Working closely with architects, Evans Vettori, Claire and Andrew Alderson have used locally sourced materials and local labour wherever possible and have been amply repaid in personal service and easy contactibility.
For heating, Claire originally intended to go geothermal until Matthew Trewhela of Independent Energy pointed out the pitfalls that could attend boreholes in an extremely steep hillside where there are houses below you. He pointed out first that the boreholes would almost certainly have to be very deep and secondly that the likelihood of hitting water and sludge could mean some very unpleasant flooding for the neighbours below them. As a result the Aldersons reverted to their original choice of an air-sourced heat pump, an option they had discarded as they feared that the noise level would be high. Independent Energy got over this problem by suggesting the installation, at the side of the house away from the patio area, of a NIBE F2025, a heat pump that is powerful yet extremely quiet in operation. This has proved ideal for supplying all the energy needed for the under-floor heating that has been installed throughout the house.
The money saved by discarding the idea of deep boreholes was spent on photovoltaic solar panels to supply energy for water heating. Since the NIBE air-sourced heat pump is designed to work happily in tandem with solar powered systems, the combination of the two has proved ideal and indeed Claire Alderson is hoping to make a few hundred pounds a year by selling their unneeded electricity back to the National Grid. So when bad weather prevents them sitting outside admiring the view, the Aldersons can instead admire it, in the warm, through the large picture windows a the front of the house, secure in the knowledge that their heating is sourced by nature even in the winter's cold.
For more information regarding this project please click here