I'm Wendy and I'm Bob and Andy, our little dachshund Andy, from Hertfordshire
and we've just finished building our own house!
We moved here six years ago and
fell in love with the location - it's so peaceful here. We extended this house
because we had quite a number of children staying with us, we have eight
children between us and then they all decided to leave home, so we decided we
wanted to downsize but we loved the area and somebody was visiting us one day and
said, "Why don't you build here you've got this huge garden which has proven a bit
too much for you now just build something in the back garden!" so we said
"Oh we'd never get permission to do that" but we tried and after two and a half
years we finally got through the planning system and a year ago we
started building our own house.
June last year we started the reduction in the
ground levels and the piling was done in July and the timber frame house came in
September and we're almost a year into it now it will be finished before the
year's up we'll be in it. Definitely before the 12 months
of build it up. We have to move in because we have a big family wedding and
lots of international visitors coming to stay and they're gonna stay in this
house and Bob and I have to move into the new build - finished or not!
We moved here six years ago and
the first thing we did was put solar panels on the roof
and a lot of people have said "does it pay?" and I'm an accountant
by profession - and yes it does pay and also you just feel you're doing your bit
for the planet. We were determined then, when we did the new build, that we would
repeat the exercise but obviously things have moved forward in six years so we've
got some lovely inset panels that don't sit on the roof but sit in line with the
roof I think they'll be more efficient than the ones we have on this house and
we're really looking forward to those low electricity bills because it's very
noticeable and I really just don't understand why it's not mandatory that
every new build has solar panels.
It doesn't have to be hot and it doesn't
even have to be that sunny to get electrical generation from the solar panels
so I think, well we're definitely delighted with what we've had on this
house, so I'm sure we'll be even more delighted with the new house.
One of the other things that we thought would get us through the planning process was if
we had these environmentally friendly things like the solar panels so we
decided to have a water harvester which harvests all the rainwater
that comes up the roof and then that feeds your toilets and your washing machine
and we just heard recently on the radio that the environmental agency is talking
about restricting how much water each household uses so again this might be a
thing in the future that we're building a regulation and planning you must have
a certain amount of water storage for your for your garden and things like that
which would you stop all these drought conditions happening and people
panicking and not being able to drink the water you know
and it's better for your plants because it feeds the outside tap for the garden as well.
This time round when I started looking into solar I was lucky that I
had an email via the Build It magazine recommending Solar Plants. The first time
I bought solar I did a lot of research and so I already had that
information which was brilliant because I knew straightaway then when I dealt
with Solar Plants I was with the right company this time.
I've had brilliant service right through from the sales department, installation department and
the whole system is being monitored so the productivity of each solar panel
will be monitored by Solar Plants to make sure that it's producing the right
amount of electricity the best we can get from this installation we have
Building a house has largely meant a lot of teamwork
primarily Bob doing the building and me in the
office resourcing building materials, paying bills etc. so I've been the one
who's really been dealing with Solar Plants Limited and I have to say that
every aspect has been really good and I'm quite a tough customer to please
sometimes so from the sales department who have kept in touch it's not been a
case of right I've signed the dotted line now so thank you goodbye
no they're there. The office staff have been brilliant, always been a pleasure to deal with
but also being a self-build there's quite big time delays so the
installation took place at one time frame and the commissioning has had to
take place in another time frame and Solar Plants have recognised that this
whole new build concept is completely different to servicing a house that
already exists and it's great to have a company that recognises that and is
prepared to work with that and in terms of stage payments as the processes have
unfolded they've been very good as well so very accommodating and we're just
looking forward now to seeing how efficient the panels are but I have no
doubt that we will be very very pleased with this installation once we start
living in the house.