Our house is rated at B+ on the UK system now.

We have expanding foam insulation put in the cavity walls and some internal dry lining with insulation, the usual insulation in the loft floor plus insulation on the underside of the rafters as well. We also put any old carpets on the loft flooring parts as an extra.

We have underfloor heating (water pipe version) in some of the downstairs rooms, installed over the old solid floors as we had higer ceilings, plus some oversize radiators. Upstairs is normal size, but double, radiators.

We are on our second airsource heatpump, the first failed after about 10 years.

We have some solar panels and a wind turbine along with a battery to smooth out demand. If you get solar panels at the same time as a battery you get a charged a lower VAT rate. One main tng about the battery is that it comes with equipment to allow you to use power from the turbine and solar panels during a power cut. This means that we recently lost power for 3 seconds while the neighbours lost power for 8 hours. As we need power for our water pump this is a big consideration.

The turbine is a much bigger energy source than the panels. And when are you most likely to need extra power? On a dark windy winter's night!

Robin