Renewable energy seems like a really sensible way to go, but it can be really hard to find out what’s good and what’s not. Is that your experience?
I thought I wanted a biomass boiler a few years ago, but having got a few quotes, and unable to tell which supplier to trust (price differency £3k), I gave up and bought a gas boiler.
But the experience inspired me to set up YouGen, a new website which aims to make it easy for people to find the best energy efficiency or renewable energy solutions for their house – and a trustworthy supplier to install it.
If we’re looking for a good plumber, most of us ask a friend for a recommendation. With renewable energy, it’s so new that it’s not so easy. We hope to overcome that with our new user-generated section which will go live after Easter.
We’re looking for people who are willing to help others by sharing their experience. And to give you a little encouragement to sign up, we’ll enter everyone who registers before Easter into a draw to win a wattson – the most stylish energy meter around.
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Thanks Cathy and good luck with your site. This is an important aspect of sustainable living, but it is so confusing out there! I too have put off decision making because I get overwhelmed with the conflicting information and advice. Your one-stop resource should be great. I’ve bookmarked you for a nosey later
Hi Cathy – yes, well done for creating the site – that’s the second great new idea I’ve seen on here today….there must be something in the air! I’ll have a snout around in a bit. Good luck, TS
I have been a plumber for the last 10 years, things have changed a lot over this period. I have installed both ground source and air source heat pumps as well as wood chip boilers, though they are all very efficient I have issues on their actual cost effectivenes as well as their green aspect. I write to wish you well with this site and will return to answer any queries about the above systems.
Hi Virginia – great to see you here; I’m hoping you get lots of queries! We are considering an EcoDan – do you have any experience of these?
Hi Virginia You’re right – they aren’t always cost effective. With heat pumps, for example, it depends very much on what they are replacing. If you’re off the gas network, and heat your house with electricity, then a heat pump which creates 3 kWh of heat using just one kWh of electricity will mean real savings. However, it you’re replacing a gas boiler, then it’s more cost effective to get an efficient condensing boiler. However, if you take a long term perspective, climate change and peak oil make it likely that fossil fuel prices will rise significantly, and we will rely more and more on imports of oil and gas from fewer and fewer countries, so cost may not be the only driver. Then renewable heat and power look attractive for carbon saving or security reasons.
But should ‘cost effectiveness’ be knocked from the number one spot now? I think, as consumers, we’re all driven to ‘the bargains’ and isn’t it 50 years of bargains (sweatshop clothing, pesticide laden food, intensive farming, flights for
Yes you are righ – perhaps we mainly focus on cost effectiveness and while we hold that as a main point we will find it difficult to invest in our environment. I feel though that heat pump and wood pellet boilers are not the best available technology for Britain until more committment is made by the government into sourcing renewable energy. Heat pumps work wonderfully in countries like Sweden because their electricity is mainly sourced from hydroelectric plant, nuclear, so the result of using electricity to warm your house is clean energy. These scandinavian countries also have huge source of pulp and woord bark making wood pellet boilers cheap and non destructive to run. The UK has Europe’s best wind, wave and tidal resources yet it continues to miss out on its economic potential, once we can depend on our own, clean and renewable resources then we can start talking about environmentally friendly heating systems. We depend still totally on fossil fuels where a lot of european countries are focusing on breaking that dependency totally and so should we.
Air source heat pumps run at a very low temperature in the house so you will only be getting heat at 45 degrees, therefore, you must focus on the property insulation. Older properties are not suitable unless they are so so well insulated. Alo on the hot water side, you will have tank specially compatible with the heat pumps, they too will only heat the water up to 45 and once a week an immerssion element will turn on to raise the water temperature to 65 dgrees to avoid the threat of legionaires an other bacteria forming. Note as well that an air sour heat pump will not work in conditions below -5C so if the weather drops below this you will then be heating your house with electricity as the heat pump switches then to a heating element as well. The last property in which we installed a heat pump (air) their electricity bill has risen by
I’m fascinated by how cost effectiveness (and by the also commonly cited payback time) are used, as I think it’s usually as an reason not to buy something. While the readers of this site probably aren’t generally Mercedes-driving, Jimmy Choo-tottering, Louis Vuitton bag-carrying people who cook on an Aga, there are plenty of people who aspire to be. None of these brands could be described as cost effective, yet many people pay through the nose (borrow money they can’t afford even) for them _ or did until recently anyway. My theory, based on no academic research at all, is that if people want it enough, and can afford it, they buy it. And if they don’t, then they start talking about cost effectiveness. And Virginia, I completely agree with you about wind, wave and tidal resources. Why doesn’t the government get its act together and invest what’s needed to get these industries off the ground?
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, virginia – I value them very much. It’s good to hear impartial advice as expensive mistakes can be made otherwise
Good news : ) This article was just featured in the All Things Eco blog carnival: http://tinyurl.com/allthingseco46 Keep up the great articles, Cathy!
I have had a bio mass (woodpellet) central heating stove for 2 years and it is going well. The initial costs nearly bankrupted me but I don’t regret my choice. I found it really difficult to get impartial advice on how best to replace my old heating system and it was only down to good fortune that my mega investment turned out to be a good one for me!
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Hi S J Troll Its good to hear about your success with biomass heating! Impartial advice can be so hard to find. It would be great if you could join the YouGen community and share your experience with the other memebers.