Jamie, Lizzy and Amber live in a typical two bedroom semi-detached home near Newbury.
Their home
When they bought their home, although it didn’t need much work, it did have a gas hob, gas fire and a gas boiler. They always knew that they wanted to move away from fossil fuels so after installing solar panels on their roof they started to look at electric options.
“To lower our carbon footprint we started to look at the things around the home that we could change. We were generating a lot of electricity from our solar so we thought we should look at products that use electricity instead of gas.”
Low carbon heating options
After removing the gas fire and changing from a gas to induction hob Jamie started to look into different low carbon heating options. He soon realised that a heat pump wasn’t going to work for their property because they have microbore pipes and didn’t want to sacrifice the outside space they have available to house one.
After seeing a Fully Charged video Jamie and Lizzy filled in our online form, had a phone call and a home survey. During the site visit they were able to discuss how the ZEB would work within their home, ask questions and check that it was a suitable heating option.
“We didn’t have to do anything, it (the ZEB) could just plop in. We didn’t have to change any of the radiators and it only took a day in the end to install.”
Locating the ZEB
Jamie and Lizzy had originally decided to put the ZEB in their under stairs cupboard where their old boiler had been. After consideration they opted to put it in their front room where a small radiator had been so that any residual heat would keep them cosy when relaxing in the evenings, gaining them some extra storage space.
“The ZEB works in our house, pretty much the same as our gas boiler. There’s not been any practical differences. And it’s all on our existing controls – we didn’t even have to change the settings!”
What’s next?
They’ve already switched their second car for an electric bike and hope to change to an electric car in the future to help reduce their carbon emissions further.
