Selfsufficientish.com

.......tomorrow!

Bit short notice, but the man from the Energy Saving Trust is coming to do a sort of energy audit and make suggestions re alternative sources as well as energy saving - at least I hope that's what he's going to do! Someone said they just told her about energy saving lightbulbs . I'm hoping that having travelled all this way they're not going to be a waste of time (we still need that fingers crossed smiley, John!!!!)

I want to make sure he doesn't waste all our time by having some relevant questions to steer him away from the lighting and the insulation - we're entirely eco bulbed and insulated. (I don't know if the EST is sponsored by businesses as well as Government funding or whether they just get genuinely excited about some products - but the man I spoke to on the phone was doing the hard sell on some super-efficient but thin wall insulation )

What we need is advice on water heating, central heating and renewables and how best to combine them all for our specific situation - but I don't want to sound stupid so any suggestions (not too technical) would be good.

Good news that he's actually coming to look

Green Aura wrote: but the man I spoke to on the phone was doing the hard sell on some super-efficient but thin wall insulation

Would that be Aerogel insulation ? if so - I'm interested :-) but only if the price becomes reasonable.

No, it began with S - can't remember the name but I saw a sample on an EST stall. You put it up like wallpaper. It's about 1cm thick but very efficient apparently.

Well he's been, he was lovely and extremely helpful. He's doing a report which he says may sound a bit mundane because it's quite a small generic template that he has to use. But he made notes of all sorts of other questions I asked him and said he'll find out and let men know.

He suggested that, given our unique circumstances, an air source heat pump would be our best bet for heating and water.

He's looking into

1) what sort of battery storage I'd need to separate the workshop from the main house and have it mainly on renewables
2) planning regs on turbines
3) how useful ceiling fans are to bring heat down in winter and up in summer vs running costs
and a couple of other things I can't remember already.

And he seemed to think my idea of using pv panels as window shading (set at the appropriate angle above the windows rather than at ground level which is our only other option was really good - others around here (home not Ish!) have thought it silly.

He seemed really excited by what he was doing and I'm hopeful we might get some decent info from him No grants unfortunately though

So watch this space

Sounds promising, Maggie! Anyone who is enthusiastic and helpful is a bonus! Let us know how you get on

I second that, let us know what you get back from him. When - if - we ever get our own place and depending on it's situation, we'd love a wind turbine (certainly enough wind up here and no, not of our own making!) and have other ideas to investigate. Good luck

That sounds really useful

I'm being forced into updating our house (because everything seems to have suddenly exploded/ sprung a leak/ dropped off) and we could definitely do more to save energy, perhaps I should look into this