Heating advice

I've got a portable Calor Gas heater in the front room that gets wheeled into the kitchen/diner where my desk is when it's needed. I open a window when I use it but the sight of those loving orange heater elements warms you instantly, I run it for about an hour & it heats the whole ground floor up. I'm in a small terraced house though so the heat is easy to contain. Upstairs is heated separately. I don't like much heat myself so firing up the calor gas fire for an hour suits me, I live alone so there's nobody opening doors coming in & out. Nice convenient instant heat & at a good price if you ask me.
 
Ultimately, you need to get that old boiler replaced as soon as possible but in the mean time little things can make a big difference - especially drafts. Check around the window frames, door frames, gap under door, letterbox etc. Also check the floors, some houses can have relatively lose fitting ground floor floorboards with a cold void underneath. Fitting a thick carpet underlay can help here. All these area can be draft-proofed quickly and easily. Thick curtains also make a huge difference in the winter.

Portable gas heating and resistive electric heating are a bad idea. To save some cash, priorities should be well insulating one or two rooms well, then turning other radiators down very low or even off completely.
 
I stumbled across this neat little infographic the other day, I haven't gotten round to actually getting a heat pump, but they look promising...

http://www.bsw-bs.co.uk/latest-news/2013/06/heat-pumps-save-you-money/

Have a little look and let me know what you think!

- Paul

I can see how a ground source heat pump could save you money by heating the water underground before it gets to your supply - however this isn't practical in many homes in the UK.

I fail to see how an air source heat exchanger could save you money in this country. If you want heating, sending the air outside first to warm it up seems self defeating? :confused:
 
I think you need to do a little homework on heatpumps! The outside air temperature can be much lower than indoors, even negative(!) and still heat the house.

However, heat pumps only give you ~3 time the heat as the electricity you run them with. If you have gas available at approximately one third the price of electricity they don't make sense. This is why they never caught on in the UK where we've had relatively cheap gas. Go to Scandinavia, Switzerland etc. - where they have relatively cheap hydroelectricity and less gas, then the economics are better
 
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