hi,

we are coming over to our new house soon & are confused by differing information about the solar system. We are trying to work out the best forms of heating: 
oil rad - requires a solid power supply,
paraffin heater - expensive to buy, or
just use the fireplace?
I'm vering to the fireplace & oil rad, but only if the power will not struggle.

The house has been a holiday let & has a 12 panel, 12 battery system with a monster generator (to me!) that will automatically kick in when the batteries are depleted, or so I am lead to understand.

Friends are saying that the geni is for filling the batteries when there is little sun, but I am assuming, from what I have read & been told, that if the batteries run low at night the geni will kick in & power the batteries to power the house?

Help:)

A tricky question!
It somewhat depends on your battery size although running anything that heats from Solar is going to 'eat' your power.

A typical solar system has between 5 and 10KwH of storage. This means that (in theory) you can run a 1Kw heater for between 5 and 10 hours and that would drain your batteries. In reality you wouldn't want to do that as you would quickly kill your batteries.

The most common forms of heating here are a wood burner, oil fired central heating and/or portable gas air heaters. Each has its plus and minus.

Hope this helps rather than adds to the confusion!

interesting that you don't list the paraffin heaters

I want to get a wood burner, but at present it's just got a grate.

he did try to sell a CH system, but we declined, so not sure if it will still be there or not, but it's all boxed up so no use yet.

thanks for the info

I'm assuming that the generator would kick in when the batteries got low though, so could I not carry on heating with electric??

The modern (inverter) paraffin heaters are great.  Very efficient.  However, they need a power supply to operate as the have an integral fan and are electronically controlled.  The other down side is that they are expensive to run, especially in Spain where the fuel is twice the price as in France (both Leroy Merlin for comparison).  A typical 5 litre refill will last about 12 hours and a 20 litre bottle of PTX 2000 will cost you around 40 euros here.  If you travel via France regularly it's well worth buying some on the way down.
It's difficult to give specifics without knowing the size and layout of your property.  If you could describe the size of the rooms you need to heat it would be easier to advise on log stoves etc.  The butane heaters are a good all round solution.  They don't need power, are relatively cheap to buy and run, are portable (as are the paraffin) and last a good few years before they need replacing.  The main down side is lugging the heavy gas bottles around.

thanks, It's a relatively small house, one level with the main room about 35' by 14'

About 40sqm then.  One butane heater would probably be adequate except during really cold spells when a second one might be a good idea.
Alternatively, a good log burner with a butane heater as backup would do the job.  The butanes are about 100 euros to buy but a decent quality log burner is going to be in the order of 1,000 euros.
If you have access to your own logs on site then it's an economic medium/long term solution.  If not, logs were in the region of 135 - 150 euros per ton last time I looked and you'd probably go through about 1.5 tons in the average winter.
Gas bottles are around 15 euros and last about three/four days (day and evening).

thanks, I want to look to a wood burner, if nothing else cos the chimney is big & bulky!

Will look into the butane burners too, although they seem quite expensive to run.

Hi Paula,
I would recommend a woodburner. For us, the downside of both gas and parrafin is that they put out a lot of water vapour and we think that they smell and use up the oxygen in the room.
It's easy enough to start with a simple wood stove for little money, especially second hand. We have a pretty big stove that also heats our radiators and towel rails so the whole house is warm. They use surprisingly little wood and if you have trees to prune then is free! PM me if you would like more info, we are in Perello.

Paula,
You will see that basically what I said is correct.
There is the secondhand wood burner which I have already mentioned with a back boiler.

Pete,
The inverter paraffin heaters I mention don't put out water vapour and only give off a slight wiff for a minute when lighting and extinguishing.  Any heater (gas, paraffin or log) will use oxygen from the room.  It's needed for combustion so some form of ventilation is required.
Log fires with back boilers can be used for a form of central heating but the general opinion is that "cheap" log burners (with or without back boiler) are a waste of money.

Bigyin wrote on Nov 21^st, 2015 at 11:15pm:

Pete, The inverter paraffin heaters I mention don't put out water vapour and only give off a slight wiff for a minute when lighting and extinguishing.  Any heater (gas, paraffin or log) will use oxygen from the room.  It's needed for combustion so some form of ventilation is required. Log fires with back boilers can be used for a form of central heating but the general opinion is that "cheap" log burners (with or without back boiler) are a waste of money.

I totally agree about the new style inverter paraffin heaters. The 2 I have work amazingly well with minimum smell at start up and switch off.  Ideal back up heating for instant heat when it's not worth lighting up the log burner etc

can someone let me know about the basics of the generator/battery relationship??

