Tuesday 5th December 2023
This blog has mostly been a catalogue of the walks we’ve done but I also want to keep a log of the house, the work that’s done to it and how we’re finding swapping Sussex for Sutherland.
When you tell people in Sussex you want to move to the Scottish Highlands, you usually get one of two responses:
- Person A: Appreciates the beauty up here, understands the difference in pace of life and resonates with you
- Person B: Instantly points out how cold and wet it is up here!
Yes, of course we knew it was going to be colder, wetter and darker. By the time we got our house on the market in Sussex, we knew that even with the best will in the world, we wouldn’t be moving up here until September (but planned for October). We knew we’d be moving in as the seasons were changing and the days getting colder and shorter. We knew all this when we were house hunting and we knew this when we put an offer in on the home that’s now ours.
Our House – Energy, Heating and priority focus
We’ve never been keen on new builds so the fact our wee cottage was built in the 1800s was part of what made us love it. We’ve been told that when it was first built it was two houses that were knocked into one a long time ago.
Because it’s very old and hasn’t had an structural work done since an extension was added in the 1970s, it isn’t very warm, energy efficient or comfortable. The initial problems fall into the three main buckets:
- The inept moral vacuum that is Octopus Energy
- The back boiler and ‘central heating’
- Old windows currently be held in with electrical tap and positive thoughts
The inept moral vacuum that is Octopus Energy
I’m starting with this one because it’s the only one we’re completely incapable of acting on. We knew this house had an Economy 7 tariff pay as you go meter. This was because the previous owner had been letting the property out as a holiday let – makes perfect sense, your guests can pay for the energy they need and it keeps life simple.
Unfortunately, the Economy 7 pay as you go tariff is what energy companies force the physically and financially venerable members of our society to go on. Those without bank accounts or damaged credit ratings which means these people have no choice, nowhere else they can go and the energy companies know this so they gouge people through their eyeballs and charge an unconscionably high rate. When you hear news stories about low income families or pensioners having to chose between eating or having a house at a temperature that should be considered a basic human right – it’s usually these tariffs they’re stuck on.
Despite first contacting Octopus as soon as we legally owned the house (mid Sep) we still have no date and no idea when our meter will be swapped out for a less financially abusive one. First we were told they needed to update their systems with our new address – pressing a few keys should only take seconds but of course, we must sit in a queue for several weeks first.
Then we’re told we should have communication for the new meter within 14 days – that was a month ago. We’re now trying to get communication for a timeline as well as a complaint but for some unfathomable reason, they’re not overly keen to engage. They can’t even confirm what tariff we should be on.
For now, we’re paying 30.9p per kw hour. In November, we spent just over £1,000 on electricity. No, we’re not powering a grow farm or running a business from home, we have three radiators in the house (on for a few hours throughout the day), a standard kitchen with standard white goods, a TV and a couple of computers – nothing out the ordinary and certainly nothing that can justify £1,000 for a small detached cottage even if it is next to the sea.
There’s nothing we can do about this apart from count ourselves lucky that we can use our renovation fund to pay this and don’t have to choose between energy and food or petrol. It doesn’t make it less mentally painful but it does make it less physically painful.
The back boiler and ‘central heating’
Whilst we wait for the unskilled pillocks at Octopus Energy to undergo ‘how to reply to an email’ training, we’re cracking on with what we can.
Since my moan about tradespeople and their general inability to respond to any communication and follow through with the quote (maybe Octopus staff graduate to tradespeople after they’ve ignored enough phone calls and emails?) we found someone brilliant. Our next door but one neighbour recommended someone they’d used before and this person has been nothing short of a godsend – lesson learned, ignore Check a Trade, reviews and marketing and just stick with good old fashioned word of mouth!
Our new wizard (I can’t call him a tradesman or electrician because he’s much more than that so I’m going to refer to him as our wizard because he’s magically fixing everything) started with the heating.
What is a back boiler and why does it suck?
A back boiler is a heating system that sits behind a working fireplace – you light a fire and the heat heats the water in this boiler which (in our case) sends hot water around the radiators and to the hot tap.
Sounds simple right? So why do they suck?
In 2005 the government made it illegal for them to be installed in homes moving forwards.
They’re really hard to fix if they break (they’re sat behind a fireplace so even getting to them is difficult).
They’re incredibly inefficient and dangerous. In our case, we had to leave the fire burning (not something we want to do if we’re not in the room and definitely not something our insurance provider wants us to do!). Just burning the fire for a few hours in the evening barely got the radiators warm to the touch let alone hot enough to put any heat out. If we were lucky, we’d have lukewarm water for a few hours each day, trying to wash up after dinner was impossible.
