Traditional 1920's 4-bed detached Westbridgford house.

When we bought the house five years ago in early autumn we were thrilled with the lovely big rooms and high ceilings. We were much less thrilled when we moved in and we almost moved out again straight-away as it was REALLY freezing in winter, very draughty and we had to have the heating on round the clock. We would not have bought this house if we had viewed it during the winter months or seen their fuel bills!

Since then it has improved, we have double glazed french doors at the front and back and nearly all windows now have either secondary or double glazing. We have put in very thick loft insulation and installed solar panels which provide hot water and water for the central heating system.

The house is much better now and we are no longer scraping the ice of the windows every morning and we can take three duvets off the children's beds. However, although now a comfortable house it is still very expensive to run in the winter months as the solar panels only work May through October. We are planning to install a multi-fuel stove in the hope it will cut down on our fuel bills in the most severe winter months.

We are saving up for photovoltaics but that may take some time but we do love our electricity meter (OWL) as it's really provided an incentive to turn off our TVs/computers on stand-by and reminds the children to turn off lights and computers left on upstairs.

Vital Statistics

Built in 1929, four bedroom solid brick built detached house with larger south facing rear garden

• About us and why we did it
There are four in our family (2 young children), we try to live in a sustainable way as we are worried about the world’s resources, and how it will be for future generations as oil gets more difficult to find and extract. We also had a large draughty house which was difficult to keep warm and expensive to run in the winter.

• Heating and Power
On the south facing side of the house: Solar heating and hot water panels.
We have gas central heating which is supported by the solar hot water panels in the summer and we are shortly installing a multi-fuel stove which will support our central heating in the winter.
We are replacing our G-rated boiler with an A-rated boiler, and we have an Energy Smart Meter.

• Insulation
We do not have cavity wall insulation as it is a solid brick built construction. We do have either double or secondary glazing on all our windows except the bathroom which is south facing. We do have loft insulation and are currently investigating cladding for our walls and underfloor insulation.

• Other green features


In an attempt to be more sustainable we try to grow a lot of our own fruit and vegetables and have set up a raised bed with 10 cordon apple and pear trees to maximize our yield. Watering is a bit of an issue as the raised beds dry out quickly so we harvest rain water and have one of those bath suction hoses so we can water our beds with bath water on the hot days in summer which the kids love to do.

• Advantages
The upfront costs of installing solar panels are quite high but hopefully it will pay for itself in the next five years. I would not put the boiler on in the day when it was just me at home but am now getting warm water in the taps for free which is an added bonus.

• Disadvantages
Having the solar panels installed for hot water was not messy but having it hooked up to the central heating system is a week’s worth of mess and inconvenience. Do consider this if you have a young family at home. However, the team we used worked well together and were very pleasant and would tidy up after themselves.

• Who did you go to for advice and info?
Would have loved to go on an eco-house tour but asked Solar-UK who they had just worked for and asked if we could visit a house in Bridgford that had just had their solar panels installed.

• Who did each part of the work?

Solar Hot Water
Woodburning Stove (hot water)
Chris at Solar Heat UK enquiries@nottinghamfireplacecentre.co.uk
Paul at enquiries@nottinghamfireplacecentre.co.uk