Any reports on domestic wind-turbine cost/benefits?

[MikeG.]

When you calculate the payback period for your investment don't forget the loss of interest on your investment (or cost of interest if you are borrowing). For example - you may be told by sellers that an installation costing £4000 will save you £400 p.a. (highly improbable anyway) so payback is 10 years.
Richard

I have always thought this is a seriously misleading way of looking at this.

If you are going to do some capital works to your house, odds are you will be adding to your mortgage. Using your example, £4,000 might add around £200 per year to your mortgage, for a set period.

So, the main economic question is..........""will I save more than £200 per year from my bills as a result of this spending?". If so, do it. If not, think about the environment and do it anyway!

-
-

As I have said so many times before...........cutting down your energy use is far, far, far more important than providing new sources of energy (even if they are sustainable sources). My house costs between £40 and £100 per year to heat depending on fuel prices (and the weather), and that is done with simple old-fashioned insulation, triple glazing, careful orientation, solar space, porches, thermal mass and mechanical ventilation. If everyone did the basics to their house we would all be saving massive amounts more in terms of greenhouse gas emmissions than if we all went out and spent small fortunes on various fashionable "green" add-ons.

Mike

 

[Night Train]

Well said there, Mike.

I remember when the recommendation was for 4" of loft insulation. Then it was 6", then 8" and now 10".

I have had 12" of loft insulation in my house for the last 13 years.

In Scandinavian houses they have enough house insulation to keep in body heat in arctic conditions, why don't we have that? If we did we wouldn't need any heating at all.

People in this country seem to want to spend more money on short life energy consuming gadgets then on long term energy reduction and insulation.

Even if people don't believe in climate change they should, at least believe in resource depletion.
Even if they don't believe in resource depletion they should still believe in the depletion of the money in their pockets!

 

[MikeG.]

Despite the fear of "mine's bigger than yours".....

.....I have 500mm of insulation in my loft, and 200 in the walls. Knowing what I know now, with the same wall thicknesses I could have built a house with no heating requirement at all.

Ho hum..............next time!

Mike

 

[DaveL]

.....I have 500mm of insulation in my loft, and 200 in the walls. Knowing what I know now, with the same wall thicknesses I could have built a house with no heating requirement at all.

Ho hum..............next time!

I think that is one of the problems most of us face, we are not building from scratch, I know that adding insulation works but it is not always practical in old houses. I had an extension built 2 years ago and that is much warmer due to the higher level of insulation, however we had to trade on the thickness on the insulation in part of the roof, in order to match the building lines of the rest of the house.

If I was ever able to build from scratch then loads of insulation and a mechanical ventilation system with heat recovery would be top of my requirement. Right next to a bigger, warmer workshop. 8)

 

[dickm]

Like I said earlier, our house only has a heat demand of about 5kW peak, but this actually makes it difficult to get an automated heating system other than oil or, heaven forbid, electricity. We've got excellent wood pellet/wood chip sources up here, but there aren't any small, automated and tested boilers to work with them. You can get manually stoked ones, but if they have a 10 year design life, I'll be 75 by the time it needs replacing, and probably won't have been wanting to lug bags or logs long before that .

Have been wondering how far down into the granite it would be necessary to go before it gets hot

 

[MikeG.]

Have been wondering how far down into the granite it would be necessary to go before it gets hot

Further than you can dig, Dick!!

Mike

PS Was it you I had a number of conversations with a while back regarding wood pellet boilers? If so, what was the upshot?

 

[DaveL]

We've got excellent wood pellet/wood chip sources up here, but there aren't any small, automated and tested boilers to work with them.

I stumbled across this Auto Feed Pellet Burner in the Axminster catalogue;

Fits a number of their Rojek Wood burning boilers, any use?

 

[Ironballs]

As we live in Kirklees we are officially in a warm zone so got the energy assessors round free and qualified for free cavity wall and loft insulation - don't ask me how.

Chaps came round, had a look and said you've got enough loft insulation and we can't cavity wall your house - it's a 200 year old stone house. But, I said, some git gutted the house in the 70s and removed almost all the period features and they installed a breeze block inner wall leaving a big cavity between the walls (the window ledges are 18" deep).

Doesn't matter he said, but you can have this free carbon monoxide detector. Great, said I

 

[Night Train]

Despite the fear of "mine's bigger than yours".....

.....I have 500mm of insulation in my loft, and 200 in the walls. Knowing what I know now, with the same wall thicknesses I could have built a house with no heating requirement at all.

Ho hum..............next time!

Mike

My second floor is in the roof so the slope comes down the walls leaving only 4' of upright wall. If I put in 500mm in what is left of the triangular loft there would be no space left between it and the roof felt.

