Categories
Everything on the site by subject: heat pumps, solar PV, batteries, standards and the paperwork around an installation.
Basics
The vocabulary, the units and the bills. The things everything else on the site assumes you already know.
3 pages
Heat pumps
How they work, how they are sized, and what makes one cheap or expensive to run.
- Do you need a smart meter for a heat pump?
- Keeping a heat pump running well
- What to sort out before a heat pump
- Should I get a heat pump?
- Heat pumps: common questions
- Why a heat pump runs all the time
- Flow temperature, radiators and the Heat Emitter Guide
- Sizing a heat pump: heat loss, design temperatures and why it matters
- Hot water with a heat pump
- COP and SCOP: what a heat pump's efficiency figures mean
- How a heat pump heats a house
- Ground source or air source
- Reading a heat loss calculation
13 pages, 6 calculators
Solar PV
What a roof will generate, how that figure is arrived at, and what happens to the electricity.
- Getting the most from solar panels
- What to sort out before solar
- Should you wait for better panels?
- Plug-in balcony solar is now legal in the UK
- Should I get solar panels?
- Solar panels: common questions
- How the output of a solar PV system is estimated
- Shading, and why it costs more than it looks
- Why two quotations for the same roof give different generation figures
9 pages, 3 calculators
Batteries
What storage does for a house that already generates, and what it does not.
- Self-consumption, export and whether a battery earns its keep
- Batteries: common questions
- Solar, batteries and power cuts
- Is silicon-carbon suited to home batteries?
4 pages, 1 calculator
MCS and standards
What certification covers, what it does not, and what a certificate is evidence of.
- Installers and certification: common questions
- What MCS certification covers, and what it does not
- The MCS Customer Commitment, in plain terms
- What a quotation should contain
4 pages
Paperwork and permissions
Planning, building control, the network operator, and the documents an installation should leave behind.
- The Boiler Upgrade Scheme, and whether you qualify
- Heat pump noise and the 37 decibel rule
- Answering the hard questions honestly
- Comparing quotes that look nothing alike
- Planning and paperwork: common questions
- Questions to ask before you sign
- What a good quote looks like
- What customers now expect to hear
- What the customer wants from you on site
- What to leave behind
- What an MCS installation should leave behind
- Telling the network operator: G98, G99 and why it matters
12 pages