Articles about My House

So far we have reduced carbon emissions from gas and electricity from approximately 3.7 tonnes to around 0.7 tonnes, a reduction of 80% with no loss of quality of life – in fact the house is warmer now!

I am on a mission to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions from my house, ideally to zero.

This page contains links – see below – to all the articles I have written on this project over the last few years. Some more recent articles also include videos.

If you have any questions or would like to comment, e-mail me here.

Summary

  • I began by taking weekly measurements of:
    • gas and electricity consumption.
    • outside temperature.
  • This allowed me to assess how my house ‘performed’ i.e. how much heating I needed to provide to heat the house a certain number of degrees above the outside temperature.
  • In Autumn 2019 I added some triple-glazing.
    • In the winter of 2019/20 I could see 10% improvement in the performance of the house.
  • In Autumn 2020 I finished the triple-glazing and added external wall insulation.
    • In the winter of 2020/21 the house only required half the energy it had in 2019.
  • In November 2020 I added solar panels and in March 2021 I added a domestic battery
    • In summers this is sufficient to allow us to go ‘off grid’ for just over 4 months.
    • In winters we buy electricity at night and use it during the day.
  • In July 2021 I removed the gas boiler and added a heat pump.
  • In November 2022 I added extra solar panels which I hope will enable to us to go ‘off-grid’ for 6 months a year – roughly from the spring to the autumn equinoxes. This should also enable us to export almost as much electricity as we import when considered over a year.

I’ll be updating this intermittently, but this household project is (I hope!) almost complete.

Articles about ‘the House’ on Protons for Breakfast listed chronologically

2022

  • Talk about Heat Pumps (5th October)
    • (almost) Everything you wanted to know about heat pumps. View on YouTube to see the many insightful questions and answers.

2021

2020

2019


%d bloggers like this: