Building own house

[TooNice]

Regardless of how much you actually save, there are plenty of people who would put down an extra £5000+ on your house if it has solar panels.

And of course they're not sufficient for all your toys, i never suggested they would be. They're not even good enough to heat all your hot water - though combined with a heat pump they'll do a pretty good job.

However, it's still not a bad option to put a few on your house, it takes a little load off the grid and puts you on the way to making a carbon-neutral home. If money is tight, don't bother - unless you can get a good grant (another key point, RICS assume £20,000 max - that's a lot more than if you get a subsidy/grant). Insulation is a far better way of saving money and should definitely be done on all new builds. I still reckon it's worth it simply for the resale hype.

@Whiternoise: I am quite sure that 100 years is over-estimating it too, I am not going to argue that point, but even if you halve it, or take a quarter of it - that's still more or less the lifespan of those panels, and likely beyond the warranty you would get if anything goes wrong.

You didn't suggest they would be sufficient for all the toys, but I was trying to figure out why you think it would add to convenience. If it's not going to make you mostly self-sufficient, then surely it can only be yet another potential thing to go wrong? Unless I am missing something obvious here.

I won't argue with the +£5000 points. I've not looked up, so I'll take your word on it. Still, if you are going to take the trouble of building a house, I'd expect it to be for keep. Anyway, I -do- like the idea of using renewable energy, but as you've said efficiency is not particularly great right now. If I was to go down this route, I would be worried that a couple years down the line, we would see significant advances in both efficiency and cost/efficiency that I may regret not holding back a few years.

[TheAnimus]

Plus i'm determined to chose a location with a Be/O2 broadband at the exchange (as sad as it may seem) and i've got to do it without my wife knowing

Yes, if your wife found out your where building a house with your gf, the ramifications could be quite anoying!

[Mousemat]

If your plot has the space/you can get permission for it, how about one of those consumer sized wind turbines?

Also, the Dilbert website did a eco-house design project a few years ago. There were some silly ideas, but there were a few that actually sounded pretty good:

http://www.hwd3d.com/news/dilbert.html

[Mike Fishcake]

Research that says that renewable energy is better?

I quoted the wrong post...

I meant to quote the one that said they were unsure about the effectiveness of solar panels... something about research finding that solar panels were the source of all evil and wind farms were created as a method to aid terrorism. Or something like that

[TooNice]

^ First, getting the wrong quote, then grossly misquoting the one you intended? Bravo. I've said it from the start that I was open to a credible readings suggesting the opposite. Format said that solar panels would pay for itself over a few years. From what I've read, a few year is definitely optimistic at very best. It is also the only point I was disputing, not the environmental aspect, let alone the source of evil nor terrorism. If you disagree, and think that I would not check the source of my readings before stashing the information in my long term memory, feel free to show me some more credible sources that back his views.

[j.o.s.h.1408]

So your building a house in the sims 3? be sure to upload it into the sims 3 exchange

[Mike Fishcake]

^ First, getting the wrong quote, then grossly misquoting the one you intended? Bravo. I've said it from the start that I was open to a credible readings suggesting the opposite. Format said that solar panels would pay for itself over a few years. From what I've read, a few year is definitely optimistic at very best. It is also the only point I was disputing, not the environmental aspect, let alone the source of evil nor terrorism. If you disagree, and think that I would not check the source of my readings before stashing the information in my long term memory, feel free to show me some more credible sources that back his views.

Oh relax - i was just having a gentle joke... besides, I said that you were unsure about it!

[Whiternoise]

They are only cheaper if you have a decent source of wood...
We have a supply of wood and coal still works out cheaper...

Everyone is fitting wood burning stoves and then realising that the wood isn't readily available for a decent price...

He mentioned it's likely to be a house in the country - what you need to balance is cost of wood vs the amount of heating you don't need. My dad has one of the top end ones in terms of efficiency and he lives in Oxford and somehow finds plenty of fuel.

Remember that it's efficient, so you'll use less wood to get the same amount of heat into your house!

You can use coal, but doesn't that sort of spoil the point of it?

[handscombmp]

My only problem with a wood burning stove is (excuse me if i'm wrong here but i haven't really looked into it to much yet) from how i see it you need to keep adding wood to it to keep the heat on.

So in the morning before the heating can go on i need to add wood to the stove.