I had to underboard the sloping ceiling to get any insulation in it at all.


We had the cavity wall people around too but they couldn't put any in as it would fall out in the basement where the walls weren't complete, and around some of the window reveals where they weren't finished yet.

I want to externally insulate now and loose the visible brickwork. It is nice brickwork but it is the only one of six on my row that isn't rendered. I figured 'if you can't beat them, join them' and do it with insulation instead of cement render.

 

[RogerS]

Rest assured, NT, that when you come to sell (not that that is likely for a long time in your case!) that when the energy assessor comes round to give you an EPC that, because of the c**p software that they use, they will totally ignore any insulation that you've put in and give your house a poor energy rating. I always thought that the proponents of this daft state of affairs was DuffGov in the UK but apparently not. Brussels is to blame.

 

[BradNaylor]

As I have said so many times before...........cutting down your energy use is far, far, far more important than providing new sources of energy

We have cut our electricity bill by £20 per month - £250 a year - simply by getting rid of one completely pointless domestic appliance;

The tumble dryer!

We didn't even use it that much - only when the weather stopped us hanging the washing outside. Now we use maidens in the spare bedroom and in the dining room as well as radiators to hang clothes on and they dry overnight.

The amount of energy used by tumble dryers is mind boggling. No-one needs one and if everyone in the country got rid of theirs the overall savings would be massive.

Is drying clothes like this really such a hardship?

Cheers
Brad

 

[RogerS]

Is the one with your name on it, the one you wear when you're drunk and incapable and can't remember what it is? :wink:

 

[BradNaylor]

Is the one with your name on it, the one you wear when you're drunk and incapable and can't remember what it is? :wink:

I've got that many names Rog, that it's hard to keep tabs...

:lol:

Brad

 

[matt]

Despite the fear of "mine's bigger than yours".....

.....I have 500mm of insulation in my loft, and 200 in the walls. Knowing what I know now, with the same wall thicknesses I could have built a house with no heating requirement at all.

Ho hum..............next time!

Mike

This reminded me of a comment about large department stores spend more money trying to cool their newer shops than they spend trying to heat them - even in the winter. Shame they cannot store some of that extra heat - probably better than trying to store all the CO2 underground!

 

[dickm]

Further than you can dig, Dick!!

True - it was bad enough digging down the 18" to put in cable to the greenhouse...... on the other hand, there are lots of companies round here that make their living drilling down several kilometres underwater! So a nice dryland site ought to be a doddle!

PS Was it you I had a number of conversations with a while back regarding wood pellet boilers? If so, what was the upshot?

Yes, it was me. State of play at that stage was that the quotes I was getting would have involved a 300 year payback, whatever way I did the calculations, and that's a bit much for a 65-year-old. But I've recently got a couple of much better quotes, and another firm is coming in Friday to look at things. The technology seems to be moving quite fast, or more probably, UK suppliers are beginning to recognise what has been available in Europe for ages. So the project is once again live.

 

[dickm]

I stumbled across this Auto Feed Pellet Burner in the Axminster catalogue;

Yes, that's one of the ones I've been looking at. What would be really useful would be some independent "Which" style tests of the different boilers. There seem to be several different grate technologies and feed technologies so it's unclear which works best with what. I'm sure there must be testing done in Continental Europe, but I've not so far found it.

 

[thomvic]

Dick

At our age no investment on heating or insulation is likely to have a worthwhile payback period. Just confine yourself to whatever will make you more comfortable - in body or mind. It is too late for you to save the planet - let Mike do it.

Richard

 

[dickm]

I always thought that the proponents of this daft state of affairs was DuffGov in the UK but apparently not. Brussels is to blame.

I may be slandering (or is it libelling?) an old colleague, but I think the software was designed by the company set up by a guy I used to work with!
And he had a higher salary than me

 

[RogerS]

I always thought that the proponents of this daft state of affairs was DuffGov in the UK but apparently not. Brussels is to blame.

I may be slandering (or is it libelling?) an old colleague, but I think the software was designed by the company set up by a guy I used to work with!
And he had a higher salary than me

Maybe so but the spec came from Brussels and, like the sprouts, stinks.

 

[RogerS]

I stumbled across this Auto Feed Pellet Burner in the Axminster catalogue;

Yes, that's one of the ones I've been looking at. What would be really useful would be some independent "Which" style tests of the different boilers. There seem to be several different grate technologies and feed technologies so it's unclear which works best with what. I'm sure there must be testing done in Continental Europe, but I've not so far found it.

Mmmm..Which tests.. looked at the boiler one and they rated Baxi as the best. Looking at a trade forum, guess which make of boiler gets most problem questions being raised!