lulu122

We have just moved to Hungary near Zalapaati and need to find someone with some knowledge of sustainable heating and hot water systems including solar panels. We have spoken to a plumber who has basically told us to just get a new gas boiler to replace the one we have as it is the cheapest method at the moment to heat the house / heat the water. We would like to install a completely new system which incorporates Solar thermal for hot water in the spring / summer, possibly using our large Hungarian style stove to heat the radiators and/or hot water in the winter and then using electric to top up the system when needed (with solar panels using the current buyback system). We have a long term vision and who knows how gas prices will change over the next 10-20 years Does anyone know an engineer who is aware of new systems to heat houses / hot water and can give us some advice? Any help would be much appreciated thanks

Razorbite101

Viky Kereskedelmi Kft
This shop is located just behind Tescos in Nagykanzsia, about 30 mins drive from you.
They came out to our place and measured up and gave us a free quote,but we didn't use them in the end. However they were professional and seemed knowledgeable.

fidobsa

Have you thought about the water based solar systems? There are standard kits with a panel and tank that you mount on the roof. They use an antifreeze so they don't need to be drained over winter. I have seen them in OBI but they are probably cheaper in trade places like Viky. If you don't already have it you could get a cheap rate electric meter for the summer water heating. I can't help with finding a good heating engineer, I could do with one myself to solve a couple of minor problems with my DIY heating / hot water system.

Peter_in_Hungary

It is now generally reckoned to be better to install PV (solar electric panels) rather than solar thermal (ST). If you install ST in sufficiency to give spring and autumn hot water then in the summer you will have over production = wasted energy /investment whilst with PV you can always use electricity and it is grid connected so any surplus is fed back to the grid to balance out the times (night) when the PV is not producing. In the last few years the price of the PV has dropped and the efficiency has increased however the ST has not followed this trend.

There is no Feed in Tariff in Hungary for PV however for the first time (available now until the end of June) there is a grant for energy improvement for homes, it is likely to be over subscribed but the expectation is there there will be others (up until now energy grants have been restricted to industry).

Your plumber is right insofar as gas is the cheapest - if you discount wood. the relative prices per kWh are approximately electricity = 40 gas = 10 and wood = 3. (All HUF) however it depends upon how you buy your wood and good quality seasoned firewood is difficult or impossible to get and you only get the 3 HUF / kWh if you are prepared to do some of the work yourselves e.g. cut it up and split it.

What do you mean by 'our large Hungarian style stove'. It is difficult to comment on using this to heat radiators without knowing what you mean by the description.

Heating with wood tends to be a 'lifestyle choice'. It's messy if in the house (it's also messy in a boiler room but it doesn't matter there) and you need sufficient space to store at least 2 years worth of fire wood to allow for seasoning.

The ROI on any form of solar is likely to be north of ten years.

IMO rather than spend 'spare' cash on solar as a first option I would tend to put in a gas boiler (as the easy option) unless the wood boiler you have is suitable (including the issues with fire wood above) and put the leftover cash towards insulation, good windows and doors all of which, in most houses are typically to a very poor standard here. But then I'm guessing as I don't know your starting base.

lulu122

Thanks everyone for your really helpful comments, we will definitely look into solar pv, our Hungarian stove is one of those large tiled stoves that we saw in many houses. Solar thermal is still a possibility but we will do more research as to cost etc

Peter_in_Hungary

If your stove is a large tiled affair then it will be essentially a wood fired storage heater. They are efficient in terms of their fuel usage but have to be run properly otherwise serious pőroblems can occur. It is possible to run radiators or hot water from them but if there is not already a heat exchanger installed in it (unlikely) then it will need to be dismantled and rebuilt to fit one, having first found someone to custom make the heat exchanger. This will be a messy and expensive job and IMO probably not worth the trouble if you have access to mains gas.

If you have radiators, what currently runs these?

lulu122

The previous owner said she used to have the stove connected to the radiators but got it disconnected ao we will get someone to come to check if it has a heat exchanger in it. The radiators are currently on the gas boiler which is very old and leaks and I think it is on its last legs. We are looking at the long term eg 20-30 years and who knows what will happen to gas prices

Peter_in_Hungary

If there are pipes (2) coming out of the stove then it will have a heat exchanger in it. However what condition it may be in is only guess work. You will have to get it pressure tested (or test it yourself). Any repairs will involve dismantling the stove, an expensive operation.

If the gas boiler is old and the stove used to run the radiators - it makes you wonder how long ago the stove ran the radiators! I would expect a heat exchanger without water in it in a stove would burn through fairly quickly. Also you have to wonder why the radiators were moved from the stove to the gas boiler.

For the future IMO fuel prices will stay in the same relationship to each other, that is if gas goes up then fire wood will also go up. We already have people in our neighbouring village who have converted from wood to gas as they say that the work and hassle with fire wood is not worth the difference between that and gas.

fidobsa

Yes, I have never dared run a stove with boiler empty of water. Those tiled stoves are very good but as Peter says, they are normally just room heaters. If I were putting in a gas boiler in such circumstances I would have tried to have the radiators connected to both solid fuel and gas boilers at the same time. I would have the gas boiler come on early in the morning then get the solid fuel fire going perhaps mid morning and turn off the gas boiler once the tiled stove is up to temperature. My cottage in Scotland has gas central heating and it is nice to get up to a warm house but there are aspects of woodburning stoves which I also like. I use a woodburning cooking range with heat exchanger so it serves as my winter cooker as well as heating the house. This means there is always heat there for cooking soups, stews, baked potatoes etc without running up gas or electric bills. I have used two such ranges, one made in Austria and a stainless steel one made in Slovenia. They are not as good as the Rayburn / AGA / Stanley cast iron ranges we have in UK because they don't retain the heat so well. This means you have to stoke up the fire well before you start cooking a meal.

lulu122

What type/ make of cooking stove do you use?

fidobsa

The first photo is of the one in Hungary. I can't remember the name of the make but it was made in Austria. The second photo is of the Slovenian made stove before I installed it. That does not have any markings and I think was made to order by a craftsman:

Peter_in_Hungary

If you are there for the long haul and thinking out 20 years then a reasonable option would be to sort out the fabric of the house to mitigate the need for much heating. When you bought the house you should have got an energy assessment which I would suspect is about a 'D' or worse.

If you were to insulate the outside of the house (external wall insulation or EWI), put in decent triple glazed windows, 30cm of loft insulation along with some heat reclaim ventilation (needed when you make a house airtight with new windows) then your heating bills will drop to an extremely low level to the point that you will only need to heat a bit for a few weeks in the year and then the price of gas becomes irrelevant.

Instead of worrying about what sort of heating to have and how to afford it in the future - remove the need for it - well 90% of it anyway

If you go down this route then the attention to detail in the fit up is very important and you will have to watch the builders to make sure that they do not cut corners.