Your subject heading is absolutely correct - it sure does!
Our house came with an LPG tank and I guess it's the easiest and cleanest system. It's very handy to have the gas cooker connected to the big tank and so there's no need to bother changing cylinders as you might if you had oil CH. We have town gas in UK so at least using gas in France is familiar and we didn't have to learn the more fiddly details of oil burning.
I suspect this convenience comes at a cost though.
In a house the size of yours I reckon the costs will be huge whatever the system. Our house is half that size, has pretty feeble insulation and can cost €30 per day for a week to get the house up to around 20 degrees when we pay a fleeting visit. Guess what - we hardly ever use it.
I think most non-town gas CH systems are oil burning but that's only from what I've picked up on this site and learned while viewing houses to buy. That suggests it has been the more economic option for a long while. However, don't ask me if it is now.
For a place that size I'd start seriously looking at heat pumps or automated wood burners.
Air or ground source heat pumps effectively make electric heating 60-70% cheaper. There have been lots of threads about them here.
You can buy wood boilers that take wood chips or pellets. You just load up the hopper every couple of days and the system feeds the wood in automatically.
http://www.nef.org.uk/logpile/woodfuel/centralheating.htm
The really important thing is to insulate and draught proof the house as well as possible, otherwise you're just keeping the sparrows warm.
You don'tsay if it's a new build or built?
We have LPG with a condensing boiler and wet underfloor heating. We looked at ground source and decided that we couldn't go horizontal and 16,000€ for 2 100 meter deep holes was OTT. Hence the condensing boiler. We are also looking at backing that up with evacuated tube solar heating to supply the boiler with warm/hot water to start off with and that will bring the anual cost down even more. The condensing boiler has proved very effecient so far, but we are still fine tuning the system. I forgot to say that the new boiler was fitted just before Christmas to replace a 20 odd year old boiler which was not efficient!
I also agree that having a gas hob on the bulk tank is good too. We had LPG in England before moving so are quite at home with it..
I'd go for a wood gasification boiler with buffer tank. in milder weather you will only need to light the fire every couple of days because once all your rads and house are at the desired temp all the heat from boiler will heat the water in the buffer/storage tank and give you enough heat for free heating the following day.
look at this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ga9TbNIiCJE
Friends of ours have just recently renovated a barn. They have installed a Finnish woodburning stove that is incredibly efficient. It only needs to be alight for 3-4 hours per day to heat the whole house for 24 hours - plus they have a small oven in the top in which they can cook either casseroles or pizzas etc. These stoves are expensive, but eligible for a good rebate on your tax return.
This is the sort of thing:
http://www.nunnauuni.com/english/
I am most intrigued by these heaters. Will definitely bear them in mind should I need to install a stove in our next house.
By the way, RR, Good Luck in your new home!
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