Futureproof Your Home with Energy-Efficient Heating system

The Situation:

One of our customers called us pre Christmas to let us know their trusty back boiler had eventually served its last shift. With rising gas prices and the cost of repair they asked us to explore a series of options for them including renewables as they already have Solar PV. The family were in the process of insulating parts of the property and applying a new external render.

The Solution:

Ultimately, it all came down to time. Even though an Air Source Heat Pump was a preferred option it all happened in the middle of winter on the run up to Christmas. After plenty of in-depth chats with the customer (which we love to have) they wanted an energy efficient system that they would have plenty of control over with smart technology. The caveat - the house was to future proofed so adding or switching to a heat pump was easy.

The main kit and equipment were pretty obvious to us, a Vaillant ecoTec plus system boiler with sensohome controls twinned with the myVaillantconnect internet gateway. Cylinder wise, we went with a 350L cylinder with two immersions, one for standard electric and the other for the solar panels to trickle feed and provide cheap hot water.

A harder aspect was prepping a 150 year old semi detached property for the future. Lots of planning and conversations later we took a series of primary flows and returns throughout the house, replaced radiators where they needed to be upgraded and cleaned the remaining system. We left the system in a modular setup, meaning we can add a heat pump to make this a hybrid system or remove the boiler and link a heat pump directly in its place.

Our customer was delighted with the new system, after a few chats with us and a lots of researching online they were adapting their heating to suit their needs and began to understand heat curves and weather compensation. Pretty advanced.

Some things to consider when updating aspects of your heating system:

• Wrap first then heat - it’s always better in the long run to insulate the property well. Really slow down the warm air escaping and the cold air coming in. Even the little things like filling holes, adding to loft insulation, sealing the drafts all make a big difference.

• With any renovation work consider the future - if there is renovation work going on in the house, is now the time to think about upgrading the primary flow and returns around the property and changing a few radiators? Not all homes will need upgrades to to pipework but it’s maybe something we should be considering now so it’s cheaper, less work and less hassle later.

• Maintain everything well - door draught excluders, the seal gap in the window, those pipes that need lagging. As we mentioned above, even the small things make a huge difference.

We will update this blog when we’ve followed up with the customer to see what their energy bills say!