when we bought the house, although i`ve rebuilt the hearth & surround in stone/timber to replace the hideous 70`s tiled jobby! (cost around £100 materials)

[Boggert]

I would stick with what you have got...

We are planning a solid fuel boiler in the house we are going to build in Czech... The boiler is corn fed and totaly automatic. What is good is the boiler is carbon nutural and we grow the corn on the farm so its real cheap as well.

[sleeplessparadise]

could never have a coal fire after staying at my uncle's house who had one. Black dust on everything, and I mean everything even upstairs and always freezing cold even when he had a new back boiler put in........... much prefer the gas central heating but as you say it is quite stuffy and overpowering sometimes and I certailnly don't believe in having it on all the time at silly levels as some of my family do  :roll:

[Bunnie]

At the pub we dont have Central heating.
Down Stairs there is 2 open fires and a gas fire for the larger bar
Upstairs we have a Gas fire and a storage heater in every bedroom.
We also need portable electric heaters inorder to heat up the loos and our resturant!

[JumboBeef]

Wood burner in the kitchen (with a back boiler which feeds the dinning room).

Large open fire in the sitting room.  We run both on a mixure of wood and coal ~ super toastie.

Central heating throughout the whole house, running on LPG.

Generally I don't like LPG heating, I much prefer oil.  The heating here costs about £200 per month to run (there are 17 rads on the system) so we normally have the fires on instead.

Don't have an AGA here, but I really miss it from my last place.  An AGA is simply the best thing ever for heating your kitchen, drying your dogs and cooking your food.

[Evilgoat]

Debating building a wood/garden waste/paper fuelled system for the workshop
I have unlimited fresh water, I have 4 sturdy oil drums, I have Pump and piping, just need some metal fans and a couple of heater marixes :)

[barnhill4x4]

We have Gas Central Heating but an open log fire in the living room too. Generally only use the gas for hot water and really cold days/nights.

[V8MoneyPit]

We have oil fired central heating, but often use the cast iron stove in the lounge which does a pretty good job of heating the whole house when the doors are left open. Solves the soot on everything that you can get with open fires (although this isn't an issue if the chimney has good draw) and they're far more fuel efficient than open fires too. My wife sells them, so I doubt we'd ever be without one  :lol:

[Guardian.]

both living rooms and kitchen has open fires, and wouldnt change that for anything, also fitted is storage heaters throughout the house, those i would change as they are crap, did tell myself would never fit them again after the first time, so why i made that massive mistake the second time i do not know.

[marjan]

Gas CH is definately the best, but then again I would say that as I'm a Gas Fitter  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:

[Ralph]

Log burner for us!!!! Sat here every night with a cherry red face,love it

[narked]

Log/coal burner, mainly running on coal at the moment so I've ticked coal.

Gas/oil isn't an option as we've no way of having the stuff delivered in bulk due to where we live. Plus you really can not beat sitting infront of a proper fire :D

[Ja1983]

...Plus you really can not beat sitting infront of a proper fire :D

especially over that time where all the twinkley bits are up.... although for me the temptation to chuck the tree and all other sparkly bits on is high...

b`ah humbug...! stick some chestnuts and spuds on while we toast the marshmallows!

must admit, i think the next house we buy will be a more remote location, with an open fire in the living room... and an aga in the kitchen.... and something from bowler in the double garage...  8)

[CaptainColourful]

At the pub we dont have Central heating.
Down Stairs there is 2 open fires and a gas fire for the larger bar
Upstairs we have a Gas fire and a storage heater in every bedroom.
We also need portable electric heaters inorder to heat up the loos and our resturant!

Wouldn't wanna pay your fuel bill  :!:

[narked]

Before I moved in with my gf's family, the house I was in had a lovely open fire, and an oil fired Rayburn, but wasn't running any rads. Had to rely on storage heaters upstairs. Downstairs could be lovely and warm, but upstairs you had to decide what was more important, having enough money to pay the bills, or being warm ;).

[graham]

We have gas central heating and a log burner, would like to get one with a back boiler and have a duel system for heating and water.

The Jack Russell's luv the wood burner  :D

[Jesska]

I posted other... we have blankets in our house as Ste is too tight to let me have CH on lol IF I'm allowed to have the heating on its a gas fire or GCH, but I'm one of those people who has a jumper on in summer so our gas bills are pretty extortionate (is that how you spell that???)  :roll:

[BigSi]

What!!!!! Does nobody have geothermal heating!!!!  :shock:  :shock:  :shock:  :shock:  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:

[Wireless]

We have a mix of gas central heating, and high pressure solar water heating.  At least the £4000 I spent on the system means we have the most efficient system you can buy.

I'd like to do much better, but finding and storing a supply of renewable fuel at a reasonable cost is virtually impossible in suburbia.

The cost vs return of installing a thermal heat pump is measured in tens of years, and basically runs on electricity which isn't environmentally friendly.

I've explored running diesel generators on vegetable oil, and intend to run my amateur radio hobby in the shed on wind and solar power, storing the excess power in batteries.

A shed is about as big as you'd want to set up, since the problem with wind generators is they have to be quite large, to cope with it being windy enough to generate sufficiently useful amounts of power only 30% off the time, and the problem of solar power is the cost of the panels and where the UK happens to be on the globe.

Saying that, I did consider moving to low voltage home lighting and using solar panels and batteries to store enough energy to get through the winter.

I was going to install a new gas fire in the front room, but I think I'll have an open wood fire instead, that way I can perhaps take the chill off late Autumn evenings without putting the central heating on until the weather turns much colder, and maybe switch it off earlier in the Spring.

The wife wants to move into the countryside, so perhaps more options for using renewable energy may be available.

Our gas and electricity bills have been very low since fitting the new boiler, the old one was 30 years old and very inefficient, and by investing in an LCD TV and LCD Computer Displays, together with low energy lighting, cavity wall insulation, and 10" of loft insulation.

So we're as low CO2 an emitter as current technology/cost benefit allows, and the V8 runs on LPG and saves 31% CO2 emissions, from observed fuel consumption and known CO2 emissions from internal combustion of Unleaded / LPG by volume.

[richo]

I find a jumper is best as my nan made it from wool on her farm from her sheep.
What a carbon foot print hey.
Only trouble is i don't like the colour or patten on the jumper.