A Thought about Energy Costs

I've been reading lots of articles recently about the rising cost of oil making it more viable to drill hard to reach reserves. When previously this would have been too costly, now it looks more sensible for oil companies. This is obviously not the world's best news. However, the increase in energy costs is starting to make quite a few people think about going 'green'. This makes a lot of sense since people and companies generally care a lot about what's in their pocket. For many, 'going green' isn't so much about saving the environment, but saving money.

Last week, we went to the Green Car Guide show in Liverpool. The show was mainly geared towards businesses, but the message was clear: with rising fuel costs, businesses want more efficient cars, vans and trucks. It's a simple equation - greater efficiency means less fuel, meaning lower running costs. Of course, there are other potential benefits from greener cars (lower car tax, congestion charge exemptions, and even free parking). As costs rise, this will become increasingly important for businesses (and individuals).

The other thing I have been thinking about is the rising cost of home energy. A couple of days ago it was reported that energy bills could go up by 40% (an increase that could mean paying £400 more this winter for the average household). That's a huge increase. This is what got me thinking about the interconnectedness of the oil price rises. This could, and should, make people think about increasing their home energy efficiency. Yes, it does cost money - but as energy costs rise, so do the potential savings. The investment payback time is shrinking significantly now.

So people should be thinking about reducing their heating and electricity bills this winter. There's loads of things people can do: improve the insulation, ensure their boiler and heating system is efficient, double glaze (or even more..), use low energy lighting. Aside from that there are all the easy things like turning off lights. Like many things in life, we'll change only when we're forced to. The pinch on your wallet is definitely something that will do that.

Getting into hot water

You might wonder why we overhauled the heating system in the first place. After all, you've got to figure that leaving things as they are has less of an environmental impact that refurbishing something. Well, this flat had a bit of a bizarre heating system, especially given its size. It had a combi boiler feeding the sinks and the heating system, but a large hot water cylinder with 2 electric immersion heaters that fed the showers. You find houses that have cylinders fed by the boiler (and often have back-up immersion heaters), but this was a little strange - and not that efficient. Couple this with a boiler that was going to need replacing at some stage in the not too distant future, we thought it was an appropriate time to put in a new system. Little did I know that it involved re-piping most of the flat to get it all working and to meet current standards.

So the plumbers descended en masse and managed to do everything in a matter of days. I missed the yellow gunk that came out of the hot water cylinder, which fed the showers (my builders thought it was disgusting), but I did catch the radiators being emptied:I'm told that our new system shouldn't ever end up black like that...

Why boilers are sexy

OK, so you know you're obsessed with your refurb when you talk to people about the boilers they're putting in and get all excited about flow rates and energy ratings. Well, in our place, the choice of boilers came down to this: Volkswagen or Mercedes. I had spent a fair while researching the very best boilers - going to everyone from the Energy Saving Trust to the Sedbuk database (Seasonal Efficiency of Domestic Boilers in the UK) - and basically I'd not moved massively forward. I was stuck with Vaillant, Viessmann and Worcester Bosch. All very efficient and seemingly all pretty good. So I put the question to our builder (aspiring to be a Corgi engineer) and our plumber. The response I got back was something like this: "they're all good boilers, but you've got imagine them like cars. A Worcester Bosch is like a Volkswagen, but a Viessmann is like a Mercedes." Err...ok, but I just want hot water.

In the end, we chose the Worcester Bosch. I'd asked the plumber which he prefers to install and deal with and he was unequivocal. It was also nice that the Green Homes people later suggested the same one. As did a friend of mine (graphic artist turned plumber turned interior decorator) enthusiastically agreed with the boiler assessment. So we are now the proud owners of fully operational hot water and central heating system. Gone is the old combi boiler and immersion heater (I'll mention that in another post) - in its place, a Worcester Bosch Greenstar 42CDi combi boiler.

So here are the beautiful 'before' and 'after' shots: