Futurefitting begins! LED lighting

We've not wasted any time in moving ahead with our plans for home improvements. So far we have had people round to give us quotes on solar panels and solid wall insulation on the energy efficiency side of things. And curtain measuring, surveying for removing a wall (and getting a new bathroom), and last will making on the general improvements / life admin side. So plans are afoot.

But I've actually already finished my first bit of futurefitting, I started the very first week we moved in to the house. And that was by installing LED lighting in every room and appliance in the house (with 2 exceptions).

The first thing to do when you want to do this is to take an inventory of all the lightbulbs in the house that you want to change. You basically need to know the rough size and shape (globe bulb, mini-globe, candle, spotlight, etc) and, more importantly, the fitting size that the bulb is. You don't want to spend a lot of money on a bunch of screw fitting bulbs to find out all the fixtures in your house are bayonet type.

I won't go in to all the sizes and types here (E27 and B22 are the most common, but there are lots more). But if you need help, here is the guide I used when I was going through this process.

So here is my original list:
Big bedroom: B22 CFL bulb (11 watt)
Medium bedroom: E27 CFL bulb (11 watt)
Small bedroom: B22 CFL bulb (11 watt)
Stairs, top: B22 CFL bulb (11 watt)
Stairs, bottom: B22 CFL bulb (11 watt)
Living room: 3 x E14 Candle bulbs. 1 incandescent (60 watt), 2 halogen (42 watt each)
Bathroom: A CFL in a really weird shape (not a bulb shape), housed inside a plastic box that I can't get open
Kitchen: B22 CFL bulb (11 watt)
Then lamps & appliances:
Oven extractor hood: 2 x E14 incandescent Candle bulbs (40 watt each)
Fridge: E14 mini globe? halogen (15 watt)
Living room lamp: Missing a bulb
Medium bedroom lamp: E27 incandescent bulb (60 watt)
Big bedroom bedside lamp: B15 incandescent pygmy bulb (15 watt)

So if you add all that up it comes to a total of 380 watts.

So I went over and had a look at the range of LEDs they had available at Ecotopia. Not knowing where to start and not wanting to make any expensive mistakes, I started by buying one bulb for the medium bedroom (an E27 fitting) so we could test it before making any other purchases. Now, as most of the bulbs in the house are CFL, I didn't know what incandescent equivalent to shop for (most LED bulbs will say X watts, equivalent to X watts incandescent). So I took a guess and bought a 60 watt replacement bulb, the £8.99 8.2 watt 806 lumen Integral LED bulb.

After waiting in anticipation for the bulb to arrive, I eagerly changed the bulbs over and flicked the light switch. And Anne instantly said it was too bright...

The problem is that in the old days you bought a bulb based on it's wattage. That was the indication of how bright it was. Now, with energy saving bulbs a 11 watt bulb can give out the same amount of light (or more) than an 100 watt bulb. So buying bulbs based on watts, or even equivalent wattage, doesn't work. So we're all meant to be buying bulbs based on their lumen rating (see this handy video from the US government). But how bright is a lumen? or 500 lumens? I had no idea. And old bulbs do not have this information written on the side of them (new bulbs do), so you can't use them to help guide your purchase.

So next I bought a bulb that was meant to be a 40 watt equivalent, the £6.49 4.6 watt 470 lumen Integral LED bulb. We gave this a try and Anne and I were both happy with it. So from there I had a rough understanding of how many lumens we wanted.

So as not to waste the bulb we stuck the 806 lumen bulb in the living room lamp (which was missing a bulb anyway). Then we also got an 806 lumen bulb for the kitchen (where Anne was happy with a brighter bulb). All the other rooms in the house got 470 lumen bulbs, except the bathroom which I left because I couldn't unscrew the cover, and the living room which I replaced the 3 candle bulbs with 3 250 lumen LED candles. I also used 2 more 250 lumen candles in the oven extractor hood and a 250 lumen LED mini globe for the medium bedroom lamp.

That left only the fridge and the big bedroom's bedside table lamp.

