heating advice

10/01/2010 - 06:04

Can anyone advise us the best way to heat a very old house with no heating system. Our plumber suggested solar roof pan and a wood/ pellet burner to run central heating radiators. The house is 3 floors with very high ceilings, approx 200sq m. Any help and advice will be most welcome. Are there any grants available if you are non resident in Italy?

Topic

Renovating

Location

Abruzzo

Comment

It's deja vu all over again..

I FULLY understand bunterboy......!! I think it may be useful if the administrators made the'search' facility MUCH more prominent. This particular subject has been absolutely battered to death here. There will be updates obviously, changing grants and the like..............but a simple search would find the absolute wealth of information on this topic from the last few WEEKS..............pretty up to date! I have just keyed in 'heating' into the search facility and it has brought up all of the recent (and lots more) information on this subject....................doh!!! S

You could also search on the old forum, it has always been a very intensely discussed subject.

I am trying to decide on what utilities I should use to heat my house in Tuscany. I have 115 sq meters stone villa and because of logistic to the property I am have difficulty installing GPL. I am trying to find out the differences in cost heating this house with GPL, Heating Oil or Electric. At this time the easiest approach is electric but is electric the most expensive. If so how much more. I look forward to your help

The cost of electricity in Italy is scary. I wouldn't contemplate using electricty for heating unless you use a heat pump and then you need to get an expert to install and advise. Firstly make sure you have top quality insulation and draught proofing. Then whatever you decide on you will use less of it. Bear in mind that if it is a second home or holiday home you paya higher tariff for electricty. I know someone with a holiday home who doesn't even use an electric kettle as his bills are 200 euros a month WITHOUT heating or pool pump. My bills as resident are about 250 a month but this is for a 4 bed house with pool although only electricty pump for heating which is underfloor GPL.

If GPL would be difficult for you to install, then that's two strikes against it since it's also very expensive. Also counting against it is the legal requirement (in most places and with most installations at least) for the boiler to be regularly inspected. Possibly even more expensive is heating oil. Electric is just expensive. If you haven't yet done so, I suggest you look into heat pumps. But, before you do this, you should check out the maximum capacity of the power lines to your house. It's not unknown for ENEL to be unable to supply any more than three kilowatts. This could possibly create problems if you were wanting to use any sort of electric heating over the winter. Al

"I am trying to decide on what utilities I should use to heat my house in Tuscany. I have 115 sq meters stone villa and because of logistic to the property I am have difficulty installing GPL. I am trying to find out the differences in cost heating this house with GPL, Heating Oil or Electric. At this time the easiest approach is electric but is electric the most expensive. If so how much more." Underfloor heating or radiators? Full residence or holiday home? Insulated and double glazed? Not very easy to recommend anything without more information.

No under floor heat just hot water radiator and domestic water
For now we are planning to us the house for a holiday home, but are planning to retire in future.
Stone Walls & new roof with insulation

I hope this answers your questions

No under floor heat just hot water radiator and domestic water
For now we are planning to us the house for a holiday home, but are planning to retire in future.
Stone Walls & new roof with insulation

I hope this answers your questions

There are a number of options you could possibly go for if you already have the radiators etc there. Correct me if I am wrong, but was the original heating an open fire with a back boiler? If so you could replace it with a woodburner unit and a heat store. Sagraiasolar would give you more info on that solution than I can. Another option is a air/water heat pump with a DHW tank with built in immersion heater. You would probably need one with either a 9 or 11 Kw output. A GSHP would be the most expensive solution, but the easiest to use. 3rd option is a couple of air/air inverter units, with a seperate DHW supply. In 2 and 3, you would need a higher electricity supply. Hope this helps

Should have got a heat pump on the BTA3 tarriff, oldandbold. Your electric cost is more than mine for the year and I don't have LPG thankfully for heating. You could also use the heat pump to heat the pool!!

Why should a country offer grants for a non resident - what is the mentality behind that thought? The point of a non resident is that you are not there all the time - I would have thought the point of a Country's Grant policy was to help people that are living in their country everyday - and their lives count for the benefit of the workforce for the country - not afly by night thats just there for the good times. I dont like the opening statement for this thread, I would like to advise - why this thread was created.

Oldandbold if your friends Bills are €200 a month and he doesn't use a kettle, I can only surmise that either someone else is hacking his supply or he isn't telling you the truth.