Well, according to our external thermometer, today is the coldest day of the year so far. At about 8am, it was reading -2, and there was a beautiful frost layer on our velux windows, with the winter sun shining through…
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Wood Burner on Hold
I managed to get a great source of local logs for the wood burning stove – a friend of mine, Jim O’Shaughnessy, has a ‘logs for labour’ scheme at Ashton Court, and looks after an area of woodland in return
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Irritation with Vaillent Solar Controllers
One of the things I would often do with the solar system in our old house was check the temperature both of the plate and the tank. The plate temperature was just out of interest, but the tank temperature was
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Living with a Heat Recovery System
Now that we have moved in, we are learning what it is like to live with a Villavent heat recovery system (MVHR). The first thing to say is that, on it’s ‘official’ setting, it is pretty noisy in a number…
Avoiding Summer Solar Gain
One thing I was concerned about – particularly after the builders complained about the heat one day – was solar gain at the front of the house on a hot sunny day. The top room in particular can get pretty…
RdSAP shocker
As part of the Green Doors preparations, we had our house assessed using the RdSAP methodology – this is the one that is used to produce the energy ratings for houses when they are being sold. And we were shocked…
Moving In… and about Small Scale Developers
Well, the work was just about completed early September, and we moved in on Monday the 6th. But we had promised to have the house open for Bristol Open Doors/Green Doors day the following weekend, so had a lot of…
Which Solar?
We’ve got a lot of roof space, but it isnt brilliantly positioned and is broken up by the velux windows of the loft conversion and shadow-casting chimney stacks. The only south facing spot is a small triangle above the bay
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Slowly but Surely….
Well, it’s been around 6 months since the Refit West surveyor first set foot in our door and work began, and things are nearing completion. For us, things have gone very smoothly and we are really pleased with how things…
Heat Recovery System – is it worth it?
Well, I agonized over the double glazing decision, and I am wondering if I should have spent my time thinking about the heat recovery system, which I just went with almost without thinking….
We’ve struggled with poor heat distribution and…
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