Now, I couldn't work out if you had to have a special kind of LED bulb to put in the fridge to put up with the cold temperatures. I couldn't find a definitive answer either way, but decided to get one just to be on the safe side. There aren't many options out there, I could only find bulbs from Tesco, Screwfix and eBay. In the end I went with the Osram bulb from Screwfix. The main reason for this was because every bulb we'd bought so far had been warm white 2,700 - 3,000 kelvin. And I wanted to see what a cool white (5,500 kelvin) bulb would look like. And boy am I glad I did. Now when we open the fridge it looks like one of those 80's sci-fi films when the alien spaceship opensand the really otherworldly light comes shining out. (I'm easily amused)

That left only the bedside lamp. Now this was impossible to find a bulb for. Firstly it's a mini-bayonet (B15) fitting, which is quite uncommon, and very  few people seem to be selling LED bulbs with this fitting. Secondly it's a very small bulb, smaller than a mini globe. After a lot of searching around I found out it's called a pygmy bulb... But then to make matters worse, our lamp has to light switch states, on full brightness, or half brightness. So I needed a dimmable bulb. Dimmable LED bulbs are harder to find than non-dimmable, but a dimmable B15 pygmy bulb is impossible.

In the end I thought I would chance it and bought a non-dimmable bulb for £7.60 from tp24 I found on ebay. It arrived and I got all excited again that my LED upgrade was finished (other than the stubborn bathroom light). But when I tried it the bulb didn't come on. I tried both brightness settings on the lamp, nothing. So I put the old bulb back in and kind of gave up on this one. The lamp is so old I don't think I'm going to find a suitable bulb.

So taking stock here's how the lighting situation in the house looks now:
Big bedroom: £6.49 LED (4.6 watt)
Medium bedroom: £6.49 LED (4.6 watt)
Small bedroom: £6.49 LED (4.6 watt)
Stairs, top: £6.49 LED (4.6 watt)
Stairs, bottom: £6.49 LED (4.6 watt)
Living room: 3 x £5.99 LED (2.9 watt each)
Bathroom: Still has the same weird CFL with mystery wattage
Kitchen: £9.99 LED (8.2 watt)
Then lamps & appliances:
Oven extractor hood: 2 x £5.99 LED (2.9 watt each)
Fridge: £6.99 LED (1.4 watt)
Living room lamp: £9.99 LED (8.2 watt) - As this was missing a bulb, this is the only fitting where energy consumption has actually increased...
Medium bedroom lamp: £5.99 (3.5 watt)
Big bedroom bedside lamp: Still has it's old 15 watt bulb in it as my £7.60 (3 watt) LED bulb didn't work.

So in total I spent £102.96 to reduce the watts from 380 to 73.8. That's less than a fifth of the old energy usage.

As to how long it will take me to earn back the money spent on bulbs from the savings made on our electricity bills, I have no idea. I could work it our based on the average model of using each bulb 3 hours a day and the unit (kWh) cost of our electricity. But to be honest, I'm not really interested. I know the payback time is probably about a year (two at the most). But these bulbs should last for 15 to 25 years (depending on the bulb), so I know I'll be saving loads over the lifetime of the bulbs.

So as I've given up on finding a dimmable B15 pygmy bulb for the bedside lamp (but if you ever see one, let me know!), all I have to do now is replace the light in the bathroom and I can consider my first futurefitting job complete. We're actually planning to completely redo the bathroom (if we can afford it), so I'll probably just change the light fitting then. As it's a CFL I can live with it for now.

The EPC. Taking stock and the start of a plan

So. Now we've moved in to our new house and (mostly... somewhat) unpacked, the next question is where to get started with our futurefitting.

And true to form, I'm going to use the EPC that we received from the sellers to guide my choices (somewhat). So here's what we've got:

So the house got a mid-range D rating. Note this EPC was carried out in October 2012, and we actually bought the house in February 2015, so it may not be exactly up to date. But it's good enough to get started with.

The important thing is that it says there is scope to vastly improve the house up to a high B rating, just under an A. This is good, as we had looked at other houses that were E rated with potential to only get to C...

Another good thing is that the house is already rated D, which is the minimum rating needed to collect FiTs (feed in tarrifs) on any electricity you generate from solar panels. And as our roof is south east facing, thankfully the house is suitable for solar panels.

So lets take a look at what the suggestions were to bring the house up to a high B:

Also, not included in the table, but listed under "Alternative measures" was "Air or ground source heat pump".

