ᐅ Which heating system would you recommend?

Hello everyone,

After a long back and forth with the building authorities, our house construction project is now about to start.
We still have an important decision to make…

Which heating system should we use?
We are planning a single-family house of about 180sqm (1938 sq ft) without a basement.

Option 1 (my personal favorite):

Water-bearing fireplace + solar thermal system + gas condensing boiler

We have our own forest, and currently, I harvest about 6 cubic meters (7.8 cubic yards) of firewood each year anyway.

Option 2 (this option is preferred by our developer):
Air-to-water heat pump from Nibe + photovoltaic system including battery (Viebrockhaus).
However, I’m concerned about the dependency on electricity on overcast days. After all, you use the most energy when the sun isn’t shining.

Regardless of the developer’s preference, what would be the best option for us?

Thanks and best regards

Option 1. Using your own wood, of course! Let someone else take on their Nibe.

I would also recommend option 1. I myself have exactly this setup: a masonry heater with an additional water jacket, a gas condensing boiler, and a solar system.

Thank you very much for the quick responses.
Can you roughly estimate how much electricity the pump motor for the water-carrying fireplace consumes?
It should actually be fairly manageable.

I wouldn’t recommend a simple wood-burning stove with water circulation.
During transitional seasons, you end up pumping heat into the rooms just to get hot water. The sun isn’t shining yet, but it’s too warm outside for a lot of energy demand.
In that case, a wood gasifier or a masonry heater with a water jacket would be better.

If you have your own forest, it’s questionable whether a full gas heating system as backup heating is worthwhile.

Keep in mind: the stove needs to run at full power to charge the buffer tank.

That was the reason for my masonry heater. I have a combustion chamber for 10kg (22 lbs) of wood, so it has a good capacity... I’m not sure if a wood stove would be as optimal in this case.

I can switch between a water jacket and flue gas channels. This way, I can also heat at warmer temperatures without the room getting too hot. However, I have a very large space where the heater is located, so room overheating doesn’t happen quickly.