During the second world war the UK government realised we would need to rebuild once over and things like the 13 amp plug were developed to assist the rebuild, the whole idea was we would use electric for heating, however it has to date not transpired, we have in other words seen it all before, and realise it is some ones pipe dream.
The
Ronan Point collapse has resulted in high rise flats being all electric, and the heat pump has resulted in some success, but what has happened since the second world war is we have embraced central heating, and in the main central heating is integral to our homes.
However heating unused rooms clearly costs, and there has been a move to better control, the main thing about better control is heating speed, and much depends on the building, if your trip home from work takes ½ hour and you can heat the first rooms to be occupied in ½ hour then you could use geofencing to turn on heating, electric has some advantages in that inferred is very fast heating, but also very hard to control, the water circulation method is slow, using hot air is faster, and with electric no need to be ducted it can be de-centralised.
However that does not help with heat pumps, and the main problem is we want far higher output radiators to be able to heat the water to lower temperatures and heat rooms faster, so the only option seems to be fan assisted radiators, I has an old Myson in old house, there was a slight noise, but modern ivector myson radiators use variable speed fans which alter speed rather than water throughput to vary output.
Having all radiators piped in series would work well with ivector radiators, or a boiler where the return water temperature does not matter, however our gas boilers modulate (turn down output) as the return water temperature increases, this works well with TRV controls on radiators, but not so good where there is no restriction on water flow, an odd kick space heater in kitchen OK, but all radiators turned to fan assisted would require re-piping.
Then we look at cost, the cost of fan assisted radiators is rather high, control raises the cost even further, building management is made for large buildings, but not really for the private house, the standard EvoHome, Wiser, or other smart control system designed for domestic is not really going to work altering fan speeds.
I think in fullness of time we will have fan assisted radiators, one advantage is they can heat and cool, so connected to a heat pump they can heat in winter and cool in summer, but as yet the control system for domestic is simply not made, and the big question is if it can be made at a reasonable cost?
I went to brother-in-laws old house, really good system, the solar panels, wood burning fire, LPG boiler, all heated a water heat store, and the store then heated the house as required, however there was something like 100 gallons of water in the store, up stairs as safety needs thermo syphon in case of power failure for wood burner, so a very well reinforced floor on airing cupboard, and the system put around £25k on price of house, it could have in real terms only be done with a new build, when he moved to stone cottage he did consider it, as did work well, but it was not practical.
So we have to consider the build of the home, my last home was open plan, worked well if all rooms heated, no real option to only heat rooms being used, this house has internal doors, so using programmable TRV heads we can heat rooms when required, but radiators are too small for a rapid reheat, the fan assisted would likely work well, as oil fired so return water temperature not important.
But central heating is an integral part of the homes design, or at least it should be, and to try an alter is not easy, yes we can re-purpose items, my wood burning flue is now the exhaust for the AC. But that is no where near as good as an AC designed to be integral with home.
So it needs some careful thought, every home is different, after living in an open plan house for 25 years, moving to a house with doors has required a re-think on how to heat, what worked with one does not work with the other, also life style, as retired we want heating 24/7, the whole idea of geofencing is rather pointless for us, in fact most people who go out to work, return as set times as simple timed temperature change often works better.
calculation - and yes, it's quite an expensive conversion. I won't be making the change anytime soon.