Now in my very second blog post I laid out my plan of action on my then unknown house as being:

1. Solar panels

2. Wind turbine

3. Ground source heat pump

4. Electric oven (with induction hobs)

5. Low-e double glazing

6. Loft insulation

7. Cavity wall insulation

8. Draught proofing

9. LED lighting

Now this original theoretical plan is actually pretty accurate. But some of it doesn't fit this house so the following alterations need to be made:

Change 1: The house has double glazing, so this is no longer needed. Obviously as the windows get older they will need replacing, in which case maybe we could actually get triple glazing. According to the Centre for Sustainable Energy:

"The typical lifetime of double glazing is around 20 years. Over time, the gas within the panes will gradually evaporate at an estimated rate of 0.5-1% per year."

Now, the sellers told us the double glazing was installed in 2012. But they didn't provide any paperwork proving this, as they said they had lost it. Now, assuming we can trust them (I'm not sure we can, but let's give the benefit of the doubt here) this means we don't really need to change the windows until 2032. (I'll be 50 years old) 

Change 2: We can't get cavity wall insulation as the house has solid walls! (my worst nightmare). We estimate it was built in the 1920s, and cavity walls didn't really hit the mainstream until 1930 onwards. So we'll have to get solid wall insulation, which is far more expensive. But there are two bright sides. Firstly, the house is mid terrace, so we only need to insulate the front and the back (I'm already leaning towards external insulation), and secondly, the green tick in the EPC means this is likely to be fully financed under the Green Deal.

Change 3: The house already has loft insulation 200mm thick. This isn't as good as the recommended 270mm, but it's a start and means this might not be an urgent change for us. But we do need more storage space and the loft hasn't got loft flooring laid down yet, so if we do this in the near future (merely so we can store our crap up there), then it would be worth upgrading the insulation at the same time.

Change 4: The house doesn't really need draughtproofing. It's got a draught excluder on the letterbox and round the front door. (And the back door is double glazed). So this can be dropped in favour of floor insulation and heating controls.

Change 5: Maybe a new boiler is needed. Maybe not. The EPC says that it is needed (a condensing boiler), so it probably is. But we recently had both pre-paid gas and electricity meters removed and replaced with normal meters. The man that changed our gas meter took a look at our boiler and said it was "like an Audi, but an old Audi."
I think this was a compliment and he seemed to be saying it was in good nick (It's not actually an Audi, they don't make boilers. It's a Vaillant).

Go Compare says:

"Boilers last up to 15 years. If yours is reaching that age, then think about saving for a new one."

and

"Annual services are essential."

Now, I've looked all over the boiler (without opening it up) and I can't see any information on what model the boiler is, or how old it is. So it could be ancient. But judging by the dust on it, I'm pretty sure it hasn't been serviced in a couple of years. So I think maybe we get it serviced at the very least. What is worrying it that from 2005 it became mandatory for new boilers to be condensing boilers. So if ours is not a condensing boiler (as the EPC seems to suggest) this means our boiler must be at least 10 years old, maybe older! So maybe we do need to look in to replacing it sooner than later.

So taking all of these in to account the new plan of action looks like this:

1. Solar panels

2. Wind turbine

3. Ground source heat pump

4. Electric oven (with induction hobs)

5. Heating controls (room thermostat & TRVs)

6. Loft insulation (upgrade to 270mm)

7. Solid wall insulation

8. Floor insulation

9. LED lighting

10. New boiler (at some point)

It's good to have something to aim for.

Now, the easiest and cheapest of these is the LED lighting. So I've already made quite a lot of headway on this. (the subject of my next post)

But that doesn't mean we can't work on a few of them at once. Tomorrow afternoon we have someone from Better Energy coming over to probably give us the hard sell on solar panels. And when we last visited Ikea I looked in to their solar panel partnership with Hanergy.

More soon!

I'm back!

After a long hiatus I'm back and ready to start futurefitting once again.

The reason for such a long delay was because there were lots of issues with the first step on my retro-fitting plan: First find a house to move in to.

After 3 accepted offers that turned in to long protracted ordeals that all fell through just as we were about to exchange contracts, we finally got lucky on our 4th attempt. If your definition of "got lucky" is another 6 month ordeal, where we failed to exchange contracts on the planned day because one of the sellers was diagnosed with cancer!

Anyway, having moved in a month ago we're finally settled enough (but not unpacked) to get started. So an update on my LED lighting situation is imminent.

Watch this space!