Alastair writes, “I recently demolished my house and rebuilt it on the same floor area as before. By adding a further 1.5m in height, I gained two more bedrooms and two extra bathrooms. More importantly, I installed a ground source heat pump for all the hot water and underfloor heating, solar panels to generate electricity and a Tesla Powerwall 2 battery to store surplus energy. The walls have been insulated to a depth of 40cm and the windows triple glazed. The entire house is run through the internet, which allows us to open and close curtains, switch on and off lights, change room heating temperatures and even speak to any burglar who decides to break in! This garnered an ‘A’ rating for the EPC. I had to build a utility shed in order to house the equipment!
My car is an electric Jaguar I-Pace and I run the house and car on Octopus ‘Go’, which allows me to use electricity at 5p/Kwh between 00.30 and 04.30 to charge the Tesla and the car, as well as any other heavy electricity consuming items. The wood burning fire and oil run heating were removed and the cooker is now an electric Aga, which can be switched on and off when required. The garage was demolished a few months ago and is now a 2-bedroom Airbnb cottage, heated by an air source heat pump and hot water is supplied by the ground source.
The final item to be added is a new swimming pool, which is going in at the moment and will be powered by air source and helped by its polycarbonate covering. I am hoping to top off this entire list by adding wind vanes to help charge the Tesla battery, but I’m waiting for a new technology to be finalised before installing it.”