Advice for building an eco-friendly house

dan_aka_jack

dan_aka_jack

dan_aka_jack

Associate
Joined
8 Mar 2004
Posts
409
Location
London, UK
Does anyone know of any good places to get advice about modifying your house to be environmentally friendly? In particular, I'm looking for advice about building my own solar water heater and plumbing it into my house's existing hot water system.

Are there any good forums for discussing this stuff? Any good on-line articles?

Many thanks,
Jack
 
I'm sure i read that title as "echo friendly house" :confused:

Which IMO is a pretty cool idea.

Ninja Edit: oh...... :p
 
dan_aka_jack said:
Ducks and quacking? Sorry for being slow but I don't get it?! Why would anyone think about ducks and quacking?!?
Click to expand...

the original thread title said 'echo' no 'eco'

and a duck's quack never echoes..i think.
 
At the moment solar power ins't very viable in this country, and what you are suggesting will not be complicated just unsighlty, you will have a large black box at and angle on your roof, this will only work in the summer where you do not really need the warm water aswell, I would suggest you look at high percentage photo-voltaic cells (around 20% efficient), these can be connected so that in the summer you can put power back into the national grid which can then be taken back during winter months etc, the thing is that these wont be cheap.

KaHn
 
KaHn said:
At the moment solar power ins't very viable in this country, and what you are suggesting will not be complicated just unsighlty, you will have a large black box at and angle on your roof, this will only work in the summer where you do not really need the warm water aswell, I would suggest you look at high percentage photo-voltaic cells (around 20% efficient), these can be connected so that in the summer you can put power back into the national grid which can then be taken back during winter months etc, the thing is that these wont be cheap.
KaHn
Click to expand...

Not very accurate, solar power can be used in this country all year round, you do not need direct sunlight, only light so even on days with lots of cloud cover you will still produce warm water. In the summer it will provide you with almost all the hot water you need, I actually use hot water in the summer unlike KaHn who seems to shower with only cold water.

For Wind Generation see the link below, any excess is fed back into the grid.

At the moment the payback is still a few years, but it is becoming more cost effective due to the recent rises in energy costs.

Have a look at:-

http://www.solartwin.com/

for Solar Water Heating and

http://www.windsave.com/

for Power generation from the Wind.

I'm looking at going for these systems for my own house in the near future, depending on planning regulations, but at the moment, I recharge phones and small battary powered devices using a solar panel, I have also set up solar panels to charge batteries for radio transmission on pipeline leak detection systems for and they work very well all year round, mostly setup in the North and Scotland.
 
Last edited:
marin said:
, I actually use hot water in the summer unlike KaHn who seems to shower with only cold water.
Click to expand...

Funnily enough I only shower with cold water in the summer, I hate hot weather.

KaHn
 
I knew OCUK would deliver! This is an excellent forum. Seems I can get pretty much any question answered in a matter of hours! Thanks loads for all the replies (and sorry for the initial typo in my thread title)!

To answer the sceptics: as Marin says, solar water heating should have a measurable effect all year round and should provide all your hotwater during summer months (and yes, you do need hotwater in summer: showers, washing up, some washing machines which take a feed from the hotwater tap etc).

I would love to put photovoltaic cells on my roof by they are VERY expensive and less efficient than solar water heating and I'm on a tight budget. Solar heating should easily reach 30% efficiency where as most PV cells are closer to 16% efficient. Not to mention that it would cost many thousands of pounds to cover a roof in PV cells. (I'm on such a tight budget that I'm seriously thinking of making my solar water heating system myself although I'm not sure I'd be eligible for a grant if I do)

I too have been interested in wind power but I've been put off... it seems the consensus is that wind power is pretty futile in London because the wind is far too gusty. Does anyone have an opinion on that? (Looking out my window right now it looks pretty windy! Maybe gusting up to 20mph)

Finally - are there any forums (or news groups) for people who are planning to add alternative energy solutions to their houses? Much as I love OCUK, I find it hard to believe that OCUK is the most appropriate place for discussing this stuff!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom