Saturday 6 June 2009

Egni/Carbon/ac ati...

Here's a question for all you number crunchers out there:

Say you're designing the heating/hot water/cooking system for a small 1 bedroom house, not a new build. Which of the following is the most efficient/has smallest carbon emissions?

1. Heat (and hot water in winter) provided by wood burner with back boiler connected to hot water cylinder & radiators. Hot water in summer provided by solar thermal panels, backed up by an electric immersion heater powered by either PV panels or wind turbine backed up by connection to green electricity supplier. Cooking to be done on electric cooker.

2. Heat provided by wood burner in lounge & wood burning Rayburn in kitchen/diner. Hot water provided by back boiler on Rayburn. Cooking to be done on Rayburn. Either PV panels or wind turbine to provide for electricity needs (lighting, etc.)

3. Is there something else out there that I haven't thought of yet?

All answers greatly welcomed...

4 comments:

Rachel said...

It's my understanding that wood burning is REALLY bad environmentally speaking. Am I nuts?

We had a solar guy come give us an estimate... if you're going to be there for a while, I hear that's pretty good.

Don't really know anything about it, though.

Margaret said...

You could try asking at Sundance Renewables, it's their sort of field, or at the Eco Centre in Newport Pembs. One or the other could certainly point you in the right direction.

Jessica at Bwlchyrhyd said...

Sorry it's taken me so long to reply...

Rach -- re wood burning being bad for the environment, have a look at http://www.woodheat.org/environment/guide.htm

Margaret -- thanks for the reminder -- will pop into Sundance next time I go down there to get some biodiesel...

justin in llanrhystud said...

option 1 would be lowest carbon choice in my humble opinion. no need to mess and fuel and waste time/money with rayburn..