Yes, we’re moving again- 3 times in 14 months but this time its for the long term. We have put in an offer on a house locally and had it accepted. It’s not a beautiful home yet but I really think it could be one day. It is what I refer to as a project.

We’dreally like to take the opportunity to make it as Eco as possible. I’m thinking solar pv, led lighting where possible, sheeps wool insulation etc. Has anyone tried these?  Any other ideas or help. It’s a 1940s local authority built semi on a large plot (so no allotment needed and chickens necessary!).  It needs re-roofing we think and has little insulation. Unfortunatley it had new double glazing a couple of years ago but not at the new thickness ( we have a very low budget so can’t justify spending it on this). It needs a new bathroom and has two open fireplaces, one with a defunct back boiler. It has oil-fired central heating which is very expensive to run and there is no gas in the village. Money will be tight to do these things and to live in it afterwards so any budget ideas gratefully received.

Any suggestions welcome. Does anyone have any experience they’d like to share?  I think someone wasthinking of putting in solar pv a couple of years ago. Did you do it?

Thanks

Sarah x

Just wanted to say how exciting

Have you trawled bookstores and then seen what you can get from the library?

Look forward to seeing what people suggest
sarie

How exciting!!  I agree with Sarie, have a look through book shops and libraries and also magazines like Home Farmer, which have sections on greener living which are useful.  Make a list of what is most important to you and find out what’s available.  Sounds like a lovely project to begin a new year with and fingers crossed the sale goes through smoothly and quickly for you. xxxxx

What an exciting start to the New Year!  I would say to hold off rushing into any major refurbishments right away, unless there is a safety issue.  If the house is in a liveable condition then just live there and get to know how you will use the space.  I would make sure the loft was well insulated and start planning the veg garden as my first priorities. You can then think of other options e.g do you have a good local supply of wood?  Maybe a woodburning stove, with a refurbished back boiler to run your heating and hot water. We have oil at the croft, but now have our own peat bank, so we hope to install a peat burning cooker, and run the heating etc from the back boiler in the open fire.  We also have double glazing, but it is not great.  Can’t afford to replace it for a while, so meantime I am making tweed blinds for the windows, which are give an extra layer of insulation- heavy weight lined curtains would do the same job.
If I think of any more I will pop back, but. I wish you every joy in your new home. xx

How lovely! Your set up sounds like ours - 1930s ex council house with a long garden in a village with no gas.

We have

solar LED lighting
Full insulation
cavity wall insulation
Up to date double glazing
Wood burner for all heating and hot water during the winter which I can part cook on too. (electric immersion for the summer) and an open fire in the lounge which is just used occasionally for a bit of pretty.
tankless water heater in the kitchen which means I don’t need to put the immersion on in the summer to wash up

With my practical head on, the most exciting stuff comes last I reckon!

From what you have said I would suggest replacing the roof first, then as much insulation as you can pack in, followed by cavity wall and modern double glazing.
There is little point putting in a woodburner and letting all that hard earned heat escape from the house.

After that LED lighting and solar panels because you don’t really save much money with Solar lighting after the outlay. Especially in this weather - our solar panels are under 4 inches of snow so haven’t been working for 3 weeks which means we’ve been using a battery charger to run the lights! I hadn’t considered that when I put them up! We’d love a mini wind turbine too but we live in a conservation area and apparently you can’t have them on a semi-detached house (not sure if this is true)

We don’t have experience of water heating from solar; we’d like to do that but can’t afford it at the moment.

A friend has built a house from scratch at the other end of the village with a ground source heat pump - it’s absolutely amazing and his house is SO warm, for FREE.. I’m a little bit envious of his home I have to confess! It’s made from oak and is absolutely beautiful…

Have lots of fun!

SC x

Thanks all. Yes, it is really exciting. It took me a while to get excited about it because we’re renting a gorgeous house that we could never afford to buy but wanted to be sure that we wanted to be in the village. The new house will be much more ‘us’ though.

I thought it was you, SC, that had talked about solar pv previously. I’ve got loads of questions for you and will check hour blog before I ask too many but . . . How do you find your woodburning back boiler? How big is your woodburner to heat the whole house? Where do you source your logs. My concern is that it would be too expensive for us. Is there a wu of sourcing cheap firewood apart from buying a small woodland?!!.

