Renewable Energy
As a firm of Corgi, Oftec and Hetas registered
heating installers we have a large number of customers, particularly
those on oil, who at the present time are very worried about the
unending rise in their heating costs. They are now increasingly looking
at renewable resources and introducing sustainability into their
heating systems.
I have to be honest and say that, apart from a few who are genuinely
concerned about the environment, the vast majority of these customers
are driven entirely by the economics of the situation although most
would agree that they would feel happier if they were using an environmentally
sound system.
We have been looking at these issues for several
years and have come to realise that there are a couple of fundamental
points that shine through:
- Despite rapidly rising fuel prices most customers do not want
to lose the convenience and comfort of their present heating
systems
- That nearly all the systems currently installed in the
UK were designed for an age of comparatively cheap energy and
as such are quite wasteful
of energy.
Our basic approach has been how we can improve the efficiency
of existing systems and although we do not supply insulation products
or services, we are always quick to advise customers that this
is the first area they should explore. Pound for pound improving
the insulation in your property must be the most sensible first
step.
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We can then begin to look at the areas of
waste in the use of energy and I can best illustrate this
perhaps
by giving an example of an existing customer with an oil-fired
heating system and in the process of extending his property.
On the face of it, the existing quite modern boiler would
have been quite adequate to take the extended heating and
domestic
circuits but that would have left the owner feeling even
more anxious about his future fuel bills.
When we discussed
matters
further we found that throughout the winter they sat on
many evenings in front of a woodburner because they love “open
fires”. But there was no back boiler on the log burner
so there was no gain into the domestic hot water system. |
After much discussion we have agreed to install a solar panel
on their perfect south-facing roof and retrofit a back boiler in
their log burner. This traditionally would have been fed into a
new cylinder and given plenty of domestic hot water but we are
going to feed the solar panel and log burner into a thermal store.
This means that both can be used to supply domestic hot water and
preheat the central heating. The oil-fired boiler will only fire
if there is a deficiency of heat from the other two sources but
even when it does it will only have to raise the preheated water
to working temperature – not from cold.
Our feeling is that increasingly people will want to move over
to either wood chip, wood pellet or grain burners to be able to
use locally sourced and sustainable fuels but that by taking a
whole view of their requirements, existing systems can be modified
with the present boiler being relegated to the “back up” role
instead of being the main source of heat.
Few of us want to discard all that we have in the way of heating
in favour of a brand new system but by integrating various heating
components very good results can be achieved.
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