Still considering gas heating for the new building?

Hello!

We want to have a house built and are currently still in the basic planning phase. Nevertheless, after a conversation with the architect, we are already thinking about the heating options.

We are not building a KfW house but one purely according to the Energy Saving Ordinance. It will have about 220m² of living space plus a basement.

In various construction performance descriptions from contractors (we are having the house built turnkey), you keep seeing heat pumps that, in addition to the unit in the building services room, also require a unit outdoors. For aesthetic reasons, we don't like that very much.

What are the alternatives for something like that?

Gas + solar (gas connection is available)?
Geothermal heat pump?
Or other air-water heat pumps that do not require an outdoor unit?

We will probably have a hipped roof (with a view to solar). With a flat roof, the panels look awful.

We also decided on the gas option. In addition, there have been complaints in some construction areas regarding the air-water heat pump with outdoor unit (noise development). Visually, we also did not find it very appealing.

We now have a Nibe F 750 in our rental apartment and don’t see any outdoor unit on the house at all. So there must be different types of heat pumps, right?

Sven, did you ever have it calculated? Or did you simply decide on gas because you liked it better? I’m interested in what the cost-effectiveness calculation might have shown.

So economically speaking, gas is currently probably ahead. It is also a proven technology. There are indeed many different types of heat pumps. The one with drilled ground probes is probably by far the most expensive. A great price-performance ratio has the brine-water heat pump if you install a trench collector yourself. But that definitely requires a lot of initiative.

You can also use an air-to-water heat pump for indoor installation. Then you only see the ventilation grilles on the outside. A basement would then make sense because the fan is then inside.

Is a gas heating system still a serious alternative in a new building?

One question - two dimensions:

The energy prices) are difficult to predict over decades, especially how they will develop in relation to the various energy sources.

The attractiveness of the property) is influenced less by the type of heating and hot water system than by the type of radiators. That means if you say "gas heating," I find that timely. If you said "radiators," I would reply that (mostly or entirely) underfloor heating is now considered standard, and "less modern" heating will, in just a few years, drag the market value of the entire property – especially in otherwise "upscale" fittings – down by an octave.

We will probably have a hipped roof (with regard to solar). With a flat roof, the panels look terrible.

In my opinion, this also applies in a weakened form to pitched roofs, if the inclination of the modules deviates from that of the roof covering. Hipped roofs are quite complex in the roof structure, which is reflected in the price. Gable roofs are currently almost again the more exclusive option (in the sense of "there aren’t already eighteen of them on this street").