We are trying to decide between this and keeping the oil for now but putting in solar pv to ease our conscience ( and the feed in tariffs look very exciting as is a long term home). It all depends on how much is left after sorting out the roof and insulating. I think we may be able to access grants for some of those things though. I imagine we will end up with a compromise in the short term as it also needs at least some redecoration and new floor coverings throughout - I said it was a project!

Sarah x

Also for things like redecorating ask on places like this, how many people have half filled cans of paint lying about or full ones that have never been taken back?  I know we have lol.  Always worth asking

sarie

Don’t suggest things like that- I’ll have you all bringing them on the 13th! . . . .And we’re trying to declutter! 

Sarah x

Foxy - 27 December 2010 03:22 PM

How do you find your woodburning back boiler?

I wrote an article about it in the last GP - did you see it? You’ll see the whole story in there!

Our new burner is 17kw, we had a 12kw one which was fine but it wasn’t very efficient. Our latest one is more efficient because we were struggling to feed and pay for the other one (we got through around 8 tonnes of wood per season with the old one; this is our first year with the new one so I don’t know yet)

Logs come from wherever we can get them. If you can get them cheap or free that’s great. If you can’t it’s more expensive than any other form of heating :-( This year we’ve struck lucky with a hotel that has been pulled down, so we have all the wood. The year before we had next to nothing, had to buy it in and were cold for a lot of the winter. Year before that we cleared a farmers orchard - it depends which way the winds of fortune are blowing

Access to woodland is, of course, the best way…. One day - it’s on my visionboard

Also, to add to Starchild’s infinate post of wisdom, put thermostats on any radiators you do have, put foil behind them to, to reflect any heat into the room, add draft excluders to all the doors and letterbox.
We’re doing similar to you, will be moving this year and needing to “eco” our new home and one thing we will do is actually put in a larger oil tank, partly in order to fill up less frequently and cut down our cost of “bringing the oil guys out” if that makes sense.

We’re also removing an unsightly but huge pond and will debate whether that might be the time to put in some underground heating pumps - apparently if you dig a metre down, the earth remains at a constant temp, so you get the “free” electricity/heat that SC talks about. can’t remember what magazine I read that in - Period Living maybe?

I’d also suggest that you use a shower timer thing - even reducing your time in the shower by 30 seconds makes a lot of difference to your pocket.

Rain butts for watering the garden and any other need like that.

PV solars are on our list as well as thermostats, timers for lighting, eco bulbs, chickens, insulation and hubby is also looking into trying to convert our heating system to partly running on woodchip and the stuff you find on the floor of wood yards that’s often just discarded. We’re also doing Woodburners.

Starchild - where did you buy your latest good woodburner and what make is it please? I read your article, can’t rmember if you said. Great article btw, it’s being recycled via my sister at the moment who’s struggling with her wood source!

Yes it was a great article. Sorry, for some reason I hadn’t registered it was you.

Sarah x

arwen - 27 December 2010 08:54 PM

Starchild - where did you buy your latest good woodburner and what make is it please?

It’s from Dunsley Heat and is called the Yorkshire: http://www.dunsleyheat.co.uk/yorkshirestoveCH.htm

Well, it’s really happening - we exchanged today (after a lot of legal too-ing and fro-ing, I thought it wasn’t going to happen at one point) so now the planning starts in earnest. . . I’m very excited but also a bit daunted by the task ahead.

We decided to go solar pv, wool insulation, cavity wall insulation and Eco paint. A wood burner as soon as we can afford it and aim to move in a month. The bedrooms are the priority (and the bathroom, I like to be clean!) before we move in along with the new roof and solar Pv as soon as we can get it done.

Watch this space, I will try to keeP you all informed of our little Eco project. If anyone has any ideas for floor coverings, let us know please I really like carpet, it’s warm and insulating but is full of nasties.  What are the cosy but green alternatives?

Thanks

Sarah x

How exciting
Good luck with all you have to do, next meet up at yours in a month then

sarie

Yes. Unless I call an emergency paint and cake party!
Or a dig a veggie patch party?! 

Sarah x

I was going to suggest it lol but didn’t want to speak for others before throwing it open at the meet up next week

I wouldn’t mind and with more hands for baby/toddler/child wrangling it may be a thought
sarie