ENERGY MATTERS

[Pluggy]

As for CHP, it only pays if you can use the heat year round. The loss of efficiency caused by the elevated cold sink temperature required so it has some use kills the economics of using it for generating electricity.

Having said that there is this : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-sout ... s-19350130

Whether it could be classified as CHP is highly debateable. It will be more efficient than a normal gas power station when only generating electricity, but having large quantities on liquefied natural gas to use as a cold sink is a tad specialised. In reality of course, its just recovering some of the huge quantities of energy used to liquefy it in the first place. It isn't really useful heat either, you could easily use cold seawater to heat the gas up and just chill the seawater.

[Stanley]

Bottom line is that all conventional energy is dear. What governs individuals is the way they use it and how much trouble they are prepared to take. BG have noticed my frugality with gas, reduced direct debit to £9 per month.... That's still more than I shall use. Happy with stove but not everyone would be as serene as I am taking ashes out and bringing coal in....

[Tizer]

Log burners are all the rage among the `eco house' fanatics and you see lots of ads and photos of them in magazines...but they never show the ash being removed and rarely show logs being added or fires started. They are often in minimalist decorated rooms, white walls, and everything clean and sparkling. I'm sure many of these folk put in the stoves as an aspirational item, to show their eco credentials, and then plug in electric fires!

Wendy and Pluggy seem to be doing exceptionally well to get pay off in 7 years, even on the early higher tariff. That's a lot shorter than the predictions I'd seen in the housebuilding magazines.

[Stanley]

Dead right Tiz. If you have a stove you've got to be prepared to go back in time. (And do more dusting!)

[Tizer]

Wendy and Pluggy seem to be doing exceptionally well to get pay off in 7 years, even on the early higher tariff. That's a lot shorter than the predictions I'd seen in the housebuilding magazines.

Having looked back I realise I was mistaken - about 7 years was being quoted for the high tariff offered in the early days. I'm confusing it with later tariffs. Mea culpa!

[Pluggy]

It depends when you bought the installation. If you got in when it first started, before the prices started to drop, the payback was much longer. I looked at them in April 2010 just after the FIT was introduced. Back then, what I got for £6800 was around double that. so the payback would be around 14 years.
At todays prices and todays FITS the payback will still be about 14 years, but its only for 20 years rather than 25. Wendy and I got in at the best time, when the stuff was comparatively cheap and the FITS were still high. Shopping around now you can get a 4kWp system for less than £6000. I got 2.5kWp for £6800, I can't get any more than that on the half of the roof that gets sun.

With most governments cutting FITS the market for panels is depressed so they are cheap. Even China is struggling to keep its solar industry going. They are government subsidised and many workers are gardening whilst still being paid because they don't want to lose the expertise for when the market picks up again. Half the western solar manufacturers have gone bust and the rest are at deaths door. Many of the fitting companies grew out of existing electrical contracters and a lot have retreated back there. The extra workers that were taken on in the boom time have been laid off again.

[Tripps]

There'll be a big order down here soon. A firm has put in for planning for a 50acre site to be covered in PV panels. That's a lot.

[Stanley]

The firm will be watching anxiously as they change all the subsidy criteria under the new moves to get some generating capacity in the system. Rumour is that renewables are going to be hit.
Using my experience from earlier in the year when I first got the stove I've worked out my heating strategy for this winter. The CH thermostat is at the head of the stairs in the landing and reacts to the core temperature of the house. It's set at 17.5C, a bit low for a living room but perfectly acceptable for moving about. It's very sensitive. I spend most of my day in the living kitchen with the door closed and this benefits from the waste heat from the computer, lights, cooking and the fridge/freezer. It maintains a minimum of 20C easily unless the weather is very cold and windy. I shall fire the stove just before I go in the front room for the evening unless the CH has fired up during the day in which case the stove gets lit then. The heat form the stove soon gets to the top of the stairs via the open door in the front room and so will shut the CH off. This regime will make sure that no unused areas are heated but nowhere drops below 17.5C. I reckon it's the best of all worlds.
As I write this I recognise that I couldn't do it this way if I had a family living in the house. Think of kids complaining about 'cold' bedrooms during the day and leaving doors open! So perhaps one essential to perfect heat management is shoot the kids! Sorry, not serious about that but I can see how my scheme wouldn't work for them!

