trenewable technology

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	Our objective is to insulate the house sufficiently to allow all space heating to come from renewable sources. We considered ground source and air source heat pumps, and although there is some attraction in these in as much as they can provide heat on demand irrespective of weather conditions, we discounted them because of their significant electricity demands. Experience of living in a house with a ground source heat pump for space heating and solar for domestic hot water had convinced us that solar is a viable and effective technology, so we decided to make this our main source of heat. We have installed 3 flat panel solar thermal collectors, totalling just under 8 sq metres, heating a 450 litre Gledhill Torrent thermal store which will provide water for underfloor heating and hot water. A 12 kW Woodfire F12 log burner from Stoves Online with a back boiler will also heat the store in cold weather. We believe that the solar thermal will provide most of the heat needed for around 9 months of the year, and the log burner will supplement this when we are using the house in cold weather. There is still an open question whether a further "emergency" heat source might be required when we are away in cold weather and can't run the log burner - but based on experience so far we are hopeful that the levels of insulation we have installed will keep the house warm enough, When we started the project we had not intended to include solar PV because of the cost, but the announcement of the feed-in tariff by the government made it financially more attractive. We had also applied to participate in a pilot scheme for the Pay As You Save scheme announced by the government to start in 2011, run by the Energy Saving Trust and British Gas. This will provide us with a 25 year interest free loan for the solar PV, and we are going for a 2.1 kWp system, installed by Solar Technologies, a British Gas company, who have also supplied and installed the solar thermal system. We will also install rainwater harvesting, which initially will provide water for wc flushing and garden use.

the log burner	solar pv panels	the thermal store	solar thermal panels