The Green Monthly – Edition 1
Welcome to the Green Monthly, your chance to ask all those green related questions safe in the knowledge that you are not being sold a thing!
I am Matt Denyer, one of the Directors of SAP100, a leading UK renewable and green energy consultancy based in Buckinghamshire but operating throughout the UK.
SAP100 have in-house energy assessors, environmental designers and energy consultants all with various expertise within the world of green energy. We do not generally have beards, wear woolly jumpers or hug trees but we do realise that as well as improving our environment saving energy also means saving money.
The green bandwagon is gaining pace, and like the early days of double glazing, the world of green energy can be a confusing and potentially costly for the average householder.
SAP100 have been at the forefront of renewable technology for many years and also have over 20 years of experience within sustainable construction therefore as well as knowing what will and won’t work, we also know what it should all cost.
Every day leaflets drop through my door promising ‘Free power from the sun’, ‘Make money from the sun’ and I wonder how many people take up these offers without having knowing the full facts. Nothing is free even in the world or renewable energy and yet the advertising tactics are becoming more and more dubious by the day.
For some time my team and I have therefore wanted to create an informal place for you to ask any green related question and get a simple, honest answer. It will cost nothing but could save you thousands.
To say we have seen it all would be arrogant but we have seen some of the most incredible errors in green energy possible. Only last month we were contacted by a concerned and well seasoned developer who installed solar water heating to all of the houses he built last year. Recently some of the purchasers had been complaining they did not see any savings in their energy bills over the last year since moving in compared to older homes they had owned before.
I dropped round and met the shrewd developer who, to be fair, builds beautiful houses, bells and whistles included. Yet when it came to renewable energy he clearly had been taken advantage of.
I observed the solar water collectors on the roofs and then the large solar hot water cylinders inside yet as he went on to explain, ‘seems like the boiler does all the hard work with little input from the solar panels’
It was simple to see why.
The solar collectors to most of the houses had been installed on the North facing slope of the roof and all the pipe work within the roof space had not been insulated and where it had they had used the wrong insulation.
Many of the houses where the panels had been installed correctly to a more southerly aspect suffered from over shading from some large nearby Beech trees, thus in some cases making the solar water collectors virtually ineffective.
He admitted it had been much cheaper than he’d anticipated, however I unfortunately had to be the bearer of bad news and suggest that the solar collectors were all re-sited to start with. By the time this had been completed and the pipe work re routed and insulated the developer realised professional advice would have been a good first stop on his renewable journey.
I rarely use the word ‘cowboy’ but the old adage ‘too good to be true’ applies as much to green energy as it does to anything else. There are many ‘experts’ out there but one only needs to find out how long the company has been trading to realise that some of them are only in the business until the sun starts to go down on the game of being able to fool people into buying and paying for shoddy products and installation services.
So what else will our green monthly cover?
Apart from green and renewable energies we also understand green construction techniques, breathable buildings, Passivhaus (a method of constructing a house which will effectively do away with traditional heating), sustainability and many other areas of environmental construction and design.
Of course there will be those who display horror that I wish to offer a green advice column within a printed newspaper which uses trees for its paper, albeit most likely from sustainable sources anyway.
There will be those who shudder that I have mentioned saving money as well and energy. Surely the two cannot and should not go together?
However I do feel that the days of chaining oneself to 4.8 litre petrol Chelsea tractor and shouting that ‘the end of the world is nigh’ achieves very little.
If this column can help clear up some of the misunderstandings about what it means to be green in the 21st century without increasing the sales of over sized, damp Aran sweaters and encouraging extensive facial hair growth then our job is done.
If you have any questions or comments you would like us to answer then please email
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and my team and I will do our best to answer them within the next edition of The Green Monthly.
Written by Matt Denyer, SAP100
Tel -01494 677887