Install a new oil heating system now?

the tank system looks good and will remain (besides, it currently contains several thousand liters of heating oil, which we would otherwise have to pump out).

Is the oil heating system even defective? If not, I wouldn’t let possible funding drive my decision. First modernize the house, but already early on plan and implement the non-changeable heating surfaces (underfloor heating). With a heat meter for the old heating system, you can determine the maximum heating load of the insulated house in winter after the planned measures, in order to dimension the new heating system as small but appropriate as possible: higher efficiency, lower acquisition costs. Regarding oil and pellets, I would also consider that you are tied to the respective energy source for decades: regular deliveries, local emissions from combustion, risk of disproportionate price increases or operating costs due to monopolies/regulations/taxes etc. With electric heating, many of these issues do not apply, and electricity is getting "greener" every year. With photovoltaic electricity from your own roof, you can partially hedge against price increases. That the photovoltaic system not only breaks even but also generates some profit with the current subsidies is an additional bonus you can take regardless of whether you want to heat with oil, wood, or electricity in the future. Whether to use oil or not will probably become a matter of conscience. I don’t see advantages of pellets over the heat pump; both will probably be more expensive than oil, although that is not necessarily the case with the heat pump. Disadvantage of heat pump: proper planning is important. Also, good luck to you with the implementation.

Hello everyone,

so, I hope I don’t forget to address something that was written.

So, the tiled stove is already in the house and will stay. Retrofitting heat pockets for hot water production would indeed be possible in the existing tiled stove, but according to our heating engineer, it would be very expensive, which would no longer be worthwhile for us in our lives.

Unfortunately, there is no space for much photovoltaics to operate a heat pump, since there is already a photovoltaic system on the house, whose electricity is completely fed into the grid, as it is an old system with correspondingly high subsidies. Therefore, only a small photovoltaic system on an outbuilding is planned for own electricity consumption and possibly for partial heating of a water buffer tank (installed separately from the tiled stove).

Low-temperature radiators can of course also be operated with a heat pump, but in our case it is simply so that we still have radiators in more or less uninsulated outbuildings that need to heat when it’s cold, and we do not want to remove all the radiators and replace them with others now.

The next point is that in our case not only the residential house is heated with this system, but also two other buildings, all with different energy standards. And the house itself, where most of the area to be heated is, will get new windows and new roof insulation (which is already insulated with 11 cm of glass wool, and will be 24 cm of wood fiber), but what we definitely will not do is full thermal insulation.

The two energy consultants we had here are independent and are also paid separately, and have nothing to do with the heating engineer. After much back and forth, they both came to the conclusion that if anything, only a groundwater heat pump would be an option. However, this is of course very expensive to install and due to the declining groundwater level, it could become problematic.

At first, we actually wanted a heat pump, so it’s not that it was not up for debate, but in our special constellation — and these were several opinions — it probably really does not make sense.

Oh, and the old heating system is not broken, but still has to be replaced because we relocated the chimney for the heating system and we will connect a new heating system to the new chimney at the same time. And also simply for reasons of energy efficiency it will be replaced. In extensive renovation measures, this makes sense to me.

The end of the story is, we have decided on the oil heating system.
It’s also not a decision for the rest of our lives, but presumably we will have to deal with the topic again in (hopefully only) 20 years, and then it will be something different anyway when the installation of oil heating systems is banned in a few years.
Currently, after much consideration and many discussions and opinions, this is the best solution for us.

I thank you for the many suggestions and for your good wishes for the renovation!

So there are several houses. I retract my assessments.

Therefore, only a small photovoltaic system on an outbuilding is planned for self-consumption and possibly to assist in heating a water buffer storage tank (installed separately from the tiled stove).

Depending on the size, partial feed-in might also be more sensible for this system than directly misusing the electricity for heating. Just google it; there are forums dedicated solely to photovoltaics where you should definitely describe this side project.

So in the end, you simply do not carry out extensive renovations in the energy sector. Windows and roof on the main building and nothing on the outbuildings is not extensive. Then the heat pump is rightfully off the table. In the end, you are saving on energy renovation. Just keep in mind that this can come back to haunt you in 20 years. Renovating an occupied house extensively is hell.

Satire or ignorance?

Rationality. Modern oil heating systems have good values. In an unrenovated house, a heat pump is stupid.

The next point is that in our case not only the residential building is heated with this system, but also two more buildings,

If you had shared all the information at the beginning, we could have saved ourselves many suggestions. I am now also switching back from the heat pump to oil. Can you perhaps tell us what kind of buildings they are? How are they connected and how are they used? Maybe two different heat generators are suitable.