Seven weeks to go
Posted: Sunday 28 March, 2010
until we get entry to our new smallholding. We went for a visit on Wednesday, with the architect, Doug, the builder, Graham and Louise, from the Energy Saving Trust.
The garden is so lovely and has been so loved. We'll give most of it twelve months until we see what's there. The lady we've bought it from will give me a plan of the trees in particular, since some of them are quite rare specimens. She and her late husband were obviously keen and knowledgeable gardeners - I felt a little intimidated!
Louise, from the EST, will give us her report next week. There are three options and it looks like a ground source heat pump will be a viable one. We will need to insulate well, but we intended to do that anyway. We're also looking seriously at PV cells on the open barn. Although capital grants for the installation have gone, the new feed-in tariffs make it very attractive. If we go with it, we will be Louise's first 4kW installation - she was very excited about that!
Once we decide what type of heating to install, we need a SAP rating, which measures energy efficiency. Then we can get the heating system specified and the cost estimated. Then we'll lie in a dark room for a day or two.
If we go for a ground source heat pump, the coil will be in the closest paddock. We were going to put the vegetable garden there anyway, so it won't matter that it gets ripped apart, since we'd have been doing that to put in the raised beds.
We're hoping to launch the "new" TAS around the time we move, so there will be a new diary charting our progress in Angus.
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