Five good reasons to retrofit my home and not buy a speedboat
So you’re thinking about retrofitting your home, but aren’t sure? Retrofitting your home is an investment, it takes time, energy and money. But does the benefit of doing it outweigh buying something more indulgent – a speedboat perhaps? Afterall, the cost of retrofitting my home is roughly the same, so why not? Here are 5 good reasons to retrofit my home and not buy a speedboat.
1.The cost of fuel
Our house has Calor gas central heating and a multi fuel burner in the living room. My wife and I both work from home in two separate offices, and neither of the offices has any heating at all. We’re OK in the summer because it’s nice and warm and we don’t need any heating, but the thought of buying another bottle of gas next month at £100 a shot is making me ill. It hasn’t been that long since it was £28 for a bottle. It’ll last a few weeks if we have the heating on for an hour in the morning, and an hour in the evening, and have a couple of showers and a bath. The other times, we’ll just have to be cold.
Coal and logs are the same. Burning lumps of carbon at £100 for about four bags which will last about four weeks so our living room can be warm for a few hours in the evenings is no good.
We could move to Spain and be warm, but we quite like Caernarfon!
2.Where’s my money going?
When I buy a bottle of gas from Calor to heat my home, where is my money going? Where does Calor get their gas from? Some quick research shows that “Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG) is either produced at one of the UK’s 6 oil refineries or is imported to one of its 5 import points. Large quantities of LPG are transported directly to distribution depots across the country.” That means my money is going to oil refineries, and big corporate oil conglomerates that may or may not pay adequate taxes in the UK. Money well spent?
3.Self-sufficiency?
Don’t you think it would be nice to use nature to create all the energy we need to live our day-to-day life, and not having to buy gas and coal and petrol ever again? I could put some solar panels on my roof and install a battery. The sun could charge the battery during the day, and in the evenings, we could have the heating on (powered by a heat pump), have a hot bath, watch the TV and live normally – all from the battery. We could even have an electric car and charge that too. Our house could be a mini power plant and we could get rid of those Calor gas bottles and be self-sufficient. No more bills!
4.Environment
Did anyone watch “Colli Cymru i’r Môr” recently on S4C? That was a fascinating programme and highly recommended (with subtitles if you don’t understand Welsh). It said everything you need to know about the environment and where we are with carbon. In a nutshell, we are meant to be entering a new ice age, and our planet should be getting colder, but the opposite is happening. The planet is getting warmer because the ozone layer protecting our environment is getting thinner and allowing more hot rays from the sun to penetrate through. This then causes the polar caps to melt and fires, drought etc in the hotter countries. This is all caused by us and our burning of fossil fuels. The amount of carbon in the air has nearly doubled in about 200 years, and things will only get worse unless we stop.
I often wonder what people 500 years from now will think of us burning our own planet when free energy is all around us.
5.Do I really want a speed boat?
Well, honestly, yes. I still want a speedboat. But if I look more into which speedboat I should buy, reality starts to kick in. After all an 8 litre petrol engine could do about 2 miles to the gallon, not the most fuel efficient. Maybe I could just have it in the garden to sit in.
Yes, I’m being a bit silly. Given the choice, I’d rather be warm and comfortable in winter while using my own electricity produced by my own solar and not support the big corporate fossil fuel companies who make millions from ordinary people needing to heat their homes and families.
But where do I start? Should I just buy a solar panel kit, heat pumps, start insulating?
Without the proper advice, the money I spend might be as much of a waste as that boat idea.
This is why Cartrefi Clyd is the first step in retrofitting. They are experts in this field, they can assess my home and give me a bespoke report, tailored to how I want to live in it. They can provide a clear pathway to mitigate any risks, and make sure that I’m spending my money wisely.
If, like me, you’re considering retrofitting your home, you can start the ball rolling by booking an assessment through Cartrefi Clyd.