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tahir
Joined: 28 Oct 2004 Posts: 45432 Location: Essex
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sean Downsizer Moderator
Joined: 28 Oct 2004 Posts: 42207 Location: North Devon
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kGarden
Joined: 01 Dec 2014 Posts: 178 Location: Suffolk, UK
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Posted: Thu Jan 08, 15 6:12 pm Post subject: Re: Getting an Energy Audit Done (Work not Home) |
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sean wrote: |
Given that the building has single glazed sash windows, ancient gas boilers, inefficient lighting etc it seems self-evident that this is an utter waste of money. |
Son't see why that should matter? in the sense that if we need loads of PV generation then any available roof will do?
When I had mine installed it was a requirement, to get a KickBack, that the building already had cavity fill / loft insulation / something similar and there were bands from A to E (from memory) that the energy audit assigned in order to determine if it qualified.
The heavily "shaded North facing roof" doesn't sound good though! The guys that fitted my PV advised me to take the top off a Conifer that was to the NW of the site. I didn't think it would make much difference, but they showed me some gismo they had which detailed what obstructions there were and what the reduction in energy was likely to be, so the top will be coming off that tree!
Either then energy audit, or the gizmo, might tell you that north facing is not brilliant!
The Kick Backs reduce periodically, so make sure you are getting anything commissioned (not just installed) before the next anniversary date. |
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Cathryn
Joined: 16 Jul 2005 Posts: 19856 Location: Ceredigion
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tahir
Joined: 28 Oct 2004 Posts: 45432 Location: Essex
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sean Downsizer Moderator
Joined: 28 Oct 2004 Posts: 42207 Location: North Devon
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Treacodactyl Downsizer Moderator
Joined: 28 Oct 2004 Posts: 25795 Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism
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sean Downsizer Moderator
Joined: 28 Oct 2004 Posts: 42207 Location: North Devon
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Nick
Joined: 02 Nov 2004 Posts: 34535 Location: Hereford
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sean Downsizer Moderator
Joined: 28 Oct 2004 Posts: 42207 Location: North Devon
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kGarden
Joined: 01 Dec 2014 Posts: 178 Location: Suffolk, UK
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Posted: Fri Jan 09, 15 9:35 am Post subject: Re: Getting an Energy Audit Done (Work not Home) |
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sean wrote: |
We (as an organisation) have little money and extremely high overheads for energy. In terms of ROI we don't need to generate a bit of electricity we need to cut our costs long-term. Plus IMHO the PV won't generate anything like the amount of leccy that we actually use with our present set-up. |
Fair enough, but electricity you generate goes into the grid, or reduces your usage (either way reducing dependency on foreign oil imports and cutting CO2 etc). Government, or industry with its arm half way up its back, will subsidise your purchase such that "investing" in PV is at least as good as sticking the money in a long term deposit account. Assuming energy prices rise above inflation, notwithstanding a dramatic fall in oil prices, then the investment will improve with time.
I'm in favour of encouraging that - if we want alternative energy we need to install enough that the skills are developed, R&D finds better solutions and economies of scale drive price down, up to each individual / company to decide if they want to invest, or not.
But I'm sure I'm not saying anything that is new to folk here. |
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RichardW
Joined: 24 Aug 2006 Posts: 8443 Location: Llyn Peninsular North Wales
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sean Downsizer Moderator
Joined: 28 Oct 2004 Posts: 42207 Location: North Devon
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tahir
Joined: 28 Oct 2004 Posts: 45432 Location: Essex
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kGarden
Joined: 01 Dec 2014 Posts: 178 Location: Suffolk, UK
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Posted: Fri Jan 09, 15 1:00 pm Post subject: Re: Getting an Energy Audit Done (Work not Home) |
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sean wrote: |
We're looking at doing this first when it should come after all the other stuff. |
Is the other stuff subsidised? If not then no harm in doing this first? (North facing aspect apart!)
We looked at trying to improve the energy efficiency of our house. Not the same as an industrial lot, I'm sure, but perhaps similar in some ways. It was a nightmare ...
We put Fill in the cavity several years ago. That changed the balance of the building and the cold-bridging of the sills then started to give us some damp problems - solved by heating the rooms continuously, or opening the windows - negating the benefit of the energy saving from the cavity insulation!. The building already had double glazing (an earlier retro fit). We increased the insulation in the loft.
Next up from that would have been to insulate the walls. For us that would have been external insulation boards, render over the outside of that, and in the process move all the windows further out (so insulation layer was continuous) and upgrade them to triple glazed.
Our house was already relatively air tight (around 2 ACH), so the extra insulation combined with an air-tight membrane would have enabled us to get to Passive House standards (0.6 ACH), at that point we would need mechanical ventilation (combined with heat exchanger for heat recovery) which would have been disruptive to decorations in every room in the house.
We would not have been able to insulate the floor, so that would have presented a problem to the balance of heat in the building - probably could have offset that by excavating the foundations and insulating them on the outside. Existing radiators (cast-iron skirting type, so no easy "replace-with-smaller-ones" option) would then be oversized and, as we have very little control over the system - no zoning - we probably would have had a problem with radiators providing too much heat.
We opted to build a passive house extension instead!!, and hibernate in there during the winter. If we win the lottery we'll upgrade the original part of the house.
The economics of making your existing building very efficient will probably look better by knocking it down and starting again ... which to my mind is horrendous from a "green" standpoint. Good luck to the next generation in finding ways of retro-upgrading the existing housing stock, and I wish the government would hurry up and mandate Passive House standards for new housing stock - the less we build to current Building Regs the less will have to be upgraded later. |
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