Plumbing/heating - advice please!

[Lady g]

I'm aware that there are some plumbers on here, so I thought I'd pick your brains - please..!

I need to refit the bathroom in my flat - which is tenanted - so not looking to spend a huge amount of money, but never having had to refit a bathroom before, I'm not sure how much I should budget to replace the bath, sink and loo - replacements to go back into the same positions, ie new for old. Any ideas?

Also, as there is no mains gas in the area, the flat currently has Economy 7 night storage heating - but only one night storage heater to heat the flat, as I ripped out the other one because it was too bulky. So, I'm looking at how best to heat the flat - an electric central heating system?? What should I be looking for, what's involved and how much would a system cost?

Any advice would be gratefully received!

Thanks

Kim

[Rsv4Col]

ChrisK5 might be able to help you out

[Johnnyb]

When i did our bathroom and toilet it cost very little apart from the actual suite itself, i just had to make sure that the replacements had the fittings in pretty much the same place as the old stuff otherwise you have to start moving water pipes and waste pipes, the toilet was the worst as the new one had a water inlet from below where the old was from the side but only took half an hour to move the pipe and was pretty much a straight swapover for everything else.(even easier these days with pushfit plastic connections and pipes) I think the worst part was doing the silicone round the bath afterwards as its got to look good ........

[Plunger83]

Hi Kim, I have only just seen this thred otherwise i would have replied sooner.

First of all your bathroom.....
Any suite from wickes,b&q or homebase will do the job, I have seen them advertised for a very little amount (£150 ish) for a complete suite with taps & waste fittings. Be careful though, I have seen baths from the D.I.Y stores that you can literally see through! they are sometimes very thin!
As a plumber I always buy my products from a plumbers merchants and I have to be honest im not sure off of the top of my head how much i could get a suite comprising of a toilet, basin & Bath for? But i do know the quality is better.
Having said that china is china so don't spend lots on your toilet and basin, the cheapest of bathrooms can be made to look very stylish/expensive with some nice taps/chrome fittings.

As for your heating, you can get an electric heating system, however Im guessing they cost ALOT to run? I wouldnt really know, we specialise in gas, oil and renewable energy installations and so we have never really come across electric boilers. Any manufacture of the boilers should be able to tell you how many units per hour the boiler will use to heat the property... you should then be able to work out roughly how much it will cost to run.
Last of all, If you have a few evenings spare a week, try and arrange to get quotes from local plumbing company's, even if you have no plans to use them you can see what they have included in their quote's and go out and price it up yourself.

If you have any questions email me carl@sadlerand bourne.co.uk

Carl

[Lady g]

Carl, thanks ever so for the response.

I've managed to get a bathroom suite for a really good price from B&Q as they were having a special offer (50%). I've organised a plumber/tiler to do the work (I hope!) and he's charging me £200 to remove/replace the suite and then £20 psm for the tiling - which seems a bargain (too good to be true??).

As for the heating - there seem to be so many different types and I've got myself completely confused - electric combination radiators, which seem to be wall mounted but either plugged into a socket, or hardwired into the system, thermostatically controlled, but separate to the hot water system and operate on Economy 10 (although the Energy Saving Trust(?) suggested that Economy 10 would not be the most economical tariff), or there are thermapanel radiators(?). I get the impression that both these systems are more modern versions of the night storage heaters. Or there seems to be a system which works in exactly the same way as a gas central heating system, but uses electric..

Confused of Teignmouth...

[DynaMight]

Theres no such thing as cheap electric heating and I guess the more economical heaters will be more expensive to buy!

All you need to be looking for is the kilowatt rating. If it's 2 kilowatt (kwh) then it'll use 2 units of electricity per hour, every hour it is on, It's roughly 12p per unit depending of tariff and supplier. Whatever type of heater you look at, just look at the kilowatt rating and work from there.

Economy 7 is designed for Night Storage heaters because they charge up overnight then release the heat throughout the day, but are large due to the bricks. E7 tariff runs for 7 hours overnight and that rate is normally 1/3 of your normal daytime tariff. E7 is useless for 'direct' electricity heating and the day rate tariff is normally a few pence more than the standard single rate tariff.

Economy 10 has 10 hours of cheap rate, 3hours in the afternoon, 2hrs in the evening and 5hrs overnight. Not all suppliers can support that tariff so worth checking around. It probably is the best bet for direct electric heating.

[julian]

I was going to speak with you when we were sat in the stand at donning ton. I’ll ring some time but…AT the MOMENT per kwh gas is cheapest to run, followed by oil then electric. Electric is cheapest to install ( just) followed by gas then oil. But…….. Gas and oil will run out eventually ( in the not so distant future) and can never be eco friendly so the cost of the raw material and tax on it will go up. Electricity can be produced in many ways so will always be available.

