Help Please

[mkjon]

I live in an old farmhouse and the Warm Front grant people are being kind enough to offer us a new boiler and central heating system. I'm wondering about the best options to upgrade our current system.

Current set up is as follows: oil rayburn, hot water cylinder with electric immersion. open vented system with water tanks in attic space.

They are offering to install a new oil or solid fuel boiler and rads and pipework as required. Default suggestion seems to be an oil combi boiler with new rads but i'm wondering wether to ask for regular boiler instead.

Here are my priorities:
1. I would like a system if poss which it would be easy to link up woodburners to at later date. (praps the current oil rayburn converted back to wood). Grant will not cover this but I figure I can get this work done later and I would like a system which makes this as easy as possible to implement. I have access to quite a lot of wood and I'd like to make use of this to supplement main heating system.
2. Unless there is compelling reason to change I would like to stick with gravity fed system cos it has always worked fine and switch to combi boiler would as I understand mean new showers which again grant will not cover.

I'd be very grateful for any help or suggestions as to the best way forward

 

[diamondgas]

:welcome: to the forum mkjon 🙂

I'm not the one who can help you out much regards oil and wood burning. Reading your post had me wondering if you have that much of a say on what is installed? I'd thought you got what you were given regards the warmfront grant scheme?Again I don't know. How much say do you have, do you know?

 

[SimonG]

Welcome along 🙂

It will be interesting to know how much 'extra' you have to pay on top of the warm front grant. Might be worth getting a couple of indepenant estimates.

 

[quality]

1 first off stay away from a combi
2 if you want to use a wood burner or oil stay away from a warm front grant
3 get a decent heating engineer in as they will be able to design and install a system that works

 

[mkjon]

:welcome: to the forum mkjon 🙂

I'm not the one who can help you out much regards oil and wood burning. Reading your post had me wondering if you have that much of a say on what is installed? I'd thought you got what you were given regards the warmfront grant scheme?Again I don't know. How much say do you have, do you know?

i don't know either. will be finding out shortly i guess....

 

[mkjon]

1 first off stay away from a combi
2 if you want to use a wood burner or oil stay away from a warm front grant
3 get a decent heating engineer in as they will be able to design and install a system that works

thanks for that. why do you say stay away from a combi?

 

[JCplumb]

As far as I know, the grant is there to help you fit a more economical system and to provide central heating if you don't have it already, so they would be putting a condensating boiler in, doesn't have to be a combi. You can discuss your needs with the estimator when he gets there as he will be getting the plans drawn up. If you don't like what he is offering, you don't have to accept it. Worth mentioning to him about a cylinder that would be able to accomodate a wood burner connection as that is economical for you due to your wood supplies, not sure if it would fit in with their 'green' standpoint though.
Good luck!

 

[dontknowitall]

Warmfront, in my opinion, won't give you the best value for your money - they have large overheads for starters.

I'm not saying they'll do a botch job (but judging by a few things I've seen done by them ...) Warmflow is interested in doing a job quickly for a profit.

A good, local independent plumber will give you a much better job and is more interested in a recommendation and getting the job done correctly, first time around. If you don't know one, then ask your electrician or builder as they probably will. Recommendations from neighbours can be iffy sometimes whereas a tradesman won't want to risk his reputation by sending you to an unknown plumber.

I'd be wary of a combi, especially if you live in the country. With combis there is no water storage so if your water is cut off (being in the sticks) it will be a while until the supply is restored.

Definitely agree with Quality's comments.

 

[ADM360]

you need to check out all your options!! I have an elderly couple that get me in to bits and nova for them, went round last year and they had a heating system put in, so I asked about it and was told it was a great deal from warmfront!! had a grant to help with cost of the heating system so that was really cheap to have done, but to get it they had to have the loft re-insulated and cavity walls done! all told it cost them just under £5000 and the plumbing wasn't up to much, rads where it was easy to fit, back to back and all in the middle of the house. I suggested for the make and model of boiler and quality job I would have thought about half that figure would easy cover the install!

 

[mkjon]

Worth mentioning to him about a cylinder that would be able to accomodate a wood burner connection as that is economical for you due to your wood supplies, not sure if it would fit in with their 'green' standpoint though.
Good luck!

is it possible to connect woodburner and oil boiler to same cylinder. would one of these neutralizer things be required?
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