Most houses in the UK are heated via gas combustion-based central heating systems. Gas comes into the house via a mains pipe, it flows into a boiler, where it is burned in a controlled manner. Water is heated by the boiler, before being pumped through the radiators in your home. It’s a system that works fantastically well – but it’s not without its drawbacks. Burning gas contributes to climate change, and so does shipping it from halfway around the world. Moreover, it tends to be less efficient than some of the newer technologies available (though there’s significant variation between different models of gas boiler).
Boilers of every kind are highly specialised devices that require expert maintenance and can be expensive to repair. It’s worth looking into the available kinds of warranty cover so you can spread the cost maintaining and repairing your heating system and avoid unexpected large bills.
Infrared Heating
You can think of infrared heater panels as a huge kind of lamp whose light is invisible. It’ll fire photons into the surrounding space. When they hit a surface, they’ll begin to heat it up. They don’t heat the air directly, but rather the solid objects in your home – like walls and furniture and people. This makes the heater efficient as no power is wasting heating all the air in your room. They are particularly good for heating specific areas by pointing the panel at them – like your office desk, sofas and tables. These devices are simple and low-maintenance, but you’ll want to be careful to avoid facing them toward windows, as the energy will literally go straight out the window!
Solar Thermal Panels
There are many different kinds of solar panel technology available. Photovoltaic cells will convert sunlight into electricity, which can then be used to power electric heaters. But there’s a more direct alternative, and that’s solar thermal panels, which heat water that’s then stored in a hot-water tank. These panels alone can’t heat a house, and thus they’re often used in conjunction with other devices. They can provide all your hot water needs though.
Electric Boilers
An electric boiler works much the same way as a gas one, except there’s a heating element inside the water tank through which electricity is passed. You can think of it like a giant kettle. Unfortunately, heating water in this way is expensive, because electricity tends to be more expensive than gas – and if the electricity has been generated through the burning of fossil fuels, then it can hardly be said to be greener. With that said, electricity makes a great match for smaller properties which lack the means to store oil or LPG.
Heat Pumps
Finally, we come to what is probably the most obvious candidate to replace the traditional gas boiler. A heat pump works a little bit like a fridge, or an air conditioner. It’ll pump a special fluid, called a refrigerant, through a compressor. In this way, it’ll transfer heat from one place to another. They can be incredibly efficient – producing three times more energy in the form of heat than they use.
Ground source heat pumps use a borehole to access the heat in the ground whereas an air sourced syse=tem extracts heat from the surrounding air concentrating it in your home. A ground-source heat pump tends to be more efficient than an air-source one, but it’s more hassle to install. Like an air conditioner, a heat pump might be able to offer cooling in the summer as well as extra heat in the winter. Electricity is needed to power the system but not much so it can be possible to get all you need from solar panels which makes this a great option for ‘off the grid’ homes.
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