# Best heating system?



## whitebeach

Hi All,

We are going to renovating an old house and are trying to figure out the best heating system. One that is obviously economic to run.


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## NickZ

Are you on mains gas?

Will the place be used year round?

How extensive is the renovation?

I guess wood is cheapest. It can be the most work. Propane is one of the most expensive. Mains gas is in between.

Personally put the effort and money into insulating etc the home. The up front cost of new windows and insulation pays you back both in winter and during the summer heat.

Then you've got question of the heating system. With a full renovation you've got options. In floor heating. Hot air from a wood or pellet stove. 

If the renovation is just a bit of paint you won't want to dig up the floors.


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## whitebeach

NickZ said:


> Are you on mains gas?
> 
> Will the place be used year round?
> 
> How extensive is the renovation?
> 
> I guess wood is cheapest. It can be the most work. Propane is one of the most expensive. Mains gas is in between.
> 
> Personally put the effort and money into insulating etc the home. The up front cost of new windows and insulation pays you back both in winter and during the summer heat.
> 
> Then you've got question of the heating system. With a full renovation you've got options. In floor heating. Hot air from a wood or pellet stove.
> 
> If the renovation is just a bit of paint you won't want to dig up the floors.


Hi,
No mains gas. Yes live in all year.
Don't think I want wood too much work!
How does a pellet stove work? Does it heat the water as well?
I am trying to figure out a system to avoid electricity costs as much as possible.
Could dig up floors.


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## NickZ

All kinds of pellet stoves. Basic ones just heat one room. Then you've got ones with forced air that can be fed into a couple of other rooms. Then you've got ones that have back boilers so they can run radiators and/or domestic hotwater. Similar things for fireplace inserts running on pellets.

If you do go with a stove I'd consider a solar hotwater system for the summer.


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## stacey812000

hi we have just gor a new pellet boiler google GMK caldaia as very good prices, ours is focused on burning pellets but at the same time you can throw a piece of wood in, we are installing a separate hot water system, maybe with gas, as we have it on mains so why not, but the ideal scenario would be solar powered hot water tank, also a stove or fireplace in the house is ideal, but that i would go for wood, as you can get wood free, pellet is getting very expensive! hope this helps!


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## pudd 2

sorry i have been in the house building trade for 45 years , and there is not a fixed anwer for this one evrry heating fuil has its day .
at the moment its pelets or salsa .try and get a boiler that burns both . to hedge against price rises and shortages . as i say this question is abit like how long is a bit of string


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## italy

whitebeach said:


> Hi,
> No mains gas. Yes live in all year.
> Don't think I want wood too much work!
> How does a pellet stove work? Does it heat the water as well?
> I am trying to figure out a system to avoid electricity costs as much as possible.
> Could dig up floors.


it seems the first question regarding what you need to heat a house is where the house is.. distance from coast and height makes a huge difference in heating requirements..

we run a pellet boiler which is a bit like a furnace with a hopper for the input material.. which can be pellets or any other material .. they call it bio combustible .. but pellets are about the most efficient of the input materials and if you buy in the summer cost a lot less.. we have managed so far to keep the cost below euro 3.40 a bag .. 15 kg.. buying them by the pallet load.. we also do not have mains gas but have an underground tank for gas which works out at an annual cost of around 4-500 euro per year.. again we fill it up in the summer as its cheaper.. and its basically for cooking and summer showers... when we turn the main boiler off.. 

as has already been pointed out the best option is to insulate.. in fact in Italy it is actually no longer an option ...if you are having an old property restored by law it has to conform to certain insulation standards before you can get planning permission so it will have to be insulated well and if you are digging up or relaying floors then underfloor seems to be considered the best and most economical.. 

if you are going to be part of the tax paying Italian economy getting solar panels photo voltaic is an option as there are still grants that give you cheap loans.. and tax incentives.. if you have space and are in the right location.. you produce electricity which gets taken by Enel the electric company which they pay you for.. and you then get your own electricity back from them at a smaller cost input is measured from your panels and your consumption should they be in balance there is no cost .. in fact you can even get refunds.. should you be able to afford the capital input and have the space for this sort of project then forget about pellet boilers and other forms of energy input and work with electricity only...


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## ianthy

Hi 

We renovated an old house 5 years ago near to Bologna - 250 metres above sea level. Summers are very very hot and winters can be cold. During the renovations we used a heating engineer to work out the best methods. I hate the cold and no point spending money on a project to find that €500 (the cost of the engineer) would have saved us mistakes and a cold house. 

We insulated the house, added new double glazed windows and shutters on all windows. Inside we opted for underfloor heating on both floors and woodburners - we have 93 acres of land/woodland - so no shortage of wood! Plus we added a fotovoltaic system - as a previous poster mentions it generates electricty into ENEL grid and we get a payment and reduced priced electricty. It all seems to work a treat - last weekend we arrived for 4 days and the heating was on. We then switched it off and just used the woodburners in the evening. The temp inside the house was 22 on arrival and after 4 days down to 19 degrees. With some windows open all the time for ventilation the temp dropped by approx .7 degrees a day. 

This works for us but there is no one right answer. Our neighbour has a pellet burner with timer that they can trigger remotely, so that they arrive home to a warm house, then woodburners on top.


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