I’m having the same quandary with how to heat my house ( when I get round to build it, maybe even ground or air source heat pump?) but if gas is available it’ll probably offer the best solution in terms of efficiency and adding to the resale value…….

[TLS-Moose]

I’m having the same quandary with how to heat my house ( when I get round to build it, maybe even ground or air source heat pump?) but if gas is available it’ll probably offer the best solution in terms of efficiency and adding to the resale value…….

Air source heat pump would be the way to go if you can afford it ....... then again, if you're building from scratch and have a decent size plot, ground source can be pretty efficient ...... solar panels work well, if the can be south orientated, and are getting more efficient all the time.

If you insulate well and wisely, you should be able to minimise the heating requirements of a new house anyway

Bury the house around a central light well works well, and maximises the garden space as well

[Plunger83]

I but if gas is available it’ll probably offer the best solution in terms of efficiency and adding to the resale value…….

Resale value, if I was looking at buying a house that had a boiler that was 400% efficient i would be interested.

I have installed a few ground source heat pumps, you need to have a room for the bloody things to go in, underfloor heating, and a good budget these things aren't cheap but for every 1kW you put in you get 4kW's back so eventually you will see a return.

Carl, thanks ever so for the response.
I've managed to get a bathroom suite for a really good price from B&Q as they were having a special offer (50%). I've organised a plumber/tiler to do the work (I hope!) and he's charging me £200 to remove/replace the suite and then £20 psm for the tiling - which seems a bargain (too good to be true??).

That sounds like a good price to me, £20psm is around average, not to little not to much.

Good luck with it all.

Carl



Confused of Teignmouth...

[julian]

I but if gas is available it’ll probably offer the best solution in terms of efficiency and adding to the resale value…….

Resale value, if I was looking at buying a house that had a boiler that was 400% efficient i would be interested.

I have installed a few ground source heat pumps, you need to have a room for the [Censored] things to go in, underfloor heating, and a good budget these things aren't cheap but for every 1kW you put in you get 4kW's back so eventually you will see a return.

Confused of Teignmouth...

[/quote

i have room for it, gonna be digging up my garden soon to landscape it, thought i might put some coils in at the same time. from your experiance of ground source. did it work? ( i know its only fesable in a new build/very well insulated house and what was the approx material cost? if you clients read swb could you pm me! cheers

[Plunger83]

[/quote

i have room for it, gonna be digging up my garden soon to landscape it, thought i might put some coils in at the same time. from your experiance of ground source. did it work? ( i know its only fesable in a new build/very well insulated house and what was the approx material cost? if you clients read swb could you pm me! cheers

Yes it works fantasticly well as long as you don't want any more than 45 degrees from the flow temperature, the best heat pumps are the bi-vailient operation option, these use an immersion type top up (running on economy 7) to top your hot water temp up to get it to 65 degrees. The reason underfloor heating is so good with heat pumps is that it needs a flow temp of around 35degrees. Unlike conventional radiators that use 70 degrees plus flow temp.
Basically the higher flow temp you get from your heat pump the lower the COP (Coefficient of performance) figure will be. the flow temp of 45 degrees should give you a COP of 4 meaning the heat pump is 400% efficient. Some manufactures advertise a COP of 5+ but I have read the small print and 9 times out of 10 this is with a flow temp of around 25degrees. this is not enough and you would need the immersion back up to run most of the demand and therefore not making the installation efficient.

If your going to do the installation yourself then make sure you put the right size/length slinky in the ground, If you don't know what size/length you need the i suggest you get someone in to give you an itemised quote so they can work it out for you, its so important to get the right size/length in. To short/close together it will freeze, to long and you wont get the return temperature back to your unit. It only needs to be between 1.5-2m deep any more and the ground looses heat anyway.
As for price that's hard really do you mean just the heat pump or ufh, pump, piping it in and the lot?
For a decent Worcester ground source heat pump say 9kw i would pay around £3200+vat
Ground loop £$00-£500+vat
Glycol £600
Commissioning £400
Buffer Tank £250+vat
Ground Source Unvented Cylinder £800+ +vat

Those figures are off the top of my head, luckily i have just done a quote so they are relatively fresh in my mind but don't quote me on them.

You will have to forgive me If I have told you info you already know! I have no idea what you do for your occupation?

Anyway I hope this helps...

Any probs just ask

Carl

[julian]

cheers for the reply m8ty. i'm a builder and have heard lots of hearsay speak about ground source systems so was interested to hear from someone who has worked with them