UFH combined with GAS in TF build - costs?

Hi,
Currently building a TF house & installing UFH. Need to decide asap which heatsource to choose & interested in hearing any other posters' experience of gas & UFH in a TF build. At this point, I have only ruled out GEO, primarily as a result of the capital costs and am open to oil, gas or woodpellets. I heard anecdotally that a super efficient gas condensing boiler is as cheap as pellets and cheaper than oil but would rather hear from folks that have the system in place & tested. Thanks in advance, apple1

Apple, good luck with the build.

We have TF, UFH and Geo.

If you are not going with Geo, just for info purposes, out house (2100 sq ft) is costing 16 euro per week for ALL electricity, which includes heat and on demand hot water, the I hear the condenser boiler is the best option

I would have gone with the wood pellet boiler but can anyone confirm that there can sometimes be issues with the lack/quality of the pellets received.

There is also heat recovery systems and I am sure more if you want to consider these.

Thanks Yop. That's very impressive numbers - €832 per year for heat, DHW and all lights/appliances. Looks like a good call on your part. Out of curiosity, what was your initial investment on the heat pump? I'm toying with the solar idea also, but certainly won't be in a position to entertain either GEO or pellets if I go for solar. I'm just starting and already in a pickle!!!

Breath in, Breath out. Now thinking of calming waves gentle lapping against the back of your plumbers head, after you have drown him for not turning up

Dont panic lad, "You can do it"

Anyway, yes we are very happy with that, I will get a final reading now this weekend so that I can then give us a final year figure.

No need to mix solar and geo anyway.

Geo cost us 12,300 euro then the grant was 4,300 euro, so in or about 8k euro.

Pump is in now 20 months.

The pump will be smaller for timber frame houses.

Insulated it to death.

Make sure that the UFH are good and near, 50mm min if you can, more coverage = lower temperature = cheaper to run

YOP...thanks for the relaxation advice, but it may fall on deaf ears! You definetely sound like a major advocate for Geothermal. Have you any sense of what %'age of your esb bill the GEO constituted? Based on your #'s, it didn't work out that much more (if any) expensive than a good brand pellet boiler (at least based on some of the quotes I got). I may have second thoughts....though I suppose there is an incremental cost associated with excavating & installing it that need to be borne in mind.

Advocate because it has worked for us yes, but that is down to the pump, installer, luck I am sure

Also from what i understand prices have gone up, we were lucky that we got in just as the grants came in, since the grants hit I believe that prices have gone up.

The excuvation costs were about 300 euro. Forgot about them, sorry

I cannot quantify the % unfortunately!!

We have a night meter and on this goes the dishwasher, washing machine and tumble dryer.

Outside of that we have the big frigdge, double over, microwave, 2 laptops, lcd tv, 2 sat receivers.
Have also got 40 or so spot lights, 20 of which would be lit from evening until night,