I am so fed up with reading how you can make your home more eco-friendly and use less energy, save money etc.  Yet another article in this mornings paper.  Change your boiler if it is old they say.  Well the oil boiler in my old house is 32 years old now.  Buying a new one will cost well over £1000.  There is no way (the engineer who services it says) that a new one will last like that.  They are just not built to last now because they are not so simple.  Hence prepare to fork out again sooner rather than later.

As for cutting down draughts - our house here is new and well insulated and what do building regs say - ventilate!  So every bathroom and the utility room has great holes in the wall that let in a howling draught.  Every window has trickle vents that even when closed let in the cold. So we turn the heating on because the house feels cold - hence uses more fuel.

We are building a new house next door to where we used to live and I was horrifed to see a hole in the utility room wall.  There is no boiler in there but our builder said -'oh building regs now say that every room with a hot water tap has to have a ventilation fan'. 

Nobody mentions this in the lovely self build mags, or in the smug articles about how we can all save money by insulating your home well. 
The only way to build a home without these holes leaking cold air into the house is to have an expensive heat recovery ventilation system - which uses electricity all the time.  The whole house has to be sealed - no letterboxes even and it doesn't work properly with conventionally built houses.

Sorry to have a rant but if you have read this far then well done and thank you. 

i understand what you are saying about boilers, where we used to live all had new central heating installed and pipework and new boiler etc,
after 7 months the boiler stopped working , engineer came out and said something to do with the electric circuit and needed a new part with a new chip in etc
he said in the last week he had done nearly 14 on this estate and he had reported as a manufacturing fault, but he said he expected to be called out again as he was not sure if
the new part would last,
talking to my neighbour a few days later telling her what had happened  and that night her boiler went also same part needing to be replaced, a year later on our boiler the same part went again and had to be replaced,
my grandma had an old fashioned boiler and it was going strong for 25 plus years of it life  serviced every year and given a clean bill of health,
so i do understand how you feel.
And windows with trickle vents in i hate them, we have them all over the house we are in now, why as we only have gch, in the house no fire any room at all, and they do let the cold in even when closed.
carolann

I've recently had my house cavity filled.  Building regs say that I have to have a permanently open vent in the living room!!  The house is colder now than it was before! What a load of tosh!!  :(

ell the oil boiler in my old house is 32 years old now.  Buying a new one will cost well over £1000.

I know what you mean. Our oil boiler is 38 years old and we enquired about replacing it last year -to cut costs as the oil is currently costing us over £200 a month. Turned out the law was changed a couple of years ago and they can no longer fit a new one into this house without some pipes being changed first AND all the radiators -all very complicated. We had 3 different companies visit to give quotes, all quoted over £6000! No way can we do that! So we keep the old boiler -it works!

I hear you loud and clear Ceejay!

No idea how old our back boiler is, we've been here 22 years and it was about that old then   I'm afraid to even look in it's direction   Last years' service was ok, but we were advised to replace as it's not efficient enough, is not repairable should it break down and we should have a modern one.  To replace we'll have to pull the house apart, change pipes, put boiler in a different place - was advised in the second bedroom where airing cupboard is.  No chance, that's son's bedroom and I'm NOT prepared to have a boiler in his room while we sleep.  So no idea where a new one could go :(

Also the gasses outlet pipe from next door's new boiler actually vents into our backyard - perfectly legal apparently :( :( which means that son can never have his bedroom window open at night as the gases go into his room as well as our kitchen - so much for health and safety! 

The wall vent in our living room is now too big!  x2!  when it was put in a few years ago it replaced one that was too small!  I went to our local building merchants to buy another one and was advised not to bother, the regs change yearly and by next year it'll be the wrong size again  

All this usage of new materials and chucking of old stuff isn't eco-logical in my view, in fact it's not any kind of logical!

Oh I am so glad I am not alone!  Yes Westcoast we had cavity wall insulation in our old house and they drilled a great hole in the wall - my neighbour absolutely refused it and had to sign a form to take the responsibility for it.  Not only does it let the cold air in it lets the creepy crawlies in and the sound.  You could stand outside and listen to every word inside the house!  It was just like having a permanent open window.  I blocked it up!  
 
 

Ditto we have a wooden bungalow with a boiler that was probably built in about 30 odd years ago no way can we change it. (we are rebuiling next year). The new passivhouse regulations do depend on ventilation and quite simply you cannot adapt an existing house to those regulations.
We have recently (we are builders) renovated a 1900's late Victorian house to two X 2 bed flats (only way to get rid of the children!!) and it was stupid what we had to do, result the place is to hot, in the cold weather the condensation was running and mould grew. We had to shut down the ambiant heat to 17 degrees, open all the trickle valves and tell the kids to put on a jumper, any higher heat and the walls ran. With existing cavity walls we could not get enough insulation in.

