GREEN ENERGY SAVING IDEAS
What’s the current problem with fuel?
With fuel bills soaring we’re all looking for opportunities to cut to energy costs where we can. At the same time, there’s a growing awareness of the responsibility we all have to reduce our personal carbon footprint.
Most of the energy we currently use to heat our homes, cook food and power industries, has been generated from a dwindling supply of fossil fuels -- coal, oil and gas. When burnt, they release carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, plus particulates, into the atmosphere. This raises global temperatures and increases harmful air pollution.
In Three Rivers, domestic energy use alone accounts for 27% of the district’s carbon emissions.
How can I save money and cut carbon emissions?
In this article we suggest a whole range of ways that we can all save money on fuel, at the same time as we reduce our carbon emissions, thus doing our bit to protect our planet for future generations.
We’ve got small fuel saving changes that you can make, plus ideas for bigger eco energy projects with advice from some of your neighbours who have already made the change to a greener way of fuelling their homes.
We can all contribute to lowering carbon emissions by reducing our energy consumption and switching to renewable energy sources.
Switch Energy Supplier
Switching to a renewable energy supplier is a great place to start.
See Ethical Consumer Magazine for more recommendations. Some suppliers offer green tariffs that aren’t as ethical as they seem, so be sure to check the details and use guidance from independent, trusted sources.
Everyday Energy Saving Tips
Switch to energy-efficient appliances
If you need to replace any of your home appliances check this advice from The Energy Saving Trust. Using the recommended appliances will save you money on your energy bills.
Choose the most energy efficient models (by looking at the energy labels (most efficient A+++)
Appliances to consider include: TVs, speakers, computers, kettle, microwave, dishwasher, ovens, fridge/freezer, washing & drying machines.
Unplug devices when not in use and turn off lights when you leave a room
Use LED light bulbs (instead of tungsten or halogen)
Turn down your thermostat! You could save around four percent a year on your energy bills, for each degree turned down on the thermostat.
Re-use and repair - manufacturing any product uses energy
For more energy saving ideas, check out OVO Energy’s 120 Ways to Save Energy Guide
Energy Saving Home Improvement Ideas
Improve your insulation (start with your loft!)
Three Rivers resident Steve Swain recently upgraded his loft insulation. We asked him for his advice on points to consider and top tips for getting started.
How will I benefit from insulating my house?
You will save money: Reduce heat loss in your home -> Decrease the need for heating -> Lower energy bills
It’s a cost effective energy saving solution: Insulation is quick and easy to install
You may be eligible for ‘Home Energy Efficiency Grants’
You will help our future existence on planet earth, by reducing your carbon emissions
Why is loft insulation important?
A quarter of all your home’s heat is lost through the roof if it’s uninsulated! That means you are literally throwing away hundreds of pounds a year if you don’t take action.
Installed correctly, loft insulation should pay for itself many times over, helping to save you hundreds of pounds per year.
Do you need to upgrade your existing insulation?
Even if you currently have loft insulation , it’s worth checking whether it meets the latest recommended depth. The current recommended minimum depth for loft insulation is 270mm and rolls are easily available at your local DIY store.
Do you want to use sustainable materials?
Sheep’s wool has one of the highest thermal and acoustic performances of all insulation materials. It is also breathable and available with a biocide-free way of protecting the wool called ‘Ionic Protect’.
How to find a loft insulation installer
The NIA represents reputable installers in the insulation industry and provides more information on getting the right work done on your home.
DIY loft insulation
If your loft is easy to access, Steve suggests you can have a go at insulating it yourself.
You’ll need a coarse saw (for cutting the rolls to size), large scissors for trimming and a few good sized loose boards to move around on top of the joists to assist access. You’ll also need knee pads, eye googles and a mask.
If you do it yourself it will cost in the region of £300-£400 for a medium/large loft. There are plenty of videos online to assist DIYers. Laying permanent boarding for storage or access to a water tank becomes harder as the joists become ‘buried’ under insulation. There are plastic systems available that attach to the joists and support boards above the insulation.
When completed, the loft will become colder so any exposed water pipes should be well lagged to protect from freezing.
For further information, The Energy Saving Trust has a useful guide on roof and loft insulation.
2. Install Solar Panels on Your Roof
Andrew Gallagher from Three Rivers recently installed solar panels on his roof. Here is his guide for installing solar panels on your own home. Make sure you scroll down to see his video at the end for more information.
The Pros and Cons of Solar Panels
How will I benefit?
Save Money: Reduce your electricity bills, by generating your own renewable energy
With energy prices skyrocketing, installing solar panels should now be a more profitable investment.
If you have an electric car you will be able to charge it at home during the daytime with free electricity off the roof.
