Two years ago, within the pages of the Your Home property supplement, we wrote about a well-known and rather lovely Victorian house, Holly Lodge, which was for sale in Strathpeffer.
The Grade-B listed, detached house was built more than 120 years ago and is a very distinctive looking building thanks to its square Italian three-storey tower and is often featured in old photographs of the village.
It was built as a guesthouse for Victorians coming to enjoy the health benefits of the spa waters in the village, and over the years was used as a hotel and family home. It’s still a wonderful example of late-Victorian architecture, with numerous original features such as impressive pitch-pine skirtings and door frames, original wood flooring, high-ceilinged rooms with corniced ceilings and exposed stone work.
All of which are rather lovely but, let’s be honest, it can cost an awful lot of money to heat a big old house like this, which is what current owners Fiona and Andrew Denovan discovered after they moved in.
“We love period homes and are aware of the challenges heating them can bring. Holly Lodge had an oil heating system which was quite expensive to run, so we’d only have the heating on for a couple of hours in the morning and a couple of hours in the evening,” said Fiona.
“While it was on, the house was very warm, but when switched off the house cooled quickly. We were spending around £6,000 a year on oil, yet our home wasn’t as warm as we would have liked.”
There’s no gas in Strathpeffer, so the couple set out to find an alternative heating system that would drastically reduce their energy bills but also keep their home warmer for longer. Having undertaken comprehensive research themselves, they turned to established Inverness-based company Korrie Renewables, who, as Andrew puts it, “ticked all their boxes”.
Korrie Renewables are part of the Korrie Group, which was founded in 2010. One of the most prominent companies in the Highlands, it prides itself on delivering the most cost-effective solutions to customers. With a team which boasts more than 20 years of experience in heating and renewable system designs, it has installed more than 400 renewable installations in both housing and commercial properties.
Having visited their home and carried out full inspections, the experts from Korrie proposed installing a Greenflame ECO 40kw Biomass Boiler in the utility room. This would greatly reduce the fuel bills, carbon emissions and provide an income though the government’s Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI).
With 30% fuel cost saving and money from the government, they expect a three-year return on their investment. The domestic RHI scheme runs for seven years, which will give Fiona and Andrew some extra cash for installing a renewable system.
“There are many steps to be taken and a lot of often complicated items to organise, such as home reports, organising grants, possible building changes and so on, but Korrie project-managed everything for us,” said Andrew, who works for Highland Council.
“Because they are a local firm, should you want to discuss anything they are just a phone call away.”
The house now has a Trianco Greenflame Eco boiler – it’s the perfect model for domestic properties. It contains a generous 221kg hopper to store pellets and only needs filled once a week. With its innovative cleaning system, the boiler has very little maintenance, and only needs cleaned out every 10 days or so. A modern design provides a modulation between 20-100% not sure what this means, should it be 20-100%?to enable the boiler to match the heating load of the house. To further improve the efficiencies of the biomass system, a 500litre buffer vessel was installed. This acts as a battery, which stores the heat produced by the boiler, meaning the biomass system does not need to start and stop as often, thus saving pellets.
“We’ve noticed a huge difference in both terms of heat and money,” said Fiona. “We now have the heating on for much longer so there’s a steady warmth in the house and constant hot water, which is what we need as we’re about to start offering bed and breakfast to guests.
“But the big difference is that it’s only costing about £4,500 a year which is a huge saving and the house is twice as warm.”
Korrie Renewables is hosting an Energy Expo day on Thursday, May 14 from 9.30am to 7pm at Korrie Energy Park, 9 Carsegate Road North, Inverness. Everyone is invited to come along to see how renewables can help save money and go green. Exhibitors from the leading suppliers and manufacturers of renewable technologies such as biomass, heat pumps and solar will be on hand to offer advice and information. Additionally, we will have working examples of Warmflow and Trianco biomass boilers. For further details contact 0345 450 4145.