Its OK for new builds and factory built SIPs but will not work for our more conventional brick and tile designs.

I agree 110% ceejay the govt. is an ass on this one It reads a report makes it planning practice and does not look at our conventional way of building. Now they are changing CORGI regs to something else and you should not at home DIY a plug or put in a window or you could invalidate your house ins.

I think Ive just added my own rant!!!

Thanks Vivienne - good to see that my soap box is getting well used!   We have researched into all the 'eco' alternatives for our new build.  I would love to be free of outside fuels as much as possible.   The heat pump solution was going to be far too expensive because in spite of having a large plot - we still didn't have enough space to run tubes so we would have to drill down.  Solar panels would have covered our roof - and covered our slate.  Woodchip boilers are expensive, still a bit experimental and would need a flue as high as the house as well as a large area for storage.  So we have opted for some wood burning stoves.  They have become so popular this year that there was a shortage of seasoned wood in our area.  You just can't win. 
If the government really wanted people to use all these eco friendly alternatives they should make them cheaper.

Yes we are having a ground source heat pump and piling it, but our architect does not advocate solar panels he says they aren't really complimantary so we are off on the woodburner and heat pump route it also makes a great feature. I love the idea of a green roof in part over the utility kitchen area but we will see. Luckily enough we have access to wood for free so the wood burner is a plus.
We are playing? with the idea of a wooden framed building mainly for the speed of construction, we will be in a v.small 1 bed flat with two dogs for 6 - 8 months, but we'll cope.
The main heating is wet, underfloor heating, and I do want all wooden floors, not laminated but OH has informed me he wants carpeted bedroom - I'll let him get away with that.
Have you built yet? did you get through planning ok?
I agree re the government they set these standards some of which we can reach at an enormous cost and then cut all the grants.
Makes me spit!!

Well, it is not just your home, what eles do you buy that now lasts past the guarantee, that is if you are lucky. Everythink is throw away.
My gas boiler is 30yrs old, it is serviced yearly. I am constantly told to replace it Why!! it works well, my four daughter have new ones, they are lucky if they make 12months with out constant repairs. Different makes. When we had our extention done years ago they said gas central heating must have open vents for safty reasons. They make us all smokless zones, no coal fires, they say we now have to much waste. I think they just look for some one eles to blame, for the enviroment. passing the book for there miss management of the planet.
For there radiation, on land and under the sea, that is also pulution of the planet. A lot do talk out of there ******* they think we are all stupid.

Denese

Whistler - we are building now.  Up to first floor now and rooms taking shape.   We decided that the heat pump didn't make economical sense - the cost of piling would mean that pay-back time would be huge. We are not getting any younger and we do have a budget!    We are having to use oil because we don't have a gas supply.  We will have to buy wood in too because my hubby is not likely to be trekking off into woods collecting wood and chopping it.  We had a coal fire in our old place - nice heat but so messy.  I feel safer with a standby if the power is off.  We are putting in a stove with a cast iron oven and hotplates into the kitchen (the Ironheart).  A wood burner in the lounge and a small one in my work room.   We have thought about underfloor heating downstairs but not sure - I like to decide in the morning whether I want heating on or not.  Underfloor heating is slow.  

That is another consideration - I like my bathroom WARM but once dressed don't need the heating on.  I don't want to be turning on the house heating just to warm up the bathroom twice a day.  Towel rail radiators are rubbish at heating the bathroom.  I said electric underfloor heating whether I use it or not - at least I have an extra. 

I consider myself really lucky to be building for ourselves again.  It is exciting but so much to consider.  As for planning that is a long story - not for these pages.

Yes its about £12,000 to pile we are lucky in that we are builders anyway so can negociate. We went with wet underfloor as we are trying to get a passive house rating, with a lot of glass and heat exchanger system. The woodburner is to go through the centre of the house to delineate between lounge and kitchen diner I want open plan but still have a (?) division. Mind you more care has gone into the dogs utility room/wetroom/WC/crate room and washing machine/drier/shoe and boot and coat area!! than much else.

Um Im using Wisbro underfloor, Ive worked with them before and zoneing areas for heating.I just hate, hate, hate radiators!! apart from a towel rail in each bathroom for warm towells.
My other pet hate is lights, I never seem to get a week without a light bulb gone!

Best of luck with your build, we are just approaching planning and build next year to allow time for an appeal if we get stuck.