Well Christmas is well over and long gone. The new hot water tank is installed on it's new floor and is doing what it should be.
However, we have been struggling with heating the house. This is despite the relatively mild winter. I have cleaned out the pellet boiler till is shone, well almost, but still no good. Our pellets, despite being in a dry store are not flowing properly and are needing raked several times daily to stop the boiler going running out and going cold. After much fiddling and tweaking by both us and our heating engineer it seems the bottom line is the boiler is under powered for our house - despite being a 30kW boiler and the house and pipes being insulated to within an inch of it's life. We do suspect the pellets may have absorbed atmospheric moisture despite being in a dry store but that is going to happen in Scotland. When we discussed this with the family, my son did the financial calculations and was clear we should go for a gas boiler. My teenage daughter, who is often less forthcoming, became quite animated about the fact that her bedroom had been cold each winter since the pellet boiler had been put in. This left us in a horrible predicament, we like the idea of the lower carbon footprint of pellets and the comparative security of having your heating stored for the winter but equally a cold house is no good and the cost of replacement prohibitive.
As often happens though events overtook us. My parents are in their 80s and still fit and well. However, there are times that they would benefit from a bit more support than we can currently give. They live about a mile away but in bad weather that can be a long mile, or in the middle of the night. We have spoken back and forward about building an annex, this has now developed into a more structured plan and if it goes ahead the space the pellet boiler and store take up will need to be sacrificed.
We are lucky, we received a prize of 3 kWp solar panels and the FiT from this pays the interest free loan for the boiler and pellet store. In effect we are not loosing our money so soon and we always new it was a risk. I am glad we can document it for others.
The other big event has been our house being thermally imaged and pressure tested. I haven't had time to digest all the images in detail but the big picture is our loft and floor are well insulated, our cavity wall insulation is poor and we have a pressure test result ( how drafty the house is) that is 6kPa, similar to a new build house though we did find some gaping holes that we have now filled.
And finally, our living room floor as many of you know needs lifted and relaid. We looked into getting underfloor heating put in, the cost? between £4,800 and £6,000. So we decided we would need to save an awful lot of fuel to justify that so we will be putting the radiators back!
However, we have been struggling with heating the house. This is despite the relatively mild winter. I have cleaned out the pellet boiler till is shone, well almost, but still no good. Our pellets, despite being in a dry store are not flowing properly and are needing raked several times daily to stop the boiler going running out and going cold. After much fiddling and tweaking by both us and our heating engineer it seems the bottom line is the boiler is under powered for our house - despite being a 30kW boiler and the house and pipes being insulated to within an inch of it's life. We do suspect the pellets may have absorbed atmospheric moisture despite being in a dry store but that is going to happen in Scotland. When we discussed this with the family, my son did the financial calculations and was clear we should go for a gas boiler. My teenage daughter, who is often less forthcoming, became quite animated about the fact that her bedroom had been cold each winter since the pellet boiler had been put in. This left us in a horrible predicament, we like the idea of the lower carbon footprint of pellets and the comparative security of having your heating stored for the winter but equally a cold house is no good and the cost of replacement prohibitive.
As often happens though events overtook us. My parents are in their 80s and still fit and well. However, there are times that they would benefit from a bit more support than we can currently give. They live about a mile away but in bad weather that can be a long mile, or in the middle of the night. We have spoken back and forward about building an annex, this has now developed into a more structured plan and if it goes ahead the space the pellet boiler and store take up will need to be sacrificed.
We are lucky, we received a prize of 3 kWp solar panels and the FiT from this pays the interest free loan for the boiler and pellet store. In effect we are not loosing our money so soon and we always new it was a risk. I am glad we can document it for others.
The other big event has been our house being thermally imaged and pressure tested. I haven't had time to digest all the images in detail but the big picture is our loft and floor are well insulated, our cavity wall insulation is poor and we have a pressure test result ( how drafty the house is) that is 6kPa, similar to a new build house though we did find some gaping holes that we have now filled.
And finally, our living room floor as many of you know needs lifted and relaid. We looked into getting underfloor heating put in, the cost? between £4,800 and £6,000. So we decided we would need to save an awful lot of fuel to justify that so we will be putting the radiators back!
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