Heating decisions and advice needed... please & thank you

[UrbanCanibal]

Hi,

Before I dive into the questions, here's the situation... Looking at buying a property that needs a couple of modifications, namely double glazing, a garage conversion and central heating (it has wall mounted electric heaters at the moment). The windows aren't urgent, but we need the conversion done in order to create an office space for our home business to run from. As for the heating, GCH would be nice and the road has a gas supply, but it would appear he property isn't connected, hence the use of electric heaters.

Now for the questions..... As they are all reasonably large and disruptive jobs, I'd like to get them done before we move in. However, from the quotes that I've got so far, it appears our budget will only stretch to afford one modification, so which one gets done first? As I mentioned, the windows aren't urgent and with the additional cost and time (6 weeks) of connecting the gas, I am more inclined to get the conversion done first as this would mean less disruption to the business and our income during the expensive process of moving house. In the meantime, we could replace some of the huge and ancient electric heaters with something more streamlined and modern, but what? I've looked at both electric 'wet' and electric 'dry' rads, oil filled rads, panel heaters and convectors, but which would be best? How big or powerful would I need them and what features should I be looking for? What's the impact on bills and would it be worth investigating economy 7 or 10? In the long term, is it worth forgetting about GCH and have an electric central heating system installed instead? If so, 'wet' or 'dry'? And then there's oil or LPG systems?! Sooo many questions. Answers on a postcard to... ;-)

Any views, opinions or advice on any of the above would be much appreciated.

Thanks

[KARL]

You don't say which part of the country you are in, urban or not (although your name might be a clue). If you commit yourself to electric heating you would need a lot of effort to change to anything else. In that case why dump the old heaters now but instead make do and change later, bit by bit if necessary - old does not necessarily mean unusable or must-go-now. To give yourself options I would aim to at the outset do as much as possible by way of insulated distribution plumbing (definitely not microbore) to radiator points (i.e under windows) as possible because this is fairly disruptive. The rest could follow. If the property lends itself to it at all I would open the option for woodburning heating (boiler and large buffer tank involved) because that potentially gives you free heating provided you know how to catch scrap wood being thrown out. Whether electricitry, gas, oil or coal you are at the mercy of fossil fuel prices....and then there is the environment to think about. In any case in my opinion your thought of getting disruption over first is the correct one, then follow room by room at leisure. In particular, consider seriously insulating the place as well as draughtproofing - not just faffing about in the attic - the money spent will rapidly come back in saving in heating.

[UrbanCanibal]

Cheers for the response Karl. Given me something to think about. Ta