Mike Paterson - Livingston

This house which was built in the early 1990's required a new central heating boiler, so the opportunity was taken to use the south facing roof to the rear and install a solar panel at the same time.

Heat generated by the panel is pumped on a separate circuit through a coil contained in a 300 litre thermal store, which is mounted in the cupboard formerly occupied by the old boiler.  Using the thermal store has the advantage of maintaining mains pressure at the hot water taps.

Thermal store (Click to enlarge)

Boiler and solar panel pump

This is what Mike says about the installation -

I got quite a few quotes from heating installers and Hugh (from Latent Heat) was one of the most knowledgeable and helpful in terms of assessing the options and suitability of solar panels for my house.  He was also very competitive on price.  One of the aspects of Latent Heat that appealed to me was Hugh’s willingness to discuss extra features that could be built into the system that would make it more flexible in the future, such as the ability to easily switch to electric heating of the hot water or other heat sources.  Not all of the firms I got quotes from checked the adequacy of the gas supply but Latent Heat did.

One of the most impressive aspects of Latent Heat was how quiet they were when working.  I also found them to be completely trustworthy and were happy to have them in my home.  The firm answer their emails promptly and turn up when they say they will.

On the system itself I am delighted with the outcome.  The beauty of this system is that even on sunny days in the middle of winter the solar panels will still be adding to heat to the thermal store.

The switch to mains pressure hot water was superb – we now have high pressure showers without having to add noisy electric pumps. There’s loads of hot water on tap and the radiators now heat up straight away.  The new boiler is so much more efficient (and safe) than the old one. And even though we had a poor summer in 2007, we managed to switch off the gas for nearly the whole summer.  The fittings & materials used and the standard of workmanship were all very high.