17 Hope Street, Beeston, NG9 1DJ.
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Our home is a 1900s two-storey detached house with solid brick walls. There is a two-storey 1985 cavity wall extension and a further 1991 single-storey cavity wall extension at the back of the house.
We’ve taken several measures to make the house more energy efficient and low carbon, including external insulation to the walls and installing an air source heat pump.
See below for more information, with the least expensive first and the number of £s giving a rough indication of cost. [Information provided February 2025.] |
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1. LED LIGHT BULBS £
Most of our light bulbs have been replaced with energy efficient LED bulbs, although we still have a few fluorescent lights which we’ll replace with LED equivalents when they stop working.
Most of our light bulbs have been replaced with energy efficient LED bulbs, although we still have a few fluorescent lights which we’ll replace with LED equivalents when they stop working.
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2. CHIMNEY BALLOON £
We have a small open fireplace that’s no longer in use so we have fitted an inflatable chimney balloon in the chimney above it. The balloon stops warm air escaping up the chimney and cold air coming down. |
Chimney balloon in unused fireplace.
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3. THERMOSTATIC RADIATOR VALVES £
All of the radiators in the house had thermostatic valves when we moved in, but we have replaced a couple that were not working properly.
We only learnt recently that the numbers ‘1’ to ‘5’ on the valve caps roughly correlate to specific temperatures, at 5ºC intervals. Setting the valve to ‘1’ should keep the room temperature to 10ºC, ‘2’ gives 15ºC, ‘3’ gives 20ºC and so on. It’s worth checking that the valves are set to the temperature you need in each room or you may be wasting energy.
All of the radiators in the house had thermostatic valves when we moved in, but we have replaced a couple that were not working properly.
We only learnt recently that the numbers ‘1’ to ‘5’ on the valve caps roughly correlate to specific temperatures, at 5ºC intervals. Setting the valve to ‘1’ should keep the room temperature to 10ºC, ‘2’ gives 15ºC, ‘3’ gives 20ºC and so on. It’s worth checking that the valves are set to the temperature you need in each room or you may be wasting energy.
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4. SMART HOME THERMOSTAT ££
We had a Nest Learning Thermostat fitted to control the house’s heating system when we had a gas boiler and are using the same thermostat to control the system now that the boiler has been replaced with an air source heat pump. A smart home thermostat uses self-programming technology to work out the most effective and energy efficient way to heat your home. When it’s first installed, you tell the Nest Thermostat when you want your home heating and to what temperature. If the house takes too long to warm up and doesn’t get to the target temperature in time, the thermostat will turn the heating on a little earlier on successive days until it achieves the desired result. If the house gets to target temperature ahead of time, it will turn the heating on a little later on successive days until the house is only being heated when you actually need it. As you go through the seasons, the thermostat also modifies its schedule to take into account changes in outside temperature. You can also set the thermostat to monitor activity in the house so that the heating is turned off when nobody is at home. You can programme and control the thermostat directly but, if you connect it to a wifi network, you can also use an app or an internet browser to program and control it. |
Smart Home Thermostat.
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5. DUAL ZONE AIR FRYER ££
We use a dual zone air fryer to cook most of the meals we would previously have cooked in the oven. According to Which research, air fryers are between two to three times more energy efficient than regular electric ovens (depending on what is being cooked) and can reduce cooking times by about 30%. |
Dual Zone Air Fryer.
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6. LOFT INSULATION ££
We increased the depth of the mineral wool loft insulation above the two-storey parts of the house to 300mm. We cut a hatch in the ceiling of the single-storey extension at the back of the house to allow us to increase the depth of mineral wool in the ceiling void to 300mm as well.
We increased the depth of the mineral wool loft insulation above the two-storey parts of the house to 300mm. We cut a hatch in the ceiling of the single-storey extension at the back of the house to allow us to increase the depth of mineral wool in the ceiling void to 300mm as well.
7. DOUBLE-GLAZING TO ALL WINDOWS ££££
Most of the windows in the house were double-glazed when we bought it, with the exception of the living room which had a large single-glazed timber bay window. This was unfortunate as the living room was the one room that we wanted to keep the warmest, so we had it replaced with double-glazing. We also had a timber double-glazed window in one downstairs room replaced with a better insulated UPVC double glazed window.
Most of the windows in the house were double-glazed when we bought it, with the exception of the living room which had a large single-glazed timber bay window. This was unfortunate as the living room was the one room that we wanted to keep the warmest, so we had it replaced with double-glazing. We also had a timber double-glazed window in one downstairs room replaced with a better insulated UPVC double glazed window.
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8. EXTERNAL INSULATION TO SOLID BRICK WALLS ££££
Following an assessment and advice from the Nottingham Energy Partnership, we had all of the house’s solid brick external walls externally insulated. Three sides of the house are insulated with 100mm insulation board, but the fourth side is insulated with a more expensive 60mm insulation board which insulates as effectively as the 100mm board. We used the more expensive board on this side of the house as the insulation jutted over the boundary line into our next-door neighbour’s property, so we wanted to minimise the space it took up. The outside of the insulation is covered in a white silicone render. Although we had a gas hob at this time, the vast majority of the house’s gas consumption was for heating. The house’s average gas consumption for the five years before the insulation was installed (2010-2014) was 26,104kWh. The average gas consumption in the five years after the insulation was installed (2016-2020) was 18,312 kWh. So, the insulation resulted in a reduction of 30% in our energy consumption. This work was carried out in 2015, and two thirds of the cost was covered by a grant from the government’s Green Deal Home Improvement Fund. This fund is no longer available, but it may be possible to apply for other government grants. |
The house before and after external insulation had been added.
