The quest for energy efficiency

This week has been all about energy efficiency and the problems of embracing new technologies and new building specifications.  We had a great meeting with Flixborough Eco Technologies and talked air source heat pumps, solar PV, (both of which we have experienced in our last home) solutions for heating domestic hot water, LED lighting and much more.  Some of these technologies may be included in the project further down the line once we have an idea of the energy costs after living in the renovated house for a while.  My reason for arranging the meeting was to help us understand the heat input requirement for our super insulated, pretty airtight renovation.  We are not aiming at Passive House standards, which in theory mean that you need almost no heat input, but we do want to come close so we recognise that the existing oil boiler will in the short term have to be used.  This will heat radiators when the solar gain and wood burning stove are not sufficient - but..... how many radiators and where do we site them?  All the advice is that the mechanical ventilation won't really move heat around the house so we will need a spread of heat sources throughout.  We know what the projected U values for the windows and insulated walls are so now we can ask our heating engineer to do the relevant calculations.  Then we can look at size and placement of radiators and heated towel rails. 

Interesting article about U values on this website The Greengage

Friends of ours in Canada have recently designed and built a completely off grid, passive house concept cottage and the link here will take you to their website.  It's a fabulous and inspiring place. 

This house is super insulated too and you can see the solar PV and solar thermal panels in the photo - energy generated by the PV is stored in batteries for use as required.  The use of batteries in the UK is quite a new idea and technology is improving all the time.  This was another topic we discussed with Flixborough Eco Technologies. All these things are really interesting but rather expensive solutions, especially when the technology is new - look at how the price of solar PV has come down in 5 years.  So the conclusion from all of this week's discussions is that we stick with the oil boiler and monitor our use of fossil fuel once the build is finished.  Hopefully that tank of oil we have will last us a VERY long time!!