Renovating an existing home can throw up a wide range of complex choices – not the least of which is getting your heating system right. If you’re taking on a major project, chances are you’ll be keen to make a significant upgrade here to keep your energy usage in check and reduce running costs.
Together with your heating engineer, you’ll need to decide on the best source of warmth (boiler or renewable), the distribution system and the optimum size of the equipment. Your choices may, however, be slightly constrained by the characteristics of the existing building. And that’s before you get on to considerations such as the subsidies available for renewable heat. So how can you unravel all of this?
Assess the structure
Rule number one is not to make any decisions on heating until you know to what extent the fabric of the building is to be upgraded and how that will impact on performance.
For instance, a 1930s-1960s house with single-glazed windows and rendered, dense block cavity walls will behave completely differently when the windows have been upgraded and the walls and loft insulated. In this case, heat demand can fall by 75% or more – so you may need a lower input from a smaller boiler or even a completely different source.
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