I think the decision really is instant heat from gas or paraffin depending on how much water vapour you want & also the cost of fuel (the gas seems to be more??)

I have been hoping that I can use the generator a bit?

mind you it's probably no different from a friends house in Abergavenny, where she just had the wood burner & Aga, we managed without any other heating by banking up the WB & dressing warmly:) Our place has small windows & shutters, so should stay warm when we get the temp up…..

All figures approximate.
Butane heater:-
Cost to buy 100 Euros.
Gas bottle (exchange/refill) 15 Euros.
60 hours at 3Kw = 25c/hour
Paraffin heater:-
Cost to buy 200 Euros (plus).
20 litres paraffin 40 Euros.
48 hours at 3Kw = 80c/hour
Gas some water vapour, paraffin none.
I've no idea what the fuel costs would be of running a generator for heating but all forms of electrical heating are considered to be inefficient.
As for keeping the house warm, because of the construction of houses here (no cavity walls or insulation), any heat gathered during the day/evening will be lost overnight.

Paula,
Here is a good link which confirms what people have been posting on here about  the generator/battery relationship.

http://www.freesunpower.com/generators.php

We have a very similar set up, only my heating is via radiators and a log burner that incorporates a back boiler, had to bring that over from the UK though, and keep the butane gas heaters for back up, never really keen on flue-less heaters

Other considerations:-
How are you heating your water ?
How are you cooking ?
Refrigeration ?
These items would suggest that a number of gas bottles will be needed anyway.
How much of the winter do you intend to spend here ?
Have you got firewood available on site ?

Re: Heating

Over eleven years I've used gas heaters(gas is pretty cheap but there is the condensation problem),new generation parrafin heaters(no condensation,minimum odour but the fuel is expensive here) and wood burning stoves(cheapest option fuel wise but can be messy and you have to clean/set it every day). 
Don't be frightened by people talking about back boilers and a thousand+ euro costs for stoves, whilst it's true you can heat the whole place with radiators from your stove and cook on/in it you don't have to jump right in straight away. You can get a new small wood burner starting about €100,plus you'll need chimney pipes, and you can upgrade later rather than jump straight in with top of the range. It gives you time to figure what suits you and who and where is trustworthy on advice and price.
Welcome to the forum and best of luck for your new life.
Bruixot

thanks everyone:) loads to consider & interesting to see the alternative thoughts.

I'm very much the way of thinking to try a few things before committing to major investment, but I do want to move over to a WB/multi fuel stove rather than the bulky &, most probably, really inefficient open fireplace that is there ATM, not sure if I want/need to go with back boiler, to me back boiler to heat water might be better?? but then I'd need a cylinder…….

at present there are 2 gas boilers, on for the kitchen & one of the bathrooms (I think) & one for the other bathroom & the cooker is gas.

I have been mulling over bringing alternative cooking means i.e. halogen oven, small electric oven, slow cooker, bread maker etc  but again I'm overwhelmed with information, but did discover that the microwave is the cheapest form of cooking!

Fridge is electric I think.

We are over for about 2 weeks before christmas & will not be back till feb probably, so this visit is really to see how we go, but as we are driving down I wanted to bring what i could just in case we fly another time & have luggage restrictions.

James.
I've sent you an email.

I agree with bruxiot.
I brought over from uk a £800 wood burner which I have in my living room. Last winter I didn't use it at all as it is very inefficient and using stacks of wood.
I have in my kitchen a size 2 pot belly type burner, which cost less than 120€ including flue, that uses a quarter of the wood and heats the living room as well if I leave the kitchen door open.
I originally installed a gas fired boiler and radiators which costs a fortune to run and after one year took it out (wanna buy some radiators?)
I have a gas heater in the bathroom, because I'm a wimp and hate the cold
I run a large chest freezer and a large fridge/freezer from my solar  and my water is heated by a gas water heater on demand, about three gas bottle a year.
Cooking is also on gas bottles about 4 bottles a year (I drink a lot of tea)
I find that to run generators is very expensive even with the large diesel genny that I have. Better to spend your money on a really decent solar installation.
Just my experience ;)

thanks Jack

I have investigated WB stoves as I wanted one here in the UK, I know that you have to have one that is the right size for your room or you will coke up the flue & cause fires, i.e. it shouldn't be too big.

it sounds like we have the water & cooking systems like you have. I believe the solar system is good, but only time & usage will tell:)