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Case study Edwardian lodge house

Mags and Peter share their experience of upgrading their historic home.

Pax Lodge is an early Edwardian lodge house built around 1905, and with later additions, surrounded by garden on the edge of a village. When Mags and Peter embarked on their retrofit project, the house was heated by gas central heating and a gas fire.

There is double glazing throughout the house, and Mags and Peter are careful to draw the curtains to all windows before sundown on winter nights. Loft insulation was installed in 2006 and the draught from the chimney is stopped with at ‘chimney sheep’. As part of their retrofit planning, Mags and Peter borrowed a heat-seeking camera to check their insulation. They chose to have blown fibre cavity wall insulation installed by GHE Solar Ltd at a cost of £800. They were unable to make use of the Green Homes Grant of £500 as planned, but the installer honoured the discount regardless. The Green Homes Grant no longer exists.

The gas boiler for the central heating and domestic hot water was removed and replaced with an Air Source Heat Pump which runs continuously at 17 deg C. In order to cope with the cooler water temperature, a new larger cylinder and larger radiators were installed. The whole installation cost £13000 but was offset by the Renewable Heating Incentive at 44%. This incentive has also now ceased but is replaced by the Boiler Upgrade Scheme.

Five solar voltaic roof panels and six ground mounted panels with a joint capacity of 3.6kW have now been installed by Pure Green Energy Ltd and are expected to generate an annual output of approximately 3330 kWh/year at a saving of about £300 a year. Solar iBoost uses the excess solar electricity as DWH immersion heater, and Zappi uses excess solar electricity to charge an electric vehicle.

The grid electricity supplier is Octopus who supplies all renewable electricity at 33p/kWh; off peak electricity for EV at 7p/kWh; and pays 4p/kWh for surplus electricity that is returned to the grid.

All in all Mags and Peter reckon their overall energy bills were reduced by 20-25% in the first year. This is obviously subject to monthly fluctuations according to the weather.

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