Heating

[Addy]

We are in Adelaide and right now I am cold!! :sad:

 

We are in a rental which has reverse cycle A/c but it doesn't heat effectively. So we have bought oil filled rads and they heat very well but our electricity bills are high. So at the moment we are just heating the sitting room and spending all our time in there in the day and heating the bedrooms ready to go to bed and get up in the morning. It is pretty miserable going to the loo I can tell you! :shocked:

 

We obviously can't change the heating in our rental but we are hoping to buy in the near future, so what would you guys recommend we look for in the way of heating? Alternatively, what should we install? I was thinking about underfloor heating with tiled floors as the best option. Has anyone got this?

[Guest siamsusie]

We are in Adelaide and right now I am cold!! :sad:

 

We are in a rental which has reverse cycle A/c but it doesn't heat effectively. So we have bought oil filled rads and they heat very well but our electricity bills are high. So at the moment we are just heating the sitting room and spending all our time in there in the day and heating the bedrooms ready to go to bed and get up in the morning. It is pretty miserable going to the loo I can tell you! :shocked:

 

We obviously can't change the heating in our rental but we are hoping to buy in the near future, so what would you guys recommend we look for in the way of heating? Alternatively, what should we install? I was thinking about underfloor heating with tiled floors as the best option. Has anyone got this?

Have you tried those heat bulbs for bathrooms & loos... they dont look very nice but would surfice your rental.

I have got one of those reverse cycle aircon/heaters but really dont like them at all. I love the wood burners with a fan and find it heats the whole house up very adequately and it looks so cosy with a brill heat as well. During the nights we leave it on low and build up in the mornings. It was -3 this morning thick white frost and its toasty inside.

Cant answer your questions about underfloor heating.

Susie x

[Guest Aldo]

I had under floor heating in my old place and its brilliant, the trick is to find a nice warm (not hot) tempreture you like and leave it on, if you keep turning it on and off its less economical as it has to reheat the whole floor area.

The big problem in Aus' is the poor standard of windows and insulation so as soon as you turn the rads off its freezing again. Wood burners are good but be sure to get a modern fan assisted one and get it professionally installed, the amount of house fires in the aussie winter is depressing.

[Addy]

Thanks :wubclub:

 

We have a heat bulb in one bathroom but it takes half an hour to warm the room - which is no use when you need the loo! It's Ok for a shower if you remember to put it on. The other bathroom has an electric heated towel rail, again it only heats the room after about half an hour.

 

I will look out for woodburners. People I know in Sydney have one of those and it heats rads in other rooms. I wonder if they have those here?

[Guest iselinger]

Australians deny the existence of winter. Get used to it. Then get your own place and install proper insulation.

 

Reverse cycle aircon is theoretically the cheapest way of getting heat using electricity paticularly if it is one of the newer units. Much more efficient than fan heaters but they struggle when air temp drops below 8 degrees.

[Rudi]

We had ducted reverse cycle aircon in Sydney and found it fabulous! We found the trick was to keep it on 24/7. Overnight we would turn the temperature down a bit so we didn't boil in our beds and then we would turn it up during the day. If you turn it off overnight it takes several hours to warm the air up again.

 

In Qld we have a couple of oil fulled radiators which we set to come on in the mornings when we get up and then we have an open fire......which is great, except that my hubby is rather over ambitious with it and tend to load it up and fill the house with smoke!!!!

 

Love

 

Rudi

x

[Quoll]

We have a Nectre inbuilt Radiant heating Nectre Range - doesnt have to be fan forced, it is great without the fan and heats the whole house although we are looking to have it ducted into other rooms down the track to make it even more efficient. On the down side, wood can be a pain in the bum if you dont have a man who enjoys chopping and making kindling and cleaning out the ashes. And it can be dustier than other options as well.

 

However it is a darn sight cheaper than the reverse cycle aircon in the granny flat!

[pommekate]

We have friends who live on a farm out west of NSW, they have the wood burner which is ducted to all the rooms, very cheap to heat their house. We have a rinnai gas heater, heats our house beautifully, we set it to a timer couple of hours first thing in the morning and evening. I also know people who have ducted gas heating. I certainly find gas cheaper than electricity, but I use electric blankets to heat my bed then turn them off before going to sleep.

[calNgary]

To keep costs down we open all blinds during the day when the sun is shining , as soon as it gets to tea time, we light our wood fire. Its cheap to run and really does throw out some heat. Our bedroom is at the opposite end of the house to the fire so we have an oil filled heater we plug in for a few hours of an evening, we do however turn it off when we go to bed.

 

Cal x