Which Way to Jump?

CENTRAL HEATING CALAMITY

It may sound a bit dramatic, but I have a real problem and would welcome any help and advice anyone has a spare moment to offer.

Briefly, we moved into a four bed bungalow in the East Midlands in September 2007, it has full central heating (hot water radiators), domestic Hot water cylinder (No Immersion), 75,000 btu Ideal Mexicana Gas Boiler,the property was an old , basically three bedroom cottage and in approx 2000 was given a large extension, one bedroom,one sitting room, one kitchen, one family bathroom, one en suite bathroom, one family room/dining with sliding patio door and finally one “T” shaped long hallway which is designed without a door to the family room.

We are just a couple ( to say nothing of the dog), but require plenty space for visits of children and grandchildren.

I forgot to mention the elephant in the room – it`s all run on L P bloomingG. When we arrived the tank was 67% full, it was refilled on 19th November to 87% capacity (informed that meant full), received a bill for £526 at I think 31p per litre; We have just refilled i.e.2 months and 20 days later and approx 1950 litres have gone in . That looks like more than £200 a month to me and I am afraid potentially ruinous to us as pensioners.

The Gas supplier sent in his engineer as we could smell gas around the lid of the tank(underground) and he has changed some of the top equipment including the governor(?) and told us the tank seemed to be at 50 bars pressure, instead of the normal 35 and could have been venting.

Could we have lost much gas through this?

I had the CORGI heating Engineer in this morning to discuss the situation, he immediately condemned the boiler as being out of date, highly wasteful and having an exhaust chimney (which disappeared through a hole in the roof, rather than a balanced flue type)

As I understand it what we are trying to do is generate sufficient heat to attain various temperatures in various areas, but the trick is to keep it there for as long as possible, so it is double glazed throughout, aluminium foil behind all radiators and at least 4” roof insulation overall, the floors are solid and carpeted throughout, apart from kitchen (tiled), approx 40% of the perimeter walls are cavity (no fill) and I have assumed the rest to be 9” solid (rendered externally, plastered internally) some may be thicker in the old part of the building.

I have done a heat loss calculation which comes out at 45000 btu (excluding provision for domestic hot water) I am hoping that the increased efficiency of modern boilers will be sufficient to allow the use of a smaller boiler.Heating Surface area of radiators (13 No all singles with fins on back) measured both sides 97 square feet

Discussed with the Engineer were the pro`s and con`s of various replacements and it is this particular aspect on which I would welcome advice:-(remembering COST is PARAMOUNT)

Natural Gas – Not available in this area..

Continue with LPG – yes we can put in a wall mounted balanced flu and he says it can be connected to the present system quite simply and it could also be Combi, (which is attractive to us as we have metered water) and we could also us the gas in our full tankbut will it be any cheaper?, by how much? And what of future cost increases? If I could get rid of LPG I would as I could get rid of the tank and use the garden space.

Oil – Yes this is also an option, but tank siting would be a problem, though not impossible, but what of present running costs? Never mind future..

Electricity – Engineer says can do relatively simply, he is also qualified for the electrical supply side and we are very attracted because of minimal disturbance (No flues) our electricity board will supply economy 10 and the line supply people say we have 100 amp RCD system so no problems there only thing was I was looking through TRIANCO literature and they say above 12 KW requires 3 phase, is this likely to give us enough btu`s and in particular how do you calculate likely cost of usage. (Electricity company has quoted Economy 10 rates Peak rate 8.36p,Off Peak 5.09p,standing 15.32p per day Vat 5% Direct Debit 6% off) Usage Midnight-5AM,1-4PM,8-10PM)

Electricity – Night Storage, radiators, immersion, not really very attractive, economical even with economy 7 and affect the resale possibilities of the property.

Power from the earth – too much initial cost, never mind the inside technicals.

Anybody any ideas please?