[Stanley]

Cameron sticks to his original statement but his backbenchers and the regulators are baffled. I see a last minute change to the new energy bill and it remains to be seen what the effect will be. It all smacks of panic.

[Whyperion]

If a conservative Prime Minister wishes to control the operation of a free market , doesn't that tell you something about how the market in (contracted term supplies) is not suitable for private ownership ?

[Stanley]

The problem is of course that the energy market is fatally flawed. The mechanisms for setting gas prices are controlled off-shore and look suspiciously like a cartel. The bottom line is how the energy companies manage the different parts of their business. They were allowed to split industrial supply and transmission from domestic gas and the consequence is that they manage the profit of the different sectors to 'prove' that domestic gas needs to be more expensive as they lose money on it. Further complicated by the Green Measures forced on them by political dogma. Their overall annual profits and dividends paid tell the true story. It's a licence to print money. Lack of effective control of the commanding heights of the economy again.

[Tizer]

We've been having our 25-year-old uPVC windows replaced this week with new state-of-the-art ones - they're low-emission coated, low iron glass, argon-filled, and with insulated spacers (St Gobain's `Planitherm' units). At the same time we had large windows on the north side of the house narrowed because they don't need to be so big and would still let out too much heat even with new units. As well as the window fitters there two builders to put up the block work on each side to narrow the window opening. Then we had them finish the reveals with insulated plasterboard (50mm polystyrene on gyproc).

All is well so far - except for one thing. The three narrowed windows are in three different rooms. Two of the rooms are fine but the third has a terrible sulphury stink so I've been thinking how that window differs from the other two to get some idea of what is causing the smell. The builders are putting polystryrene/plasterboard on all four reveal faces of each window but on the stinky one they put a piece of what I think is polyurethane insulation board on the bottom reveal - don't ask me why, it was the first window they did and it didn't dawn on me until later that it was different. By then the plastering had been done and the stink began. The front edge of the polyurethane board is now covered in plaster and I wonder if the plaster has reacted with the polyurethane? I wouldn't expect plaster to react with polystyrene but I think there is more potential for reaction with polyurethane. I can't find anything about such a reaction on the Internet. But if the stink isn't gone by the beginning of next week they'll have to take out the sill and the polyurethane and replace with polystyrene. The builders might be given some chemistry experiments to carry out next week - take one piece of PU and one piece of PS, cover exposed foam surfaces in wet plaster, leave to go off, then sniff at intervals.

[Whyperion]

British Gas (retail?) have mailed in their our standard tariff prices are going up in Nov 2012 ( but offered a 12month fixed / capped price contract until Nov 2013 at present day prices ). One justification was that Britain's North Sea Gas was running out and new imported sources were more expensive. Was not this considered some 40 years ago when we were all forced off the town gas from Britain's large reserves of coal and all our appliances changed over to run on the different natural gas ? ( actually not all appliances - until it was removed recently the drying cabinet in the kitchen had - do not use - this appliance is not suitable for natural gas - label appended to it , quite why the conversion companies could not make the changes ( there were at least 48 to the same design in the block of flats ) i have never known why.

[Stanley]

Tiz, sounds like an interesting problem! Not so much the smell but how you get on with educating the builders! Let me know how you went on. I have to admit that my only check on energy bills is to see what level the Direct Debits are running at versus consumption. They have realised that I am using hardly any gas and DDP has dropped dramatically. The electricity usage will drop as well as I am not in the shed using the machinery. I don't get any interest on current account balance so the money is just as productive in credit with BG as in the bank. I haven't enough capital to make any meaningful swaps of money to better interest so that's a non-starter. I have about a quarter of a ton of smokeless fuel in stock and a warm house. That will do for me. By the way, I am on the best tariff and also have the Warm Homes subsidy until June 2013. All in all I don't think I could do much better. In January I will have had the stove in for a year and I'll do a full assessment and comparison then.

