Obviously the energy efficiency of the house has been an on-going thing. When we bought it the house had an EPC of F, which is very poor (see estate agent’s marketing materials below). Once we had made some plans and decided how we were going to build and heat the house we hired local energy consultant Robyn Berry (click name to visit website). Robyn did a great job putting the SAP (Standard Assessment Procedure) together and predicted we would have a score of 90 for energy efficiency and 92 for environmental impact (see below). Not bad for a Victorian terrace built in the 1890s.
Since it has taken so long (two years) to get the stove working properly the energy usage data has been a bit all over the place. We expect that by the end of spring 2020 we will be able to publish some accurate data that combines the solar PV and the stove water and space heating over a winter. Its going to be fascinating to delve into the data (seriously!) and we are just switching our electricity provider/exporter to Octopus as they now have an agile tariff (real time pricing) for both power into the house and out to the grid. With our Tesla Powerwall 2 battery (13kWh capacity) it will be interesting to see if we can automate the system to maximise efficiency and cost in a way that would have been unthinkable a year or two ago. Octopus are the first energy supplier to roll out a domestic smart grid product. Trust us, this was all part of the plan!
Update: We made it! The house is definitely a zero carbon house. The operational data tells us that it is a ‘B’ EPC if you include cooking (all electric). SAP and EPC data doesn’t include cooking, for some reason we haven’t worked out yet! The numbers were crunched in spring 2020. You can learn more by going to this page of the blog. You can also download all of our house data for your own private or commercial learning purpose. It will give you a really good idea of what to do, what is possible without going the expensive passive route and how to get going!
Predicted EPC based upon SAP
Previous EPC
