doing up my house

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doing up my house
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giraffe

Joined: 07 Oct 2005
Posts: 272
Location: Nottingham

Posted: Wed Nov 16, 05 10:24 am Post subject: doing up my house
If you had a budget of about ten grand to make a typical 3 bed 2 storey + attic room victorian semi more eco friendly, what would you do? Gas boiler, electric oven. Looking for inspiration...

Mrs Fiddlesticks

Joined: 02 Nov 2004
Posts: 10460

Posted: Wed Nov 16, 05 10:28 am Post subject:
Insulation 1st I'd guess. A super efficient boiler is going to work best when the house is insulated in the 1st place. After that.. hmm I expect the experts to be along in a mo...

jamsam

Joined: 21 Oct 2005
Posts: 2560
Location: erm....i dont know, its dark.

Posted: Wed Nov 16, 05 10:32 am Post subject:
under floor heating - could save you a packet on heating small rooms like toilets and bathrooms. more water butts, gey water filters and low flush toilets. recycled/low impact fllors- recycled wooden flooring or greener matting ie reed or hemp. im running out of ideas

giraffe

Joined: 07 Oct 2005
Posts: 272
Location: Nottingham

Posted: Wed Nov 16, 05 10:38 am Post subject:

floors are sanded boards apart from the two rooms with concrete floors. Does anyone think it would be worth setting up some sort of alternative fuel / wood burner system for the heating and hot water? Boiler and central heating are rubbish and am going to have to replace them anyway very soon. Don't mind if only one or two rooms are "properly" heated as my childhood was spent freezing and now I hate warm houses!

jamsam

Joined: 21 Oct 2005
Posts: 2560
Location: erm....i dont know, its dark.

Posted: Wed Nov 16, 05 10:44 am Post subject:
where i work all the houses have wood burning stoves and they heat the water aswell. it works very well in the summer and now its starting to get cold its a struggle to get enopugh wood for them all, so they are bringing in the wood which completely goes against the point. i would love wood burning stoves, but is the smoke worth the effort?

judith

Joined: 16 Dec 2004
Posts: 22789
Location: Montgomeryshire

Posted: Wed Nov 16, 05 10:54 am Post subject:

We have found that the most eco-friendly things we have done to our house have been the "non-sexy" ones. �200 worth of insulation in the extension probably saves as much energy as the �considerably more solar water heating system we put in. Guests tend to be more impressed with the latter though.
Another major success was having the house repointed, which has greatly reduced our damp problems, but again it is not very exciting. Nor is buying more efficient electrical appliances.

We thought we were going to have to replace our boiler, but as the house gradually becomes more watertight and insulated - and after the boiler had a really thorough service - we are finding that it probably doesn't need to go.

None of this stops me coveting a wood-burning cooking stove, but on the scale of eco-friendliness, it doesn't rate very highly

sean
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 42219
Location: North Devon

Posted: Wed Nov 16, 05 10:58 am Post subject:
Insulation first, including replacing windows if necessary. I'd give serious thought to a woodburner for heating and water. I think there was a thread here about grants being available for this. Jamsam, a properly set up and used woodburner should be generating almost no smoke anyway. Clearview stoves are licensed to burn wood even in Smoke free zones.

giraffe

Joined: 07 Oct 2005
Posts: 272
Location: Nottingham

Posted: Wed Nov 16, 05 11:05 am Post subject:
Already planning to replace some of the windows and replace the outside doors, renew insulation etc as part of the main building work. I'm thinking a wood burner might be feasible but what about in the summer when we want hot water but not the heat? Sorry this is a stupid question, just wondering!

Jonnyboy

Joined: 29 Oct 2004
Posts: 23956
Location: under some rain.

Posted: Wed Nov 16, 05 11:10 am Post subject:

giraffe wrote:

I'm thinking a wood burner might be feasible but what about in the summer when we want hot water but not the heat? Sorry this is a stupid question, just wondering!

Easy, your thermostat would be linked up to the pump with an override, so it won't start to heat the radiators until the tank is good and hot

In the summer we just light a small fire to heat the tank and then let it go out, no problems.

Check out the clear skies initiative, their grants will make your �10k go a lot further but it ends in march!

giraffe

Joined: 07 Oct 2005
Posts: 272
Location: Nottingham

Posted: Wed Nov 16, 05 11:28 am Post subject:

Thanks for the advice about summer hot water - I was wondering!

so would something like this

https://www.firesonline.com/acatalog/Hunter_Herald_8_Central_Heating_Stove__Wood.html

be what I was looking for? Anybody know whether this would be really costly to install? Would need to take out existing 1970s style gas bar "fire" and back boiler which is behind it and hook it up, clean chimney flue and uncap it. Obviously I'd be looking for the cost a professional would charge me to do it. Not asking for an exact figure, but would I be looking at a few hundred or thousands?

Jonnyboy

Joined: 29 Oct 2004
Posts: 23956
Location: under some rain.