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9. PHOTOVOLTAIC PANELS ££££
When we first moved into the house, we investigated getting a government grant to cover or partially cover the cost of installing Photo Voltaic (PV) panels. Unfortunately, we were not eligible as our house is far from ideal for fitting PV panels to; the roof on the south side of the house is broken up into a set of smaller roofs instead of one large surface that panels could be attached to. However, the technology has got better and more affordable in recent years, so in 2021 we had some panels installed at our own expense. We have three small areas of PV panels on 3 different roofs, connected to an inverter in the loft. The system has a total peak output of 2.6kW and generates around 2,000 kWh each year. We consume about half of the electricity generated, with the surplus being exported to the grid. We receive a payment from Octopus, our electricity supplier, for this exported electricity, but the unit rate is less than the rate they charge for electricity we buy from them. As of January 2025, the rate Octopus pay us per kWh exported is 69% of the rate they charge us per kWh consumed on our particular tariff. |
Our PV panels had to be fitted to three small areas of the roof.
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10. AIR SOURCE HEAT PUMP ££££
In April 2023 we had our gas boiler replaced with a Mitsubishi Ecodan 8.5kW Air Source Heat Pump (AHSP). To minimise disruption and new pipework, ASHP installers will usually try to position the heat pump close to the gas boiler it’s replacing. This wasn’t practical in our house as this position would either have been too close to the property boundary or directly in front of our kitchen window. Another problem was that an ASHP system requires a hot water tank, and the house no longer had one. As a result, the ASHP was installed at the side of the house with the pipes coming through our toilet to connect to a new hot water cylinder in an alcove in our hallway. This made for a lengthy installation which was made even longer by the ASHP being a new model that the installers had to learn the ins and outs of installing while doing the job. Altogether, the installation took about a month. A plus side was that the disruption during installation was largely limited to the toilet and hallway, leaving our kitchen relatively untouched. And the heat pump is a large piece of equipment (approximately 1m wide x 1m high x 1m deep) so we’re much happier having it tucked around the side of the house instead of in the back garden where it would be far more conspicuous. For most of the year, ASHP’s heat the water circulating around the central heating system to a lower temperature than a gas boiler would, which can mean that existing radiators have to be replaced with larger radiators to ensure an adequate heat output. However, because our existing radiators were put in before we’d had the external walls insulated, most of them were bigger than they needed to be. As a result, when the installers did the heating load calculations, they found that only a couple of radiators might need replacing. They advised us to try the system out for a winter to see how well it warmed the house before replacing them, which we did. In the end, we only replaced one radiator, in the kitchen. We also removed a radiator cabinet from the radiator in the living room to allow air to circulate around it more easily and heat the room more efficiently. 36% of the cost of the installation was covered by the government’s Boiler Upgrade Scheme, the grant for which has since been increased. |
The air source heat pump and associated installation inside the house.
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BENEFITS
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LESSONS LEARNED
- We asked two companies to quote for the ASHP installation. The company we chose provided a detailed calculation that took into account the house’s external insulation and the volumes of individual rooms to work out the size of the heat pump we’d need and how many of the existing radiators would need replacing. In the end, we only replaced one radiator.
The other company we asked to quote did not do a detailed calculation. They insisted that all of the radiators in the house would need replacing at an additional cost of £4,000 and that we needed an ASHP at least 30% more powerful than the one the other installer had specified. Although the system the second company would have installed would have heated the house effectively, it would have been greatly over-specified and the replacement of all the radiators would have made the installation a lot more disruptive.
The lessons learnt were:- It’s worth getting an installer that will provide a quote based on a detailed calculation.
- Be wary of installers trying to gratuitously bump-up the cost of their work.
- If you significantly upgrade the insulation on your house BEFORE you get an AHSP, it could save you having to replace the radiators.
- The ASHP is programmed with a ‘heat curve’ which means that the temperature of the water circulating through the central heating in milder weather is a lot cooler than the temperature of the water circulating in cold weather. The ASHP is at its most energy efficient during milder weather when it only has to raise the water temperature a little above the outside air temperature.
For the first year that we had the AHSP we set the heat curve so that the radiators still felt warm to the touch when running in milder weather. When the engineer came to service the ASHP, the data stored in the system told him that the average efficiency of the pump across the year was not as high as it should have been (and therefore more expensive to run). He explained that this was probably because we’d set the heat curve for milder weather too high, and he adjusted that end of the curve downwards. The adjusted curve has since heated the house effectively and has made the pump significantly more energy and cost efficient.
The lesson learnt is that the radiators only need to be a little above room temperature to heat the house adequately in the spring and autumn. They don’t need to be hot to the touch!
- We’ve been keeping a record of our household carbon footprint since 2005. By employing all the measures outlined above we have been able to reduce our CO2 emissions due to domestic energy consumption by 8.09 tonnes per year.
However, once we started keeping track of our CO2 emissions it became clear that the easiest way we could dramatically reduce our household CO2 emissions was reduce or stop flying. For example, an economy class return flight to New York for our family of four would have generated ‘CO2 equivalent’ emissions of 8.72 tonnes, which would more than wipe out all the annual emission savings we’ve been able to make at home. So we have stopped flying.
The lesson learnt is that, if you fly once a year or more and you wish to significantly reduce your emissions, by far the easiest way to do this may be to reduce or stop flying.
* Calculated for an economy class return flight from East Midlands Airport to New York using the flights carbon footprint calculator with radiative forcing.
Disclaimer: Please note that EcoTrail-NG9 aims to provide information as accurately as possible but the information on this page has been provided by the property owner.
