Taking a Gamble

We here at Pleamore House have spent most of the last decade working to reduce the carbon footprint of what is an old Victorian farmhouse which was built with no regard for such things. The insulation we've installed has brought most of the house up to around the current standard of a new-build which has reduced our consumption of heating oil by at least a third. Further savings can be made by installing a modern condensing boiler but that is something for the future.

Having never really seriously considered the possibility of installing an array of photovoltaic solar panels due to the fact that we have no large areas of south facing roof, I recently reconsidered having seen several of our neighbors install panels and I did a bit of research on the potential of an east or west facing array. A reduction of 10-15% efficiency when compared to south facing would still make PV solar a very viable prospect, provided that it could be installed before March 3 which was the cut-off date for getting on the government sponsored 43p feed in tariff. We are huge fans of renewable energy and this suddenly seemed like a very exciting prospect.

We had a few quotes and only one company said they were able to install before March 3 so after a bit of a family conference, we signed a contract. From then on it was a very stressful saga of neanderthal scaffolders failing to complete their job on time, installers turning up without scaffolding to work on and things slipping ever and alarmingly closer to the deadline. Had we not submitted our paperwork to the electric company by 2 March, we would have been on a 21p tariff which would take twice as long to pay us back. There is still a chance this will happen as the government have asked the Supreme Court for permission to lodge a third appeal (they have lost 2 already) to allow them to retrospectively reduce the feed in tarrif (where domestic generators are paid 43p for every unit of electricity they produce) thus doubling the time this big investment takes to pay off for investors in renewable energy who had already bought in. If they get permission to appeal again and the win the appeal, then we're facing 12-15 years before our investment pays back the cost of the panels and installation, so that's the gamble we've taken. It is my belief that even if they are granted leave for another appeal, they will lose, and that this was more a cynical move to create uncertainty and dampen down deamand.

Thursday March 1st the scaffolding is up and the installation team is on site.

All but one of the panels are installed, waiting for the final panel to be driven down from Cardiff as one panel of the wrong type was accidentally supplied. The company issued our completion certificate and it was posted the day before the deadline.

This array of 21 PV panels produces up to 3.99kw of power. Anything over 4kw is classed as commercial production and we're not allowed to do that.


The PV panels produce direct current which this box called an inverter (situated in the loft) converts to alternating current suitable to use in the house and export back into the national grid. In addition to the 43p we'll (hopefully) get for each unit we generate, we also get 3p a unit for what we export back to the grid. Also, of course, we'll run the dishwasher and washing machine etc during the day so that we're using free electricity!

As I write this the time is 10.45 am, the sun has been in and out all day and we've already made 4.4 units of electricity today. Since it was switched on last Friday, we've made just over 20. Whatever happens with the tariff, it gives me great pleasure to reduce our consumption of non-renewable energy and we've surely made the house more salable and desirable in the long term.

Done and Dusted.

Ten days ago, I thought it would take me about 2-3 days to sort the loft. Considering that the loft was just going off at a tangent in the first place (our plumbing problems was what got me up there initially, and things kind of spiraled from there) that's quite a lot of time spent inhaling black dust, contorting myself into the most confined spaces, itching all over from the rockwool and abusing my knees, back, neck and.... oooh! I don't know where I don't ache. Thank Zaruqarn that's done.

Laying Insulation: Unpleasant Occupation.

I've made boxes out of old plasterboard to cover and protect the downlighters for the bedrooms below and put down the first bag of new insulation over the top of the old. That makes it about 300mm thick. I would rather have been Henry the Eighth's Royal Stool Inspector than have this as a regular job.

Off the Floor

Yesterday I built more staging out of salvaged wood to get things off the floor so that we can put down more insulation, and took a ton of empty boxes to the recycling centre....

....and this morning I made a narrow insulated walkway to the southern end of the house. I thought I'd be up in the loft for a couple of days, but its looking like more than a week...

Staging

There's no point spending a fortune on insulating walls if the loft isn't done properly, which you'll be amazed to learn, it isn't. That's partly because of all the rubbish we've chucked up there which is compressing much of the insulation, and partly because there wasn't enough insulation in the first place.

What to do? Build staging and get all the boxes and stuff off the floor so that we can put down more insulation. You can't have too much insulation, you know. There you go, I said the other day there might be some more words of wisdom soon.

All of the materials used have been salvaged from other parts of the house and reused. Never chuck out old bits of wood!

Tank Battle

Had to knock off a few more courses of bricks off the chimney breast for the much larger tank to fit, and chop out one of the uprights holding the roof up. There was another nearby so the roof didn't fall down.

Here the strong wooden base is in position on the chimney breast leveled with some old slates.

A lot of huffing and puffing and rejigging all the plumbing we only did about a week ago, and the new tank is in position and filled with water.

Mystifyingly, this did not make any discernable difference to the pressure on the hot water system. The shower has improved though. The rest of the plumbing needs to be looked at carefully as something isn't right. Stay tuned.....

Plan B

In fact this is probably Plan C or D. Remember a few days ago I mentioned we had inadequate pressure on our hot water system? (Check back to Tuesday 10 Nov). We tried moving the header tank in the attic to a loftier position. The effect was minimal.

This should make a difference. Upgrading from a 40 gallon tank to a 100 gallon tank.

It went through the loft hatch. I had a Plan B for that too, which involved making a big hole in the bedroom ceiling. I was pleased it went through the hatch. Just. Shame there was nobody about to either witness or record the miracle I performed in achieving this feat.

That was yesterday. Today I made a base for it to stand on atop the old chimney breast. Two old door jams salvaged from the studio renovation, and some chopped up shelves the school was chucking out. Reckon that saved me thirty quid, so never chuck away old bits of wood. More words of wisdom soon. Maybe.

A Lofty Experience

We've been below the floors downstairs, and now were up in the rafters. We have a bit of a problem with inadequate pressure on our hot water system. That's why we have a pump to power the shower. One way to increase the pressure is to raise the header tank to as high as it will go so that the water has further to drop.

The tank was sat on the ceiling joists above Arne's room. When we put plasterboard up a couple of days ago, the boards were massively distorted under where the tank was. Behind the tank is the old chimney breast which was capped off sometime between the early sixties and the '80's.

I bashed off some more of the chimney breast and we sited the tank as high as it would go, and extended all the pipes as simply as we could. Unfortunately, and as I expected, it has only made a marginal difference to the hot water pressure. We will have to come up with a plan B, of which more later. But fortunately, the severe bow in Arne's ceiling has completely disappeared. That's what you get when you don't spread the load properly. Was NOTHING in this house ever done correctly in the first place?