Self Build Scotland – Heating Your Dream Home
Why self build?
People tend to self-build in Scotland because they want a better home than they would otherwise have been able to afford, or purely because they want to live in the kind of well-designed, high-performance house that’s unavailable on the regular market. You can find a plot and buy it at a good price and it is easier to find good architects and builders. You cut out the premiums you would pay to a developer and end up with a bespoke house which can be very sustainable and essentially future proof.
Self-building a greener future for Scotland
As self builder, you're perfectly placed to introduce future proofed energy-saving features. The green agenda has moved centre stage in the past couple of years as people worry not only about the effects of climate change but also of energy costs and, increasingly, energy security. And sustainability affects all key factors of the home building scene:
- Size: it’s better to spend more money on quality than on floor area. Investing in really efficient heating will significantly increase the comfort of living. Also think ahead, come selling time huge houses are increasingly likely to be seen as a liability.
- Design: you can minimise both your costs and your environmental footprint just by keeping the design simple. Also incorporate a clever heating system (i.e. one based around thermal store) and good quality plumbing in your design.
- Location: there is no point building an energy-efficient house if it involves you having to travel thousands of additional miles each year in order to pay for it.
- Orientation: some sites are much better suited to sustainable development than others. Generally, it’s a good idea to look for a site with a southerly aspect where you can take advantage of sunlight.
- Access: some sites have very poor access, which can limit the choice of construction methods. If the access is really difficult think twice of the choice of fuel for the heating system - in some cases lorry delivering oil or even LPG simply won’t get through.
First reduce your heating needs, then switch to alternative heating.
Insulation and draught proofing should be the first thing you consider so that you reduce the amount of heat you need - then you can look to alternative forms of 'off-grid' heating. There's very little point in investing money in renewable energy technologies without covering the basics and changing old habits.
Home insulation
In the case of central heating insulation is the first and most effective change that you can make. By insulating your house very well you will reduce the amount of heating needed: you will be able to turn your heating on later and turn it off earlier in the year, and when it is on you will be wasting less and so you will not need to use as much.
This makes monetary sense as well as you will not need to buy as much firewood (or use as much effort collecting it if you gather your own). The best places to start are with loft and wall insulation which will require some outlay but are very cost effective and then draught proofing your windows and doors which is very cheap indeed and can have good results.
Turn the heating down
There is the classic advice of "turning your heating down a bit" which is so often given - because it makes such good sense and is very easy.
Conserving hot water
Improved insulation (lagging) for your hot water tank and hot water pipes Insulating pipes and water tanks is known as lagging. To conserve hot water lag the hot water pipes running through your house. If you have a hot water tank make sure it is well lagged - you might consider adding extra lagging around the tank if possible.
Baths vs. showers
In the case of hot water use you can of course have less baths - a bath will use a lot of hot water compared to a shower. I imagine you know that already.
Reach for the cold tap first
If you are performing a quick task at a sink like washing your hands, or rinsing something then use the cold tap instead of the hot. If you use the hot tap then the water will probably only start getting hot by the time you come to turn off the tap, but of course the hot water is now sitting it the pipework wasting heat and if you have a hot water tank then the tank will have had a fresh influx of cold water as a result which will cool down the water. So try to get into the habit of reaching for the cold tap first.
Washing up
If you are washing up then using a bowl can sometimes mean that you can use less water, do not run the hot tap continuously. The best rated dishwashers will generally use much less water than hand washing (15lts or less), but if you do get one try to make sure that the one you buy has a hot water feed so that the water does not have to be heated with electricity.
Plumbing and heating of your self-build property
It is probably the most important decision you will make when self-building or renovating, and certainly the most complicated.
Self-builders tend to spend more time thinking about their heating and plumbing systems than any other aspect of their builds. Such are the complexities involved that it’s possible to become overwhelmed by the choices.
Why not contact us here at Future Proof Energy for a no obligation consultation?
We'll help to make sense of what is out there and whether it will suit your needs. Minimising running costs, keeping warm and having lots of hot water are essentially what we are talking about here.
Space Heating
Demand for space heating depends to a large extent on how well your self-build house is built. The heat demand can vary from ‘enormous’ in the case of draughty old country houses, unimproved for decades, down to ‘almost zero’ in the case of state-of-the-art Passive Houses, with massively insulated walls and roofs, triple glazing and mechanical ventilation systems. Indeed, the very purpose of building houses like this is to reduce the space-heating demand to near zero.
Regardless of how well the house is built, a heat loss calculation is applied to the design and from this you can calculate how much heat is required to keep the house warm at any given external temperature. Space-heating demand also depends on how you ‘drive’ the house. If you occupy the house all day every day, your heat demand is better met by a slow, steady trickle type of heat source. If you are out most days, then you’d be better suited to a quick response type system.
At Future Proof Energy he have a portfolio of various renewable heat sources and systems like ground and air source heat pumps, solar thermal collectors, mechanical ventilation with heat recovery, wood-burning stoves with back boiler and underfloor heating solutions.
Linked systems – space heating and domestic hot water
Modern heating and hot water systems combine multiple heat sources. This allows you to take advantage of seasonal variations: for example in the summer solar collectors can provide the majority of your hot water, whilst in the winter a boiler stove (or heat pump or any other heat source including gas / oil boiler) provides the hot water and heating. There are obviously some limits to the possible configurations but here at Future Proof Energy we'll advise you on the combined system that will work for your self-build house and your specific requirements.
Domestic Hot Water
Whilst space-heating demand has been shrinking over the years, as houses have become better insulated, demand for hot water has increased as we have grown used to power showers, more baths and appliances. In fact, in a typical new self-build home, the energy demand for domestic hot water already exceeds that for space heating and, as insulation levels get more exacting, this trend is set to increase further still. The demand for hot water tends to be fast and furious; quite the opposite to space heating. Therefore, boilers and other heating appliances tend to be sized by hot-water demand rather than space-heating demand.
At Future Proof Energy we have a range of renewable energy products that will provide plenty of balanced pressure on hot and cold water and excellent water flow. Linking solid fuel and renewable technologies via unvented buffer / accumulator gives great results with reduced running costs. Contact us to find out more about heat pumps, solar collectors, stoves with back boilers as well as high efficiency gas / oil boilers. 
