What are the heating options if you have no mains gas?
What if you have no mains gas available to you, what alternatives are there to heating with no mains gas?
According to the LSOA, at the end of 2018 there were 3.95 million households in the UK with access to mains gas.
What is the best heating with no mains gas option in 2020?
Higher heating bills
No mains gas means that you will have to use more expensive forms of fuel.
What does that mean?
If you have a convection heating system it means higher heating bills. If you have to use a fuel as expensive as LPG or heating oil it’s easy to see why fuel poverty is such a concern in these areas with no mains gas.
In Inverness or Belfast postcodes you’ll know exactly the problem. Other areas of the country with poor mains gas supply include Rural Wales, Lincolnshire, Northern Ireland and the Scottish Highlands and Islands.
All suffer the same issue and therefore endure potentially much higher heating bills. The map below shows the extent of the problem.
Even in areas where mains gas is available, quite often newer, purpose built flats will not have a mains gas installation – these types of property will often have the cheapest type of wall mounted electric convection heater installed which are hugely expensive to run.
Sitting at home, shivering because you can’t afford to put the heating on is miserable.
Click the map below yo see how many off gas homes there are in the UK.
What are the options if you have no mains gas?
Upgrade your existing LPG or Oil boiler to something more efficient.
It is an option, but an expensive option. The additional downside is that even though you will have a more efficient boiler, you will still be using the same expensive fuel you were.
Install an air or ground source heat pump
In theory great. However, you will also need to upgrade all your radiators to cope with the lower temperature water circulating. All in all a very costly option. It’s also worth remembering that although the efficiency (COP) may appear to be great in the literature, a lot of off gas properties are in the coldest regions of the UK and as the temperature drops so does the efficiency of a heat pump.
Wood burner
If you’ve got a good cheap supply of fuel and you don’t mind feeding the beast constantly then this may be a good option.
Biomass installation
This may be a better option than a heatpump if you don’t have underfloor heating. The flow temperatures are high enough so that you can work with your existing radiators. However the equipment is expensive and you’ll need to make sure of a reliable pellet supplier. Pellet prices also seem to be going up and up.
Storage heaters
Expensive to run, inconvenient to use.
Modern infrared heating – heating with no mains gas
If you don’t want the expense and upheaval of ripping out boilers, changing radiators to match low flow temperatures, installing under floor heating or constantly feeding a wood burner, then infrared heating is a sensible and cost effective option.
Modern infrared heaters cost less than storage heaters for example.
Infrared heaters are very efficient, flexible, easy to control and provide instant heat. Radiant heaters are the most efficient form of electric heating and the infrared heat provided is stored in your building, not the air.
What does that mean?
With infrared heating, if someone opens a door or you have a draughty window for example you are far less likely to lose heat with an infrared heater than you are with convection based heat. You can learn more about the significant benefits of infrared heating.