Heating a old stone house

After years of investment in our business it’s beginning to pay off and we are now in a position to renovate our house. Apart from the new kitchen, bathroom, flooring, insulation and paintwork the time has come to look at making the house as warm as possible during Winter. For years we’ve had woodburners, and although lovely, rustic and providing good heat (when on) are a pain in the bahookie to keep going, it’s a bit like the Forth Road Bridge, with 3 going it’s a never-ending round of stoking, fetching (in all weathers) and cutting wood. Given all this it’s never enough, you can’t really have one in the bedroom so it’s the good old electric heater and until you have the fires reset in the morning it’s paraffin heaters!!!!! So what to do?

Given my interest in all things environmental my first port of call was the reduced consumption technologies. Here is what I found:

Geothermic: Unless you have a large piece of land to dig up and lay the necessary pipe work in, you have to bore a hole in the ground, lay the pipe in a river or stream or use an air source heat pump. All of these system cost less to run but the initial setup costs are huge, coupled with the need to use under floor heating because the water temperature of most of these systems aren’t high enough to run the traditional radiators most of us use. Under floor heating also means digging up your floors, installing the heating elements (more expense) and waiting for months for the concrete to cure before your can use it (an operation not viable upstairs in our house where wood floors rule), or even live in it comfortably with stuff like furniture and carpets!

Reversible air-conditioning: Really good and efficient, initial start up costs are comparable with traditional systems and I like it. But if your partner has any idea of aesthetics you can’t have them! For each unit (or 2) you need a great big noisy unit (they say not noisy but our nearby neighbour’s bedroom sits next to one and can’t sleep when it’s on) perched on the side of your house, “we” decided not to live in a farmhouse that looked like it had been crossed with an office block.

Despite the “credit impots” available, which you have to pay up front and claim back, (who has that sort of money?) the environmental others are too expensive to consider (photovoltaic cells, windmills etc to run electric heating systems) so what have we decided? Wood - yes back to wood, a huge back boiler system big enough to run all the radiators needed, efficient enough to stay in all night and cheap enough for a poor man living in France.

This year to augment the system I will add to the 300 trees I have already planted with 500 or so quick growing poplars which in 4-5 years will be big enough to coppice and produce around 7 cubic metres of wood per year for around 25 years.

Governments should be more proactive in the renewable energy sector, it is the masses which use energy and the masses who would benefit from using renewable energy and it’s savings, both in money savings and in CO2 reduction, but only the well heeled who can afford it.

Looking recently for a nice piece of furniture to put my feet on I came across the Miss Rio Ottoman, comfortable seating made in Brazil from recycled flip flops, great I thought until I found out the price 350$ (not delivered) – I’m sticking to my Border Collie!