Solar panels - no brainer for us?

[Spinball]

We can do you a green deal assessment also and see if you qualify for some Eco funding you may get your boiler done free

I spoke to the Energy Saving Trust today.
To get assistance with either insulation or boilers, you need to be in particular need of financial help, and we're not drawing any benefits so we don't qualify. Probably not by a long way.
Also the scheme is quite complicated and not a particularly good deal at between 6 and 8% interest.
I'll be giving it a miss, I think.

 

[jason121]

Have you looked at ASHP or Bio mass using help from the RHI.
Funding is over 7 years and mounts up to around £10,000

 

[sedgy34]

you will get something based on an assessment, you could do green deal too on the rest dont forget the repayments are taken from the savings produced after the works and there is no upfront cost to yourself and the Green deal is on you meter not you personally like a loan of say 5%
you should go with solar pv no matter what and ditch the solar thermal idea which isnt worth the cost compared to the savings. unless the RHI implement the FIT on it

 

[Eco Deal]

Well if you had EWI as a primary measure then a boiler would get ECO funds too .

the green deal is also tied to the electric meter and not you plus there is a LOSE credit check so it helps alot of people out....

what walls have you got ?

if they are soild then you could get eco funding towards the wall then the boiler and other measures become avilable under ECO too.

this includes

Solid Wall Insulation	IWI (solid): pre 1967 England & Wales, pre 1965 Scotland	IWI_solid_pre1967_E&W_pre1965_S	E	E
IWI (solid): from 1967 E&W, from 1965 Scotland	IWI_solid_from1967_E&W_from1965_S	E	E
EWI (solid): pre 1967 E&W, pre 1965 Scotland	EWI_solid_pre1967_E&W_pre1965_S	E	E
EWI (solid): from 1967 E&W, from 1965 Scotland	EWI_solid_from1967_E&W_from1965_S	E	E
Internal non-solid Brick Wall Insulation	IWI_non_solid	E	E
External non-solid Brick Wall Insulation	EWI_non_solid	E	E
Park Home External Wall Insulation	Park Home External Wall Insulation	EWI_Parkhomes	E	E
Cavity Wall Insulation	Standard CWI	Standard_CWI	S	E
Hard To Treat Cavity Wall Insulation	HTTC: Cavity wall insulation solution	HTTC_CWI_solution	E	E
HTTC: Solid wall insulation solution	HTTC_SWI_solution	E	E
Loft Insulation	Loft Insulation Ceiling Level Virgin	LI_ceiling_level_virgin	S	E
Loft Insulation Ceiling Level Topup	LI_ceiling_level_topup	S	E
Loft Insulation Rafter	LI_rafter	S	E
Room in Roof Insulation	RIRI	S	E
Other Insulation	Flat Roof Insulation	FRI	S	E
Under Floor Insulation	UFI	S	E
Hot Water Cylinder Insulation	HWCI	S	E
Pipework Insulation	PWI	S	E
Draught Proofing	DP	S	E
Window Glazing	WG	S	E
Passageway Walk-through Doors	PWWD	S	E
Boiler	Boiler: Replacement qualifying boiler	QB_Replacement
Boiler: Repair qualifying boiler 1 year warranty	QB_Repair_1_year
Boiler: Repair qualifying boiler 2 year warranty	QB_Repair_2_year
Boiler: Installation of a Non qualifying boiler	Non_QB_installation

 

[Eco Deal]

ECO funding is extra help toward the green deal so say the EWI was 10k eco funds might give you say 5k (depending on the savings)

so you could either pay the other 5k cash or pay it on the green deal.

 

[Spinball]

you will get something based on an assessment

I read this page
Green Deal and Energy Company Obligation (ECO) - Grants and savings - Energy Saving Trust
phoned the number on it and was given the clear impression that grants were available only to people drawing particular benefits.
If any grant is means tested, we would be considered having enough means to pay for it ourselves.
If it's a grant available to everyone, then why isn't that clear on the site? Because I intend to get the cavity walls filled (if they are not already) and get solar PV unless it's unexpectedly expensive. But I also need to address the gas bill and rather than shove two new boilers in there directly heating the hot water, radiators and pool, I also want to find a way to reduce our gas bill directly (in addition to ensuring we have sufficient insulation). £12-£13 a day is a lot for gas. And most of that is on heating.

If solar thermal is not a great idea until there is some kind of FIT equivalent then I'll likely wait for that to happen, but I do want to plan for that with whatever solution we put in in the mean time.

I do like the idea of having mains pressure, clean hot water. If it financially makes sense then a thermal store might be the way to go. There is very little information on the net about them, though. A lot seem to be in the low hundreds of litres.

 

[sedgy34]

there are a few things you can do rather than solar thermal i would have underfloor heatiing this is set at 50deg and more efficient than rads blasting out 80deg that will cut your gas bill down
we do UFH too

 

[lancselec]

have you looked at the baxi ecogen boiler a micro chp boiler that produces 1kw of export electricity which falls within FIT so you can get a bit more while the boiler running they are expensive but depending on your usage could give a payback.

