First post so be kind...
Last year we moved to our dream house the sticks which turned out to be a miserable experience over winter...
We inherited an elderly bulk LPG CH system, an LPG gas stove and an LPG flame effect fire. Little did we realise at that point just how expensive LPG is and that the old potterton CH boiler/rads were past it. Could not get the rads hot which meant big bills with no heat to show for it. And the two fires were more for effect only. I did try to flush the system and despite lot's of sludge coming out it made no real difference.
If we had not installed a new Stovax multifuel stove last October I think we would have moved back to our parents until spring! Needless to say the stove was never off but as it was at one end of the house the other end did not benefit from the heat where we had to use oil filled rads to bring the temps up to 16c or so. Despite having a woodland we had to buy in wood and coal as we were not prepared for winter, not cheap...
Anyway after a huge amount of research rightly or wrongly we plumped for and ASHP for the following reasons. It's always on (though temps are set to vary during the day) so the fabric of the house is nice and warm which has transformed it, the wife can work it, we just have the one heating bill now instead of four (LPG, Electric, Wood and Coal), loads of DHW and we can shop around for the cheapest electricity deals. GSHP was out as the garden was not suitable, pellet boilers were pricey and you have to house it somehow, a boiler stove connected to rads/dhw was out as installers never came back to us with quotes...
As we were starting again and combining it with renovations it did not make sense to continue with LPG and oil was out to as we did not want a oil tank at the front of the property and friends who have oil want to get rid of it for something else, again due to cost. Renovations included much more insulation in the property for the ASHP.
The ASHP heats the house through fan convectors, UFH and a towelrail radiator which is more for effect than heating due to very low flow temps.
Though the ASHP is cheap to run at the moment I'm fully aware it will be more expensive over winter but should still be cheaper than last years combination of wood, coal, LPG and electricity. Plus there's the £850 RHI payment on it's way and possible RHI payments for 18 years which would be a nice bonus but in no affected our decision to go ASHP. At the end of the day the system was chosen and designed for comfort/easy of use in a property occupied throughout the day not for the cheapest running costs. I'll be able to publish running costs if anyone is interested once I have recorded more electricity readings over the next winter. The only problem is the readings will include household use as well.
The future... I would love to have some fun having a bodge at generating electricity from our river to perhaps powering outdoor/shed/garage lights and have solar PV installed. Solar thermal is out as we made no provision for it with the new tank for the ASHP install though we did seriously look into it.
