
Heating
Heating/plumbing companies offer heating installations, from wood-fired systems to heat pumps.
What do heating engineers do?
Local heating companies
How much do heating installations cost?
Heating contractor planning and installation from A to Z
What types of heating do heating and plumbing companies install?
Heat pump: This operates in the opposite way to a refrigerator and extracts heat from the environment (the outside air or the ground) that it conducts into the building. A heat pump produces three to five units of heat per unit of electricity, making it efficient and environmentally friendly. Gas heating: Condensing gas boilers normally burn natural gas. The more biogas is mixed, the less CO2 they emit and the more environmentally friendly they are. Gas heating is also generally more efficient than oil heating. Furthermore, it requires no fuel tank and therefore less space. The installation of gas heating is therefore worth considering. Oil heating: Oil heating systems are hardly used any more in new builds as they emit comparatively large volumes of CO2. However, it is sometimes simplest and most cost-effective to replace an old oil heating system with a new one – albeit that the number of legal requirements placed on this is growing continuously. Wood-fired systems: These burn either pellets, wood chips or logs. There are also hybrid heating systems that can burn both pellets and wood chips. Wood-fired heating systems perform particularly well in terms of their carbon footprint. Infra-red heating: This may only be used as a supplement. Installing electric heating as the main new heating system in a house is generally prohibited. However, the installation of infra-red heating can be an efficient and cost-effective solution here and there or in rooms that are only occasionally used such as hobby workshops. Solar heat: While solar panels cannot be used for general heating, they can provide the bulk of hot water in an environmentally-friendly way, as they are CO2-neutral. Solar panels thus significantly improve the environmental performance of a house.