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This house, built in 1989, has a south facing roof to the rear, and was an ideal choice for the installation of a solar panel. Previously, the house was equipped with a combi boiler, which gave mains pressure hot water at all outlets. The customer wished that this should also be the case with the new installation, so a thermal store was put in to the cupboard previously occupied by the combi. The new boiler, solar pump and associated pipe work were easily installed in the attic, where there were no space restrictions. Here is what Andy has to say about the installation - Our combi boiler was reaching the end of it's life, and rather than replace it when it finally packed up, we decided to replace it in 2007 and put in a system using solar panels and a new boiler. After a great deal of research on the internet, and getting quotes from three different companies I settled on Latent Heat Ltd. Hugh Evans spent much more time than the other companies in explaining what the options were, and having a good look at where the new system was to be installed. It was immediately obvious that he had a very thorough grasp of what was required, and could install a system that met our requirements. His quote for the installation was very competitive also, and this quote allowed us to apply for grant aid for the solar part of the project. The 3 large pallets of materials including all the solar panel and heating elements were delivered to the house, and the following day Hugh and his apprentice Johnny made a start on the installation. They did an excellent job, and were clean and tidy workers, arriving when they said they would, and keeping us informed of progress throughout the project. We did our share in supplying the coffee! They managed to install most of the kit before it was necessary to switch off the old heating, and this was only shut down and removed when the Thermal Store was delivered and could be installed. The result has totally exceeded our expectations - it is a bespoke system including all the elements we required, and we would have no hesitation in recommending Hugh and Latent Heat Ltd when considering your own system.
Andy has been keeping records of the gas use in the house both before and after the solar panel installation. Gas use graph - the gas used was graphed rather than the price, which has fluctuated dramatically during the year 2007/08.
This graph show the gas use in KWh from the date records were first kept. What is noticeable, is that there is a good reduction in the winter from the date the panel was installed from a peak of 90 down to 73 or so – almost certainly the result of having a new more efficient boiler, but the reduction in summer is also very impressive. The four summers
on the graph (the low points on the curve) are interesting in the
respect that the first one in 2006 was a hot summer, therefore you would
expect low gas consumption. The second in 2007 was a wet summer,
and summer 2008, was very poor, but even so, there was a big reduction
in summer gas consumption compared with 2007. Late July & early
August the gas was off for water heating for about 3 weeks – given a hot
summer it would certainly be off more than that. During that time
the panels peaked at 80C during the day.
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Latent Heat Ltd
