Derek Panton - Edinburgh.

Derek Panton of Macdowall Road in Edinburgh.

After moving into what turned out to be cold damp house in December 2005, Derek needed to immediately improve its comfort and energy efficiency.

 Having stopped the house leaking so much heat with double glazing, insulation, draught-proofing, etc., the logical next step was to look at the existing combi boiler heating and hot water system which was becoming increasingly prone to breakdown.

The new system integrated a high efficiency condensing boiler with solar collectors for hot water; hot water at the boiler being controlled by temperature of solar heated water on a given day, and heating controlled by separate lower and upper floor thermostats.

Here is what Derek has to say about the installation -

Having done a bit of internet research on solar hot water options and funding, I phoned around a number of accredited solar installers.  Hugh easily spent the most time trying to find out what we really wanted.  Not just selling us solar hot water panels, but integrating them into an overall heating and hot water system that we wanted to be as energy efficient as possible.  Guidance given on grant application for the solar part of the system was very useful, and I was able to fairly easily gain planning permission, without costly professional help, based on the information Hugh provided me with.

The system was installed in April 2008.  This was done in a way that minimised disruption in the house and, in contrast to others, they cleaned up after themselves every day, understanding that people actually needed to live here too whilst the work was done!  All parts of the system were installed keeping pipes out of sight, where possible, and with the minimum space taken in the available cupboard for tanks, boiler, etc.

The installed system has now been running for almost a year, although an accurate annual cost saving has been difficult to quantify for a number of reasons, including significant ongoing building alterations for 6 months and replacement of an electric shower with one running off the new hot water system.  However, an annual saving of over £ 350 over our previous hot water and showering set up has been estimated, but we’ll know better in a few months.  For me, though, just looking at the gauges recently on a sunny February afternoon and seeing the solar collector temperature at over 70 degrees, I know its working!