[David Whipp]

Anyone got good recommendation for a new gas boiler?

Existing boiler kaput.

Ours is a sealed system and the boiler feeds a hot water tank as well as CH circuits.

[Stanley]

Any 'A' Class condensing boiler will fit the bill and b e legal. Why not get BG to come in and give you a quote. They will probably recommend doing away with the HW tank

[David Whipp]

Thanks Stanley. Will do that.

The HW tank is a super insulated modern one and it acts as a heat sink in the heart of our house, so am not keen to get rid of, but will consider the option.

The exigencies of the situation are such that replacing the boiler but keeping the system more or less as is otherwise may be best.

[PanBiker]

BG did my last boiler and the fitter they sent to do the install worked like a trojan. All sorted in two days including the pipework re-jigging and new flue arrangement. I'm on their maintenance scheme as I know Stanley is. BG do get some bad press but I can't fault my dealings with them. You will usually get a local(ish) guy to come round and quote you, not necessarily a full on salesman. They will probably give you a trade in for your old boiler as well. Sound them out for the best deal.

[PostmanPete]

Good morning David. Sorry to hear about the boiler problem. If it's any help, 'Which' magazine recommend 'Worcester Bosch' and 'Vaillant' as the 2 best manufacturers for reliability.

[Big Kev]

If you want to keep it local try Ben Greenwood.

http://www.visitbarnoldswick.co.uk/reta ... nessid=160

[PanBiker]

I forgot to say, I used Wilkin Heating and Plumbing to install some new radiators last year. They are local lads and again very efficient. No obligation quote and a very good job done with all pipework hidden despite the solid floor in our back room.

[Tizer]

David, if you don't need much hot water then a combi boiler (HW heated on demand, no cylinder needed) is best, but if, as you indicate, you already have a modern super-duper HW cylinder then it may work out more cost effective to stay with that. That's the situation we are in - just the two of us, using a shower instead of a bath but we had an expensive pressurised HW cylinder fitted before combis became more common and reliable, so we are sticking with it.

Like Pete says, 'Worcester Bosch' and 'Vaillant' seem to get the top marks for boilers. The Worcester Bosch Greenstar range was recommended in this month's `Housebuilding & Renovating' magazine.
http://www.worcester-bosch.co.uk/homeow ... as-boilers

[PanBiker]

Worcester Bosch is what BG recommended to me and I had fitted. It's been excellent and light years ahead of the Italian Vokera we had before it.

We have a couple of issues which arise from where the boiler has to be sited in our house. one is with the flue pipe as the boiler is not directly on an outside wall and I ended up with quite a long flue which I have to make accessible for inspection each year (its boxed in out of sight) or the regulations from 2013 will insist that the boiler is disabled if the flue cannot be inspected. My situation is not common as most people have them on an outside wall so the issue does not arise. Easy fix for this one, I have modified the boxing in with removable covers.
The second issue is the condensate run off pipe which again has to run quite a way to reach the outside. The pipe is installed at the back of the kitchen units which are against an outside wall. The quite severe temperatures we have had over the last few years in winter have led to this freezing up. I have looked at various ways of heating or insulating this pipe run but unfortunately all methods will involve pulling out all the fitted kitchen units to get proper access to it. So the condensate pipe is cut under the boiler and runs into a bucket through winter. I couple the pipe back to the outside world when there is no risk of freezing. I will regularise this when I next replace my kitchen units. The thing to be aware of with all condensing boilers is that they do need this run off to function correctly. If the boiler is on an outside wall, again it's not much of an issue.

[David Whipp]

Cheers Ian.

We too have the boiler mounted on an internal wall with a 3m run to the outside. Fortunately, this is in an accessible void which complies with the new regs. Our condensate drains internally into (larger) waste pipe serving adjacent bathroom. (This is good news when you get very cold winters...!)

Worcester Bosch came out top in last month's Which survey, so looks like a good bet.

[David Whipp]

Teach me to post before reading all the replies posted....

Thanks for all the links, which I'll follow up - including the visitbarnoldswick one Kev!

Just hoping we can muddle through for a while and we don't get panicked by a cold snap into getting it wrong.