Earn money: Receive payments for extra electricity you generate
Help our future existence on planet earth, by reducing your carbon emissions!
As summers get hotter, you will be able to run fans (or A/C system) during the day using renewable, free electricity.
If you have an electric car, you will be able to charge it at home during the daytime with free electricity off the roof.
2. Are there any the downsides to installing solar panels?
Solar panels are a longer term investment which will repay for itself over somewhere between 15 and 25 years
You will need to spend some money on maintenance and replacing some of the kit.
How Do Solar Panels Work?
Solar panels work best when the sun is high in the sky. In the UK that is through the summer months but it Is possible to get a moderate amount of solar generated throughout the year.
The amount of energy you can produce depends on the orientation of your roof, the area you can install (the bigger the better), and whether the roof will be shaded at any time, for example by nearby building or trees.
How To Get Started With Solar Panels
The Energy Saving Trust is a good place to start here.
“The cells don’t need direct sunlight to work and can even work on cloudy days. However, the stronger the sunshine, the more electricity generated.”
Their solar energy calculator is designed to help you assess the suitability of your property.
Main considerations:
Roof space: The average solar panel system will take up around 15-20m2 roof area.
Roof orientation: South facing is best. An East or West facing roof could also be considered (“A system facing East or West will yield around 15-20% less energy than one facing directly South.”)
If your roof is shaded at any time, e.g. by nearby buildings or trees.
Solar panels are a longer term investment, which will repay for themselves over time.
You may need to spend additional money on maintenance or replacement parts.
If you will need planning permission (for example, on a listed Historic Building or in a Conservation Area).
Whether to install a battery. This will add to the cost of the scheme, but:
A battery will allow you to store unused energy generated during the day (whilst the sun is out!), which you can then use at night.
It is particularly useful when the days are shorter and the nights are longer (October to March).
Based on the above, the Solar Energy Calculator can tell you :
How much you will save on your energy bills
How much you can earn from selling you energy back to the grid
Installation and maintenance costs.
The Energy Savings Trust recommends that you get 3 quotes from solar panel installers to compare costs and services.
Ask them to advise you on the relative costs and merits of different systems and battery sizes.
There are different systems and battery sizes available, depending on your roof. These will affect your electricity self-sufficiency percentage and the number of years needed to recover the costs. Make sure you ask for advice on the options.
Take a look at this video to see parish councillor Chris Mitchell chatting with Andrew about his solar panel scheme.
3. NEED TO REPLACE YOUR BOILER? UPGRADE TO A HEAT PUMP!
How Does A Heat Pump Work?
Heat pumps offer an energy-efficient alternative to boilers and air conditioners for all climates. They can efficiently provide comfortable temperatures for your home all year round.
They work by taking the available heat from the ground or air surrounding your property and increase it to a more useful temperature for use in the home. This renewable source of heat can be used to create warm air or water (for central heating) as well as hot water (for both central heating and domestic hot water supply).
Heat pumps work on the same principle as your fridge, but in reverse. The source of heat they use can be outside air or a water mix which is contained within ground collectors. This is either blown or pumped over the heat exchange surface of the outside part of the heat pump.
Although this is cold in comparison to the air inside your home, it’s still warm enough to cause the special refrigerant liquid to evaporate and turn into a gas. By using compression, this gas is heated and transferred to your house.
The government is banning gas boilers from new-build homes from 2025 so now is a good time to consider installing one.
Convinced? Read on to find out how you can install a heat pump at your home.
So How Do I Install a Heat Pump at My House?
Local residents Tim and Annabel Foley recently installed a heat pump at their Rickmansworth home. Here’s their story….
We’ve just had an air-source heat pump installed in our home by a local company. We’re very happy with it and wanted to share our real-life experience of how the switch-over process went……
In late 2021 our old boiler started to fail and we took the opportunity to research getting a heat pump. What really helped us was going to see fellow Three Rivers resident Chris Mitchell, who’s had a heat pump since July 2020. Being in his warm home on a chilly winter’s day and seeing the heat pump whirring away - looking like a fairly unobtrusive air conditioner unit on the back of his house - reassured us that this wasn’t as big a step as we’d feared.
Now that our heat pump is installed, we realise that daily living is much the same as before, that our costs are similar but importantly, we’ve now moved away from gas and heat our house entirely using electricity from an eco-friendly electricity supplier. A big plus for the planet!!
So how did we start?
Getting a quote
It is really important to find an experienced heat pump supplier - and hiring local is always a good idea. The plumbing is a specialist task and so is working through the bureaucracy involved. A good supplier can guide you through this - we had to make just one phone call to book a visit and the rest was done by the supplier.
