Moved to the country from town

gramar

This time last year my wife and I were living in a 3 bed mid terrace house.

Heating/cooking/hot water provided by gas

Lights/white goods etc powered by electricity

Annual energy bill around £300 - £350

So running costs were low. I took a gamble----

In June last year we moved out to a village having bought an older 3 bed semi with a large flat roof ground floor extension. This house is appreciably colder So we are concentrating on improving insulation and energy efficiency.
Is there a way of insulating the flat roof area without replacing the roof or poking big holes in the ceiling from below?

The front of the house is part timber clad. It needs replacing and insulating. What’s the best type of insulation to use?

The lounge boasts a working fireplace and was much needed on colder days this winter. We are contemplating doing away with it and running a thermostatically controlled 2Kw electric fire, to provide supplementary heating on the basis it will cost no more than coal and we’ll avoid the mess and hassle.
Any opinion on which is best from a cost point of view?

We now have to buy heating oil and like others have been caught by the increase in cost. In Sept 2007 I paid 33p per litre (ordered 1000 litres) and earlier this week ordered a further 1000 litres (the tank took 971) cost is now 52p per litre. Wouldn’t it be great if heating oil prices were regulated too!

I’ve worked out we’ve used 971 litres in 211 days = 4.6 litres per day – Is that economical or not? (10 radiators + hot water). Would anyone care to comment please?

Finally I have read some older threads on alternative energy. Can anyone convince me that there is a better, more cost effective way, than oil to provide my main source of heating/hot water?

We like living out of town and enjoy the quietness and tranquillity of our much larger garden so have no plans to move on – who would given the current state of the housing market.

poppyolivia

my sis pays 58p a litre..just thought I'd share!!LOL They just put in a coal/log fire 2 days ago and they love it....all though they are too hot now (open plan living)they were going to build a few walls to keep the heat in but have decided they might die with the heat!!

Can't really answer your questions but well done with the move..it is great the country eh?..I need to save before I can do that..oh yeah and learn to drive!!

Good luck xx

red_bertie

There's a web site with average energy consumption details, I'll try and find and post a lin.RB

red_bertie

Forgot to say make sure your coal fire stays in good working order, in case of power cuts - more liable to happen in country areas.RB

Doozergirl

red_bertie wrote: »

Forgot to say make sure your coal fire stays in good working order, in case of power cuts - more liable to happen in country areas.RB

Tell me about it!

MrsE_2

Doozergirl wrote: »

Tell me about it!

Tell me about it:rolleyes:

We seem to be the first to loose our electric & the last to get it back on:mad:

Supercali

We live in the country now and bought an old 2 bed cottage and are doing extensive building work.

We pulled the old extension down and so had no boiler for 2 years. Then along came baby Luckily we put in a multi-fuel stove and burnt logs/wood for the first year. If the stove was kept burning all afternoon then it was really warm in the evening. That was until we put the new roof on and now the chimney is covered up and needs extending. This winter we have been using a 3KW convection fan heater and our electric bills have been astronomical at over £100 a month and the house is cold and I daren't move away from the heater :eek:

Today is the first day we have had our new boiler on :cool: (how expensive now? !!!) so a toasty warm house (well, a draught in the living room from a gap in the roof upstairs and coming downstairs!)

I would persevere with the open fire or install a stove and try and locate free or cheap wood to supplement the heating I bought a paper log maker and have loads of cardboard boxes I am going to make bricks out of. And we have a pile of pallets to chop up.

bagpuss_fan

Hi,

Why would you want to get rid of working fires? We paid £90 for 1/4 ton of coal and it'll last us a year, and wood is free (friendly farmer- fallen branches, driftwood from the beach etc)! We have a very big house but during the day only use downstairs. We are on gas but light the two fires during the day and only put the heating on at night, it's really cosy and the dogs love the fires!

Have you looked into calor gas for your heating instead of oil? we looked into this a couple of years ago (when we had a plot in the country and were going to build), If you sign a contract with the supplier, they will provide the tank free of charge, and I understand you'd need to change the burner and the jets on your boiler. No idea of cost, sorry, but worth looking into?

vansboy

Doing just the same thing here - xcept we're not moved in yet!!

We're timber clad & replaced the glass fibre insulation with Exratherm sheets. This is similar to products called Kingspan.

To get an idea whats involved www.theupsidedownhouse.9f.com has some pics.

There is a 'join the neighbors' bulk oil buyig website, which I can't find, but this will get the per litre price down a penny or two, if you can order at a similar time.

Investigated the LPG heating option - do a forum search for some the comments - found it'd be cheaper to install than oil, but much dearer to run. Shell were talking of £1000/bedroom/year to guage costs!! Plus you needed an unsightly tank in the front garden!!

We have kept the open fire, had it swept & got a new grate & plenty of wood. But after having a wood burner & an openfire at our last house, don't want to use it too often, as we're fully open plan & I'd not be able to re-paint any sooty/smoke marked areas, without having to do the lot!

Not keen on the logmaker idea - think it'd be more work than is worth the effort. You'll soon find plenty of scrap wood, once you ask around. We only ever paid for wood once in 15 years at the last place!! & it's even more easy to get now!

VB