Forced air gas powered central heating ? avoid ?

[Rhossydd]

Anyone any experience of these, old, systems ?
I've just viewed a 60s house with one of these systems. Huge 'boiler/furnace/heat exchanger' thing in a cupboard that looks like it eats money and had to be repaired a lot. Annoying as otherwise a good house that would suit us (nice double garage for a workshop )
I assume the best option would be to rip it out and install a new wet system from scratch. Not exactly an easy or cheap job if you want to live in the house at the same time.
Walk away ? or try and knock the price down £40k ?

 

[RobinBHM]

My Mother In Law has a warm air system, it’s very effective, the house is always toasty warm and the air out of the vents is very gentle, you don’t feel any air movement in the room like you would with a fan heater.

Her dual fuel cost is around £250 a month which is quite dear but it’s a detached bungalow with a fair area, so maybe not excessive.

Sure it wouldn’t be as efficient as a modern wet system boiler but it’s probably not a massive energy guzzler, the boilers so large because the air vents and heat exchanger are so big because it’s air not water.

If you had a new system, I’d say you could get a system with hot water priority, weather compensation, large rads, mains pressure hot water tank for £15k say, maybe less and make good removing existing. I’m guessing on the price, I had a boiler, hot water priority system and ultra fast recovery hot water cylinder for £4,500 earlier this year, so add on say £3k for rads and pipework then another £2k for pressurised tank etc you are getting on for £10k - £15k

I wouldn’t be concerned about living in the house and having work done at same time, a plumbing firm would knock it out in a few days.

TBH if you can get some money off and you get chance to have a new system, you could get a heating system designed to operate at low flow temps and be super efficient. Have a look at Urban plumbers or heat geeks on YouTube for advice

 

[Rhossydd]

Thanks Robin. Interesting numbers, although comparisons of heating costs have so many variables.
The first house we looked the owner was able to give a month by month breakdown of exact power used over the previous two years, which came as a jaw dropping surprise.

I wouldn’t be concerned about living in the house and having work done at same time, a plumbing firm would knock it out in a few days.

Hmm, I think a first ever installation of a wet system to a house would require a lot of access, not to mention be pretty messy. Fine if it could be done before moving in, but inconvenient for all if we were resident with all our possessions. I could see a 'few days' easily becoming a 'few weeks'.
I might also add there's some asbestos issues that would need to be accommodated whilst removing the old system to add to the time and complexity of the work.