Selfsufficientish.com

Hello all,

Thank you so much for all of your advice. You've really helped me think things through. My husband came back to France from the U.K house last night and so in the middle of the night (as you do!) and today we've been having a bit of a pow wow.

We've more or less decided (for now!) that we've got nothing to lose by decorating the house, putting new carpets down (we got a good quote for all wool) leaving the posh woodburner in, and just leaving the electric storage heaters and electric immersion in, and trying to sell. Personally, I think no-one will be interested in the house in this state, but even with my least-optimistic head on I have to admit that just the work we've done on the house (opening it up, brightening the place, getting rid of the terrible wallpaper etc, putting in the stove) has made a huge difference from the over cramped crowded fusty dusty place we bought in 2007. We're definitely not expecting to *make* money on it, even breaking even would be an achievement. But it would be nice not to lose too much.

We're going to pinch back our uninstalled solid woodblock floor - because we have lots of floors to finish off here in France, and that will save the money put aside to pay someone to install the floor. That saved money will pay for the carpets and the paint, nearly. We can use the posh woodburner as a negotiating point - again, we've got plenty of use for it here if the potential buyer doesn't want to pay for it.

So ... we'll give it a try to sell it in the current state. If it doesn't sell after a reasonable amount of time, then we can think again. I dread to think what the energy rating report thingy is going to say (we bought it just before they came in), but at least we've insulated it, and put a new jacket on the tank, etc.

It's not what I wanted to do, and not what I hoped for the house. (I have a terrible head for seeing the possibilities in houses). But to console myself I've been daydreaming about all the wonderful things we could do with the money we save in our house in France, just like Big Al says. :-)

(and just as I was previewing this, Good Earth's response came in - thank you!)

I'm really glad that you have come to that solution. I spent a lot of time thinking about it last night too and realising that what we had discussed about the grid tie solar wasn't really answering your main concern re the heating.

Good for you. At least your house will be freshly decorated and I think that will give it the edge. Houses are still being bought and sold so don't despair, we sold my late MILs flat within a couple of months of it going on the market just before christmas without doing anything to update it.

lucy.lists wrote:>>>>snip
We've more or less decided (for now!) that we've got nothing to lose by decorating the house, putting new carpets down (we got a good quote for all wool) leaving the posh woodburner in, and just leaving the electric storage heaters and electric immersion in,
It's not what I wanted to do, and not what I hoped for the house. (I have a terrible head for seeing the possibilities in houses). But to console myself I've been daydreaming about all the wonderful things we could do with the money we save in our house in France, just like Big Al says. :-)

(and just as I was previewing this, Good Earth's response came in - thank you!)

Why all wool carpets ? stick down the £2.99 a metre bog standard stuff you get from a carpet wharehouse type and then when it sells the new owners can rip it up and chuck it out the same as they will with your 100% wool carpet.... probably.

Hi Big Al,

The quote we got for almost all wool (90% iirc) was really cheap, only a couple quid per m more than the really cheap horrible stuff, and my youngest is allergic to many man-made fibres, and comes up in a bad rash with polyester, so just in case we need to stay at the house before it sells (or if it doesn't sell!) we will go with the cheap wool.

I know the general view from estate agents etc is that new people will change everything, but the last 4 house sales we've done (oh yes, we've moved around!) the buyers have said they bought the house because there was 'nothing to do'. We tend to be very neutral with the stuff we do and people seem to like it.

For the past few years we've been steadily 'downgrading' from the most expensive house we ever owned, all to realise our dream of a self sufficientish house in France ... we are so nearly there now :-)

The first thing to consider when buying a PV installation is, how much electricity can you do without?

If you are talking of using kWs per day then I would quietly forget it. You would set yourself back many tens of thousands and will never see a pay back.

I have a PV system myself. However, it has a 100W output only and I virtually do without electricity. I use the stored power to recharge AA and AAA batteries, run a radio, a low power PC for Internet and DVD use, a 12V lighting system and a few power tools.

Excessive power tool use and the washing machine are for the car, acting as generator, through an inverter.

Notice that I don't mention a fridge. I do without. Complete waste of energy. Nor do I have a drier and no huge home entertainment system.

My system cost £400. There are some sub £3/W panels on eBay every now and again. A cheap 600W inverter from Maplin for the power tools. A small secondhand pure sinewave 300W inverter from eBay for the household goods. A 120Ah battery from eBay too.

I will get round to making a wind turbine and wood gas generator sometime this year.

Hi, Lucy

For the current solar PV panel efficiency is not so high. In full sun light, one square meter Solar PV panel can output 160Watt power. If you want the electrical load can work at any time, you will need more solar PV panel. For the every day sun light time is about 6 hours. I'm not sure the accurate price in your local area, for the cost not only clude device and material, human cost is also need to be considered.

The solar water heater is very useful. It is very popular in China. It even can supply hot water in winter if the sun light is enough.

For future readers.

A simple set up with solar PV 4 kw grid connected, a ground source heat pump or air source heat pump and solar thermal (hot water) would be suffieient for this project.