Self sufficiency?

[DimPrawn]

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/TRANSPARENT-TW...3A2%7C294%3A25

One of these for my desk I think.

[Sysman]

Chop the trees down and burn them?

Then you can have the wind power

If they are a distance away, you get to warm yourself up 3 times:

1. warm yourself chopping them up
2. warm yourself carting them home
3. warm yourself burning them

[Sysman]

Agreed with the water thing...that's what I thought. But then I found out about this bore hole thing and it's actually quite straightforward. It's wise to get the water monitored for purity at regular intervals, but essentially the water into the property comes from your own water supply instead of the water company's. And maybe it's just me but the possibility of sticking two fingers up at utility companies has a lot of appeal!

Just one snag that I ran into with one house. It can be more difficult to get a mortgage for a house with a private water supply. It might not concern you at the moment, but what if you decide to sell?

[XLMonkey]

I installed a ground source heat pump a couple of years back. You'll never get to zero energy usage, as you do have to use electricity to drive the heat pump and exchanger. Your electricity bill will be higher than it would otherwise be.

But, the payback is much shorter than some other posters have indicated. Payback for me (on the last bill) is just over 6 years. That's still a while (and longer than lots of people keep living in the same house); but the big advantage is that the heatpump is more or less maintenance free and will last for at least 30 years (compared with 15-20 years for a conventional boiler).

I looked into solar technology at the same time - you will struggle to generate enough power to supply your home continuously. You can sell excess energy back to the national grid, but the capital cost of setting it all up was prohibitively expensive at the time.

The only really smart solar solution that I saw involved linking the solar panels to an air conditioning/air exchange system - this is a great idea, as it means that you use the power of the sun to keep you cool when its hot.

The most efficient way of capturing solar power is the old fashioned one: grow trees, then burn the wood.

Best of luck

[Board Game Geek]

Ookook

I love the Ernest Errol Quinch avatar !

Top Class !