Fitting a warmepumpe would be great, but involves ripping out all floors so not really viable. I don’t think there’s much else I can do to reduce the cost. Any views or first hand experience greatly received...
Looking at a chalet in the Vallais at around 1600m and trying to get a sense of how much (how bad) yearly heating bill could be. It’s got electric underfloor heating mats throughout and is just over 150m2.
Just to give you some idea, I am at 850m 162m2 & am currently using about 100 units a day. We have 2 x 300l how water tanks when 1 would be enough so wasting about 6 units on that.
It's not about size but how much heat losses you have so very well insulated home would take much less than next to it with old windows etc.
Fireplace maybe something you may consider with water system and air-heating-distribution (it ain't cheap - but nothing is in Switzerland).
I must admit wooden homes is place where I'd not install any heating but fireplace - but that's just me..
Not sure how long fire places will still be viable, in Haute Savoie in France they can't be used from 2022, Paris has already banned them. Switzerland hates pollution.........
Thank you, for sharing personal experiences. I guess I’ll just have to suck it up as the price of living in a nice place. Insulation is good and there’s a fireplace - but I do agree will be interesting to see how long open fires continue to be allowed.
What I notice is a huge amount of heat is lost through our fireplace, as by law it needs to be enclosed (glass cover on 3 sides) I suspect more heat is lost than ever gained by burning wood as most heat goes up the chimney. The place is 17 years old with good insulation however a huge draught around fireplace.
Esp. if the fireplace doesn't have a dedicated air intake to provide air for combustion. In this case, the air in the house is burned and new cold air is sucked in from the outside.
Our fireplace had such an air intake but during the renovation, I removed it as we intended to use the fireplace only for aesthetic reasons. I came to regret that when the primary heating failed this winter and we had to use the fireplace for heat and it was only good to provide radiant heat in the immediate area, but made the house colder overall.
Exactly, outside air is -8 now, was -14 overnight.
We have a home in South Africa with a high volume interior due to the thatched roof and the living area being being 8.5 meters at the highest point. All we have is an open fire which indeed heated just the immediate area up to 3 meters away. Enough to keep us warm while watching TV or working in the open plan kitchen.
We fitted a glass fronted wood burner in the fireplace and the difference was enormous raising the temperature by at least 6 degrees C 5 meters away. We're just fitting a gas fired boiler now and may look at putting in a gas heater (the pipe work was put in when we built the house) in the bedrooms.
While researching this I saw the Victorians would heat the space around them to keep warm, rather than the whole house. This may explain why the Queen has just a small electric heater close to where she sits. I saw this on a few TV programmes about her.
Myself and a few mates in Australia have installed cold air intakes directly into the chimney with amazing results. Simply put if you have a well sealed steel flu running up a concrete chimney then cutting a hole in the chimney in the roof space to force air down the outside of the flu (capturing waste heat on the way) with steel duct work and a fan works. Metal drum fan, air speed and volume is critical so you have maximum reclamation of waste heat but the chimney still draws properly. Not sure on the laws here regarding chimneys if it is allowed.
I have/had a separate steel duct running in the chimney to take the outside air in. No fan is really needed as the exhaust heat creates a negative air pressure and draws in the cold air.
I also have an integrated fan in the chimney which draws air from one side of the fireplace to the other side with a channel in the chimney to extract the heat from the chimney into the room.
The queen would be an easy guest - my better half likes the whole place to be hot
As most fireplaces - yours seem to be build to nice feeling and not heating . Normally you'd see lot of stone and different design of the exhaust duct - that would be 'build for heating'.
you'd need secondary water jacket on top of the fireplace which would allow for hear distribution to air-vents similar to car-cooling system.
in CH Holzfeuerung is actually promoted as renuvable energy source and fireplace with water jacket counts as that (so you be even getting some $$$ from canton)