The Sunday Times February 6, 2022 11in, they might look at one
element, but this report looks
at the whole house, which was
really important to me,” says
Will, 48, a management
consultant. “How do you seal
the house and what do you do
about your energy source?
We’re on a gas boiler, like so
many people. Do we go for a
heat pump?”
Their retrofit plan includes
improving insulation in the
roof space, where their
children, Rufus, 14, Freddy, 11,
and Annabel, 7, have their
bedrooms, and humidity-
controlled extractors in the
kitchen and bathrooms. The
most expensive measure in
the recommended £21,500
works is an air-source heat
pump, hot-water cylinder
and compatible radiators
(£12,000).
The family is eco-conscious,
with Milla a forest-school
leader and Will running a
business that imports goods
emission-free on sailing ships
(shippedbysail.org). The
survey meant they could get
“a lot of information quickly in
one place”, including a list of
local approved suppliers, Will
says. “It moves you forward
from sitting in the kitchen,
thinking, ‘Oh, I ought to do
something’, to making an
informed decision.”air outside and blows it into
their living room. From there,
the heat rises naturally up the
stairs.
Unlike the more common
air-to-water heat pumps,
which transfers heat from the
air outside to water-based
central heating, the Searles’
system did not require them to
fit a hot-water cylinder and
new radiators. Air-to-air
pumps only work in smaller
homes such as theirs. “It was
far cheaper and less disruptive
to install,” Keith says. “It’s the
very simplest set-up you can
get... The heat pump is the
best thing I’ve ever done.”
Their energy use has fallen
80 per cent over the past 15
years, from 209kWh to 43kWh
per square metre. Including
charging costs for their new
electric car, which make up a
third of their bill, the couple
pay £93 a month.THE POSTWAR
DETACHED HOUSE
When Will and Milla Adeney
asked a SuperHomes assessor
to visit their six-bedroom
house in Winchester last
autumn, they were surprised
to learn that they could cut
their carbon emissions by
three quarters, from 8.25
tonnes to 2 tonnes a year.
“If I was to get a technicianTHE MODERN TERRACE
Keith and Kathryn Searle
started retrofitting their
three-bedroom 1970s terraced
house in Steeple Claydon,
Buckinghamshire, weeks after
they moved in 42 years ago.
“Nobody was thinking about
energy efficiency back then,”
says Keith, 82, a retired
grounds maintenance
supervisor. He topped up the
10cm loft insulation — now the
recommended 30cm deep —
and had cavity walls filled
“long before the government
woke up to the idea”. They
then fitted internal wall
insulation when they updated
the bathroom.
In 2010 the couple added a
2.2kW system of 12 solar PV
panels, “as big as the roof
could take”. The £9,200
panels have paid for
themselves, earning them 56p
per kWh of electricity they
generate from the sun (about
£1,000 a year) under the feed-
in tariff they signed up to.
“Now it’s all profit,” Keith says.
To replace their back boiler,
which sat behind the gas fire
and lost energy up the
chimney as it provided heating
and hot water, Keith opted for
a heat pump in 2011. Similar to
air conditioning, the £1,250
Mitsubishi air-to-air heat
pump amplifies heat from theabout £35,000 on energy
efficiency measures, cutting
their energy use by 82 per cent
to 7kWh a day.
Stewart, 58, a management
consultant, did much of the
work himself, from fitting
Magneglaze magnetic
secondary glazing on all the
period windows to hanging
1cm-thick Sempatap internal
insulation “like magic
wallpaper” on the solid walls.
To insulate the floor, Stewart
cut a hatch, crawled down and
stuffed Thermafleece sheep
wool behind chicken wire he
staple-gunned underneath the
original boards.
“Bang, bang, bang, and it’s
in place.” He had to buy the
wool in bulk: “It was all
stacked in the living room.Once you do that, your wife
makes sure you do the work.”
He also added an internal
porch, extra loft insulation
and draught-proofing.
In 2009 they had two solar
thermal panels fitted, for the
sun to heat most of their hot
water. A 2kW system of eight
solar photovoltaic (PV) panels
followed in 2014, under a
generous government feed-in
tariff (since scrapped for new
installations) that makes their
electricity effectively free.
In winter the gas boiler
powers the central heating
for only 30 minutes a day,
so their energy bill has shrunk
to £150 a year. “We spend so
little... I’m not worried about
[energy price rises],”
Stewart says.Keith Searle’s house, above,
and, right, heat escaping
from his neighbour’s garageVICKI COUCHMAN FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES; KEITH SEARLE