 

[Worcester]

@lancselec - have you seen the price for those units!!!!

I couldn't make the ROI stack up even with the FiT

 

[lancselec]

did say they were expensive worcester !

4000 hrs p.a. is breakeven i think

 

[Spinball]

there are a few things you can do rather than solar thermal i would have underfloor heatiing this is set at 50deg and more efficient than rads blasting out 80deg that will cut your gas bill down
we do UFH too

If you want to suggest to the wife that we rip up all the floors in the house, can I video it?

 

[jason121]

dont have to. retro fit underfloor heating by laying on existing floor.only problem will rise the floor by about 30mm

 

[Spinball]

dont have to. retro fit underfloor heating by laying on existing floor.only problem will rise the floor by about 30mm

Underfloor heating is not an option. Too much expense and disruption. The former owners put down really nice floor tiles and I have no intention of digging them up.

 

[Eco Deal]

Spin ball

ECO funding is for

1. People on low incomes HHCRO
2. hard to treat properties CERO
3. low income areas CSCO

so no its not just for people on benefits

 

[sedgy34]

That's what I've Been trying to get across

 

[Spinball]

I appreciate the help. Is there some clear information anywhere which lets people know how they qualify? If the government want people to take advantage of these initiatives, they aren't exactly making it easy for people to find them.

 

[Earthstore]

They do not make it easy for anything to do with renewables, I wonder why?

 

[Gary K]

They do not make it easy for anything to do with renewables, I wonder why?

When the allocated fund do not get used, it gets redirected to another project like paying bonus's!!!

 

[sedgy34]

We have direct access to funding through a utility company so if you have any projects let me know

 

[SRE]

I appreciate the help. Is there some clear information anywhere which lets people know how they qualify? If the government want people to take advantage of these initiatives, they aren't exactly making it easy for people to find them.

That's because most people don't qualify for ECO. I have yet to see a "normal" house & customer who qualifies for ECO. I talk with lots of Green Deal Assessors and work on a countywide Green Deal group and none of us have found funding for "normal" customers yet. I've heard from several sources that there's still some funding via CERT available for cavity & loft but it's got to be installed by the end of March so you'd need to get your skates on. It's not easy to find - I'd suggest you look for a list of insulation installers in your area and ring each of them to see if they have any funds left.

ECO is still a long way from being resolved I know of one installer who generated 1200 jobs for ECO, a substantial amount of them were solid wall jobs in a low income area, the utility who had requested the work couldn't work with the jobs provided because even in a low income area they weren't skint enough to make ECO worthwhile for the utility, the goal posts had moved within a fortnight of requesting the work from the installer. ECO is going to deal with social housing primarily, easy target - lots of houses one load of permission from one landlord and economies of scale.

My understanding of underfloor heating was that it was more efficient as it takes a hot water feed of 35 degrees. However, I've recently been on air source heat pump training and the software used for MCS certification shows absolutely no difference between underfloor and radiators. I've queried the figures but it looks as though you wouldn't gain from ufh even if you were prepared to retrofit.

 

[sedgy34]

You may have been misled with your information
cause utilities are bidding against each other for co2 savings we know cause we have a direct contact

 

[jason121]

That's because most people don't qualify for ECO. I have yet to see a "normal" house & customer who qualifies for ECO. I talk with lots of Green Deal Assessors and work on a countywide Green Deal group and none of us have found funding for "normal" customers yet. I've heard from several sources that there's still some funding via CERT available for cavity & loft but it's got to be installed by the end of March so you'd need to get your skates on. It's not easy to find - I'd suggest you look for a list of insulation installers in your area and ring each of them to see if they have any funds left.

ECO is still a long way from being resolved I know of one installer who generated 1200 jobs for ECO, a substantial amount of them were solid wall jobs in a low income area, the utility who had requested the work couldn't work with the jobs provided because even in a low income area they weren't skint enough to make ECO worthwhile for the utility, the goal posts had moved within a fortnight of requesting the work from the installer. ECO is going to deal with social housing primarily, easy target - lots of houses one load of permission from one landlord and economies of scale.

My understanding of underfloor heating was that it was more efficient as it takes a hot water feed of 35 degrees. However, I've recently been on air source heat pump training and the software used for MCS certification shows absolutely no difference between underfloor and radiators. I've queried the figures but it looks as though you wouldn't gain from ufh even if you were prepared to retrofit.

Alter the figure under this heading on the right
SAP 2009 Heat Pump efficiency from Table 4c from .7 to 1
This will alter the KWH for the year

 

[SRE]

Thanks Jason - the software I was looking at was Danfoss software for MIS 3005. Sounds like it could be a glitch in the software.

Sedgy - I hate to tell you this but the installers I know have been working directly with the utilities for over 8 years right through SOP & CERT & now with ECO. They were very experienced and have been right royally stuffed. Be careful before you commit any funds to marketing ECO, if I were you I'd wait for a while yet until they get themselves sorted out. You might have a chance of making it work if you just hang on for a bit longer

I wish I had a pound for everyone who tells me that ECO is available for everyone - it's not financially viable for the utilities to hit their priority targets and make it available for everyone.