As Corgi Gas Safe, Oftec and Hetas registered heating installers Bramshaw Plumbing & Heating have a large number of customers, particularly those on oil, who at the present time are very worried about the unending rise in their heating costs. They are now increasingly looking at renewable resources and introducing sustainability into their heating systems.
I have to be honest and say that, apart from a few who are genuinely concerned about the environment, the vast majority of these customers are driven entirely by the economics of the situation although most would agree that they would feel happier if they were using an environmentally sound system.
We have been looking at these issues for several years and have come to realise that there are a couple of fundamental points that shine through:
- Despite rapidly rising fuel prices most customers do not want to lose the convenience and comfort of their present heating systems.
- That nearly all the systems currently installed in the UK were designed for an age of comparatively cheap energy and as such are quite wasteful of energy.
Our basic approach has been how we can improve the efficiency of existing systems and although we do not supply insulation products or services, we are always quick to advise customers that this is the first area they should explore. Pound for pound improving the insulation in your property must be the most sensible first step.
We can then begin to look at the areas of waste in the use of energy and I can best illustrate this perhaps by giving an example of an existing customer with an oil-fired heating system and in the process of extending his property.
On the face of it, the existing quite modern boiler would have been quite adequate to take the extended heating and domestic circuits but that would have left the owner feeling even more anxious about his future fuel bills.
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When we discussed matters further we found that throughout the winter they sat on many evenings in front of a woodburner because they love “open fires”. But there was no back boiler on the log burner so there was no gain into the domestic hot water system.
After much discussion we have agreed to install a solar panel on their perfect south-facing roof and retrofit a back boiler in their log burner. This traditionally would have been fed into a new cylinder and given plenty of domestic hot water but we are going to feed the solar panel and log burner into a thermal store. This means that both can be used to supply domestic hot water and preheat the central heating. The oil-fired boiler will only fire if there is a deficiency of heat from the other two sources but even when it does it will only have to raise the preheated water to working temperature – not from cold.
Our feeling is that increasingly people will want to move over to either wood chip, wood pellet or grain burners to be able to use locally sourced and sustainable fuels but that by taking a whole view of their requirements, existing systems can be modified with the present boiler being relegated to the “back up” role instead of being the main source of heat.
Few of us want to discard all that we have in the way of heating in favour of a brand new system but by integrating various heating components very good results can be achieved.
www.bramshawheatingandplumbing.co.uk
01392 277199
Article courtesy of Bramshaw Heating and Plumbing
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