Posted: Wed Nov 16, 05 11:33 am Post subject:
Will certainly be several hundred, you may even need top reline the flue depending on it's condition. If you go for a clear skies grant you get �1500 towards the cost of wood burner installation, but there are restrictions on what burner you can buy. Are you sure you only need to heat 7 radiators?

giraffe

Joined: 07 Oct 2005
Posts: 272
Location: Nottingham

Posted: Wed Nov 16, 05 11:45 am Post subject:

only seven rooms in the house so yes. At the moment the central heating system is so crappy that it only heats up 3 radiators (don't know why and it's not air in the system) properly and the house is cold but liveable in. Can you see now why I feel the need to replace the heating system?!
The house has had no major renovations since the mid seventies by the looks of things - we are basically going to have to gut it and start again - new radiators, wiring, new bathroom and kitchen etc. We have set aside 10k for extra spending (on top of everything else) on eco improvements. Was just wondering if a woodburner would be a good way of fuelling my new heating system, as it doesn't seem to cost much more than a new boiler etc? And with rising gas prices (gas running out in future) it might be a good investment to get the system in now.

thos

Joined: 08 Mar 2005
Posts: 1139
Location: Jauche, Duchy of Brabant (Bourgogne-ci) and Charolles, Duchy of Burgundy (Bourgogne-�a)

Posted: Wed Nov 16, 05 11:45 am Post subject:

My conclusions from considering changes to my house:

A woodburning stove can heat the kitchen, can be used for some cooking (not food that requires a specific temperature or cannot stand temperature variation) and winter hot water. Wood-burning does not have the welly to run central heating, unless you go for burning pellets in forced air.

I considered a wood-powered Rayburn supplemented by gas for CH, but the solid-fuel model really needs coal.

So I'll be burning wood in the kitchen and lounge, which should mean that I minimise the CH, especially after I have beefed up the insulation.

My current preference is the Esse www.esse.com

dougal

Joined: 15 Jan 2005
Posts: 7184
Location: South Kent

Posted: Wed Nov 16, 05 11:55 am Post subject:

giraffe wrote:

If you had a budget of about ten grand to make a typical 3 bed 2 storey + attic room victorian semi more eco friendly, what would you do?

giraffe wrote:

Hmmm.
Even so, most of your energy usage (hence CO2 emission) is probably down to heating!

Hence the number one thing to attend to should be insulation.
Roof, walls, windows (and its the windows that will cost most). And don't forget draughtproofing (but see later).
Insulation should be done to the maximum possible - ie don't take the current Building Regs minimum as being the requirement.
Once you are properly insulated, appliance efficiency (lights, freezer, etc can take a back seat) - you are using electricity inefficiently (for heating) but its not being totally wasted.

Then its the heating system.
The cost will depend on what you actually have.
But you should try and take advantage of any south-facing, unobstructed roof to install solar water heating - using evacuated tube collectors.
This means you need a hot water tank, ideally quite a big one. (Which may require other plumbing changes.)

That's pretty general, and applies to anyone, anywhere,
"Victorian semi" sounds urban - so that's what I'm assuming.

There's a lot of considerations as to what the best type of plumbing system for the heating might be. I'm talking pressurised or not, combi or not, thermal store or not. These choices would interlock with other lifestyle choices and technical ones too.
The existing radiators should be fine. The system can be powerflushed quite cheaply. EDIT If you are changing radiators, fit bigger ones - if possible to the existing pipework (to minimise cost). Bigger rads will help condensing boiler efficiency. Only replace the pipes if they are undersized (either by original skimping or subsequent scale build up - though they can be descaled without too much problem) and thereby restricting the heat flow. /EDIT
Radiators "not working" could be as simple as a stuck �10 thermostatic valve.
Ooh - invest in decent boiler controls.
Converting to underfloor rather than your existing radiators (?) would be a lifestyle choice, not an ecological one. (Underfloor - with its lower circulated water temperature - is essential for some eco-choices (like using a heatpump - but that is unlikely to suit a victorian semi...).
However, ground floor bare boards should be carefully sealed for draughts... If the boards are ever lifted, you might want to consider some insulation down there.

Fit a condensing boiler.
It should be "room-sealed". This means it draws its air for combustion from outside *not* from the room. So you can attend to the draughtproofing properly without risking Carbon Monoxide poisoning.

If you *want* a woodburner, and have a source of wood, somewhere to store it and don't mind carrying the wood, you could add one. Your budget might have to be stretched to accomodate one with a backboiler, linked in to a thermal store tank. But I'd hesitate to suggest using that only - instead of a ch boiler.
I doubt an autofeed woodchip-burner would make sense or suit the budget.

One urban/mains gas boiler option (if its available to you) might be a Powergen Whispergen CHP boiler. A flat �3k package, installed - and that can include insulation as well. While its heating you, it also generates around 1kw of electrictity. (Not being distributed around the grid, little heat being wasted, this effectively saves the power station generating over 2kw - its a very good idea.)

So, I'm suggesting �3k on the Whispergen package (with super insulation) and spending another �3k on solar water heating.
That leaves you �4k.
Woodburner/thermal store? (Whispergen would like a thermal store...) Double gazing? Efficient Appliances? Grey water recovery? Trade up the car to something much more efficient? Get a battery powered electric scooter for non-car urban mobility? Maybe invest something in a neat facility for storing separated rubbish for recycling? Or more solar thermal capacity? You might think of investing �400 in a small standby electricity generator to run on biodiesel if the lights should go out...

I think that the priorities after attending to the basics must be down to your personal preferences and priorities.

Last edited by dougal on Wed Nov 16, 05 12:03 pm; edited 1 time in total

giraffe

Joined: 07 Oct 2005
Posts: 272
Location: Nottingham

Posted: Wed Nov 16, 05 12:01 pm Post subject:
thanks for that Dougal - you have given me a great deal to think about. I shall look into the boiler you suggested.

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