Comments on: avoiding fossil fuels

By: John Christophers

John Christophers — Wed, 20 May 2020 18:04:09 +0000

Hi Nigel Lloyd
That sounds really impressive and I love the name ACOCKS GREENER!
If you have a website or link I’d be very pleased to put it on Twitter?
In response to your query, these are my first thoughts:
1. You will have greatly reduced your home’s heating load/heat loss.
2. As you already have PV & a battery, much of the electricity you’re using will be renewable – and as the grid decarbonises, which it’s doing at an increasingly rate now, better than had been expected, any electricity you need to import will be progressively greener.
4. I guess with your solar PV you may have no roof space left for solar hot water panels? – but if you do, they are sometimes overlooked as “Cinderella” of renewables… Although they wouldn’t provide all the heat you need for space heating & hot water the whole year around, they would certainly reduce your requirement.
4. So building on 1&2, with or without 3 above, I suggest you might consider a ground source heat pump or an air source heat pump in place of your fossil-fuel gas boiler for your remaining heating/hot water load? There is still a government incentive scheme for these…
Best wishes

By: Nigel Lloyd

Nigel Lloyd — Wed, 20 May 2020 06:23:13 +0000

You might be interested in our home. We have a 1958 end-terrace council house in Acocks Green which we have ‘improved’:
– added 10cm rock wool external wall insulation in addition to existing cavity wall insulation.
– installed MVHR
– converted loft into heavily insulated bedroom + ensuite bathroom with wall of N-facing window
– replaced floor slab (had to because red ash had been used as hardcore and floor had popped) and installed underfloor insulation and wet heating
– placed PV panels on S-facing pitched roof and ‘flat’ roof and installed battery.
Now we would like to eliminate gas for hot water (washing, radiators in upstairs rooms). Any ideas?
We are also forming ‘Acocks Greener’ to mobilise the community to respond to (and prevent) climate change, leading the change for Birmingham.

By: Carol Hyatt

Carol Hyatt — Wed, 05 Feb 2020 10:09:57 +0000

I cannot find the address to see if it is viable to come to visit?

By: Alex Stenning

Alex Stenning — Thu, 30 Nov 2017 15:28:20 +0000

Please may I ask type of woodburner is used?

By: Alex Stenning

Alex Stenning — Thu, 30 Nov 2017 15:27:36 +0000

Please may I ask what kind of woodburner is used??

By: John Christophers

John Christophers — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 10:56:36 +0000

In reply to Kevin.

Yes, it is an excellent product, see http://www.ecoflap.co.uk/
Our letterbox is triple-sealed. It consists of an outer brass flap (not airtight, but hard-wearing and matching our reclaimed brass door hanles), then the Ecoflap inside (very good airtightness). Letters go into an internal compartment with a further air-sealed internal door.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Mon, 23 May 2011 13:37:50 +0000

I see on the Ecoflap site that you used their letterplate for draught exclusion, but it is not mentioned here. Did you find it useful?

By: John

John — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 16:55:01 +0000

Its a heat store of 1000 litres, ie about 5x a normal domestic cylinder. Our solar panels on the roof will fill the tank with hot water. The large size of the store is so that even in winter on frosty/sunny days we hope to get a reasonable input, which will tide us over if we then get a number of cloudy days. Its been put together by GreenShop Solar http://www.greenshopsolar.co.uk/

The ventilation system is mechanical ventilation heat recovery as used in German Passivhaus design and is made by Itho http://www.itho.co.uk/Products/HRU_ECO_4/Default.aspx?id=19
System designed by The Green Building Store http://www.greenbuildingstore.co.uk/ but we have added a special heater battery so the solar store can add heat into the mvhr if required

By: Paul S

Paul S — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 14:47:39 +0000

Are you using the heated water directly or are you using the heat store principle?

What ventilation system are you using?