Winter months

Depending on the size of the villa, a log burner and A/C units should be more than enough. We removed our log burner last year as it sometimes got a little to warm.

Is it  villa like with outbuildings, swimming pool , staff quarters, gardens etc or is it a normal house, open plan downstairs , one bedroom and shower and w. c.  Then 2 beds upstairs and family bathroom.  Or is it an apartment.   Ì heat my house, as described above with a paraffin heater.  The gas gives us a headache.  The oil heater has a fan and blows the air towards you. Don't turn it up all the way,  as it will use too much oil.  It cost around 150 in  AKI  which is now Leroy  Merlin in the Haberneras centre.  We had a gas heater in the past but this is better. It's only cold 2 months anyway Jan and Feb.

You can now have log burners which will effectively pump warm air to every room in the house through a system of ducting.

Depends on the format of the house.

Ours is (mostly) a bungalow. We had a log burner. It heated the sitting room and the bathroom immediately behind, but the rest of the house was cold. So we switched to propane gas central heating (combi-boiler and radiators).

Other house formats, e.g. multi-storey or terraced houses do better with a single centralised source of heat.

Also ... the novelty of the log burner soon wore off. It was nice now-and-again, but as a daily chore (obtaining and storing wood, clearing ash, cleaning the dust etc.) ... no thanks. Pellet burners have fewer of these problems.

Electricity tariff timings have just changed, rendering electric heating less cost-effective (unless you rely solely on off-peak heating). 

Best getting a log burner and have the bedrooms fitted with heat pump A/C units so you have both hating and cooling. We had central heating too but very rarely used it

Hello.  All replies very useful. We live up in the mountains.  Extremely cold and sometimes snow so it depends where you live and of course whether your house is insulated or not.  We have a woodburner.  Excellent for lounge diner but hallway to bedrooms and bathrooms very very cold.  Don't forget though what will you do in the summer?  Thankfully we have aircon in the lounge with ceiling fans in the bedrooms.  

Goodnluck

Our experience...

We too are in an elevated location and have an underfloor heating installation serving the whole house via a gas bottle(s) system.This is really effective if allowed to run for long periods or continuously during the winter months. However, the system uses one bottle / 24 hours so is inconvenient and expensive - thus we seldom use it. We have looked at a large gas system installation and in truth this would be the best option practically but the bulk gas cost is much higher than bottle systems. I understand that individual bottle prices are closely regulated by the government here.

We have a large open fire that, in truth, struggles to heat our large living room and is really not much more than decorative!

We supplement our heating at the moment with fan heaters but use them sparingly as the running cost is high.

Don’t have any air conditioning units (with heat pumps) at present but are seriously considering installing a couple particularly as the house has been pre-wired for several units.

We do have some extra wall insulation fitted externally on the house and a double glazed terrace these things do help somewhat to keep what heat we do have in the house!

Never really liked the idea of portable gas, oil or paraffin heaters (personal choice).

Hi DeneWelch,

It really depends on the size and configuration of your property.  We have a two-storey house which has central heating via Gabarron storage units that charge during the off-peak night-time hours - the units are in the inner hall, lounge, dining room and upstairs bedroom.  We have aircon units in the bedrooms downstairs and the lounge.  We used to have a gas (bottled) fire in the lounge, but half the heat was going up the chimney, so we had the whole lot taken out and replaced with a pellet burner.  We also have ceiling fans in the bedrooms and lounge.

Although our central heating is efficient, it is almost certainly more expensive to run than a gas system.  However, inverter aircon units, that cool and heat, are supposed to be very cost effective to run, although we only use ours when the temperature soars - like today!

Personally, I wouldn´t have a log burner, unless it´s already installed, because they´re messy; a pellet burner will give you heat at the touch of a button and just needs to be vacuumed once a week.  It´s very effective and since having it installed, about 15 months ago, we´ve found that we don´t need the central heating unless it gets very cold in the winter - once in 5 years.  You do need to factor in the cost of installation of any of these systems and if you have any form of working heating already, it may be best to maintain that and supplement it where necessary.  

Kind regards,

Kim