They’re awful for the environment, to even get ours sort of working, we had to burn wood and coal, sending smoke up into the atmosphere. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and I know wood burning stoves are increasingly popular but for me personally, it doesn’t feel right from an ethical and environmental view.
We had a few options (gas central heating isn’t available here):
- Air source heat pump – these are marketed as being the best energy efficient replacement for oil and gas heating. After speaking to a few people up here who have them, we decided they’re not for us. They’re still very new, not as efficient as we’d like not what we’re looking for right now.
- Oil fired central heating – oil heating is very popular up here, especially for more rural and isolated homes. We discounted this because we’d be dependant on getting someone to come round and fill an oil tank and we really wanted to find something more environmentally sustainable.
- Sticking with electric – this was the easiest solution for now as we’re really keen to investigate installing solar panels next year.
Our wizard disconnected our old back boiler, removed our old water tank and replaced it with a new mains pressured hot water cylinder (alongside his trusty plumber co-wizard cus when you find one wizard, they always have co-wizards to help with jobs that aren’t their area of expertise). This means our water pressure comes straight from the main water supply (it was like a hamster dribble bottle before!) and is heated as and when we need it rather than when we light a fire.
We can now crack on with getting rid of the ‘power’ shower – it takes me at least half an hour to rinse the shampoo and conditioner out my hair with the current pressure (or lack there of) and getting a new bathroom.
To tackle the heating part of the back boiler removal problem, we’ve gone with Rointe radiators. These are energy efficient radiators and whilst they’re not especially cheap to buy up front, they are cheaper to run, programme and they’re somewhat intelligent. For now, because the whole house is so cold though, they’re not exactly helping with the budget gouging Octopus are subjecting us to. Luckily, our wizard has helped us programme them to make sure they’re not quite so budget gouging.
Old (very very old) windows
I’m not sure when these windows were installed but it wasn’t any time in this millennium. Although they’re technically double glazed, the aluminium frames and barely held in frames are making them very cold.
On some windows, there is daylight visible in the hinge – those windows are currently being covered with electrical tape which is helping a bit, but we’d rather have windows that didn’t need sticky tape to stay in!
We’ve found a Highlands based window company who will be installing new windows and doors in a couple of weeks. I’m very much looking forward to having windows and doors that don’t allow a large enough draft through that it blows the curtains into the room.
What’s next?
My room
Whilst we wait patiently for our doors and window installation date and not so patiently for Octopus to look up the definition of customer service in a dictionary, our wizard is starting on my room.
It’s the only room (apart from the 4th bedroom/second reception room that’s currently being used for DIY storage) that hasn’t been used yet. I have so much craft stuff it takes days to pack and unpack it so I didn’t want to do it until we’d done all the important work first.
Wizard has delivered all the new insulation boards and will be fitting my new lighting and plug sockets this week. Then my room will have its new insulation jacket and I get on with setting it all up.
Bathroom
Our tiny bathroom, complete with its accessible shower and carpet flooring needs to go. We took advantage of the black Friday sales to order a new shower and suit. James has been missing his regular baths (although I’m sure his carbon footprint isn’t!) and I’ve been missing a shower that offers more than a lukewarm dribble of water.
Utility
We have a small room/large cupboard tucked away in the middle of the house. We’re hoping to turn it into a utility room complete with doggy washing station. We need to move the washing machine from the kitchen before we can finalise new kitchen plans. We’d also like to move the tumble dryer from the shed because right now, the shed sits right in front of the kitchen window and blocks the view of the sea as well as a lot of light.
Kitchen
We’ve had a chat with some lovely people at Wren and Howdens and have some nice design ideas for our new kitchen. We’re reliant on our trust wizard to do the electricals for us (and he said he’ll do the fitting). As we don’t want to be any longer than necessary without a kitchen, we’re going to have to time this carefully.
Once our wizard (and his trusty plumber co wizard) have sorted our new drainage for the utility room, we can order our new kitchen and book in the fitting.
Insulation
In the meantime, we’re going to have to empty one room at a time so wizard can add the new insulation to each wall. We want new plug sockets and lighting in most rooms – when this is done, we can crack on with the decorating part (finally, something I can do!)
Solar and energy efficiency
In the new year, we’re going to start looking into solar panels and whatever else we can do to get the house more efficient.
After chatting to a shop owner in Dornoch at the weekend (because everyone here is just so friendly!), we’ve been advised to research government grants for house building insulation. She was telling us she got a new rendering put around her house that works like a jacket to keep heat in so I’m off to research that next.
My Highland Haven 