We used AOS Heating https://www.aosheatpumps.co.uk/ based in Herts. They were excellent throughout the process - very competent and friendly – but there are more suppliers, of course, so check with others and get quotes before you make a choice.
Here are the steps that they guided us through:
EPC - This is the “How energy-efficient is my house” report. We paid £75 and it took an hour or so and it was the thing that determined how big a grant we would get from the Government
Rough quote - Based on the EPC and some other basic information, you will get an approximate quote for the heat pump installation and can decide if you want to go further
Technical survey - This is the process where an engineer measures the room sizes, takes into account windows etc. and does all the calculations. They will also look at hot water tanks and radiators. This will determine if you need any radiator changes and what size of water tank and heat pump you need and where it can go
DNO certificate - Most appliances in a house, like a kettle say, use around 2kwh of power. A heat pump can use up to 14kwh. Because of that, the heat pump supplier needs to get approval from the electricity company who maintains your home network, confirming that your supply is up to it. If you have an old connection, the suppliers will be able to alert you and the electric company may need to do some work to upgrade the fuse or connections
Final quote - So after all surveys are complete (this takes around six weeks), you will get a quote that will tell you what heat pump you will get, the radiators that need changing and all the rest of the costs
Government grant – Your supplier will tell you the amount of government grant you are eligible for, based on your EPC. You can also check this yourself online. Up until 31st March 2022, you are eligible for the Domestic Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) https://www.gov.uk/renewable-heat-incentive-calculator/ However in April 2022, that will be replaced by the government Boiler Upgrade Scheme. Details haven’t been released yet but you can find out more at https://www.which.co.uk/news/2021/10/5000-heat-pump-grants-revealed-in-new-boiler-upgrade-scheme/
Where to put your heat pump
Put simply, you will have a box that looks like a large air conditioner unit, about 90cm wide x 1.5m tall x 30cm deep and you need to fix it somewhere. Most people put their heat pump on the back wall of the house and somewhere where the noise of a fan is not going to be a distraction. It also needs to be 1m from neighbours’ boundaries or you need to look at planning permission. We chose to have it in our front garden by a compost bin and needed to get a shallow trench dug to get the pipes back to the garage, where the water tank and connections would be installed.
You also need to make sure you have room for a hot water cylinder. Because our house is five-bedroom, we needed a large cylinder and it couldn’t be housed in the loft. But we found space in the garage, in the space where the old gas boiler was before.
The installation
The installation process took five days from start to finish. In our experience, it’s good to be aware of the following.
- The cold water will be switched off for maybe half of Day One
- The new hot water was available from the end of Day Two
- The heating was on from Day Four
Our installation was in January but we found that by borrowing 4 oil-filled radiators (for a big house), it was comfortable living and working from home while the work was going on. The guys were very tidy and kept disruption to a minimum.
Living with the new system
The house feels great – it’s warm and temperatures are easy to adjust. We had to have some of the radiators replaced with larger capacity ones and now they’re all thermostatically controlled. The main thermostat is now a smart device that you can control from your phone if you want.
The actual radiator temperatures generated by heat pumps are lower than you get with a gas system. A gas boiler heats radiators to around 65C and the heat pump to 45C. This means you need bigger radiators and to keep them on for longer. But that doesn’t require more energy, it’s just a slower process. So if you left the heating off for a week in winter, then a house heated by a heat pump would take longer to get back to normal temperature.
The running costs are a complex topic. The good part is that a heat pump is up to 3x as efficient as a gas boiler. However, the electricity that it runs on is currently 4x as expensive as gas. The government wants us all to move away from reliance on gas, so these price ratios are very likely to change soon, meaning that moving to a heat pump will eventually be a money-saving proposition!
So should you install a heat pump?
If you’re doing this to save money, as well as help the planet then, to be honest, it’s still a bit early in the cycle. But if you want to do what you can to reduce your carbon footprint, then you can end up with a new, reliable heating system that is around the same cost to run and benefits from some quite generous grants for the installation.
Anecdotally, we all also know that gas boilers have a habit of breaking down just when it gets to the coldest part of the year and heat pumps are much simpler to maintain.
Obviously, we’ll know more about all of this when we’ve lived with our pump for a while. Do feel free to contact us by emailing Tim Foley ℅ Sustainable Three Rivers hello@sustainablethreerivers.org and we can tell you more about our experience.
Other Energy Saving Home Improvement Ideas
Install double or triple glazing
If you’re planning to buy a new home, ensure it has a Home Quality Mark
Passivhaus is another international standard for energy-efficient homes
Grants and Schemes
Got An Idea
If you’d like to share your energy saving tips, tag us in your social media posts or get in touch and we’ll share your ideas!