Solar Panels - It's pay back time.

It’s no secret that buying solar panels and having them fitted to your roof can require quite a large initial outlay, but most solar panel manufacturers insist that the panels will, over their lifetime, pay for themselves. We decided to do some digging and find out just how true that is – and just how long it will take to get a return on your solar investment.

Generate Your Own Electricity

The first theory of saving money on solar power is quite simple: by using solar panels to generate your own electricity, you decrease your reliance on electricity from the national grid. For every joule the Sun gives you, a few pennies can be knocked off your electricity bill, and over the course of a few years those pennies will add up to significant savings on your electricity bills.

Whilst this is most certainly true in theory, the reality is not quite so convincing – photovoltaic panels do generate electricity and will save money from your bill – but even saving £200-300 on your annual energy costs won’t be enough to pay down the initial fitting costs - which are likely to run to several thousand pounds - for several decades.

It’s worth remembering that rising energy costs and improvements in photovoltaic technologies will undoubtedly lead to better returns in the future, but in the near-term it’s hard to see how they could pay for themselves solely in lower bills, even across the whole lifetime of the panels.

The story, however, doesn’t end there – to counter this underwhelming return on investment, governments and solar panel manufacturers have been finding other ways to make renewable solar-generated energy a financially attractive proposition, the most significant of which is the ‘Feed-in’ Tariff.

Power Selling

A Feed-in tariff is a scheme which allows you to export any surplus electricity you generate into the national grid. For doing this, you get a credit whilst lowering your overall power import. If you’re completely self-sufficient with power to spare, then you effectively ‘sell’ that surplus back to the energy companies.

Feed-in tariffs operate over a fixed period of years, so the sooner you get in at the start, the more money you’ll save. There’s a big anticipation of a major uptake of solar power in the first few months of the 2010 as the April start time approaches.

Increase Your Home’s Value.

There are further benefits, too – homes with solar installations will tend to be valued higher than homes without, and so some of your initial outlay can be recovered from increased sale value. In America, the Appraisal Institute estimated that for every $1000 (approx. £600) that solar electricity knocks from annual energy bills, house value could increase by up to $20,000 (approx. £12,500).

You may not be planning on selling your house right now, but Solar Panels have a rated lifetime of over 25 years, so chances are you'll have a chance to benefit directly from the increased value a solar panel brings when it's time to sell.

Getting A Grant

Here’s another simple way to reduce the time it takes to make back your investment: spend a bit less in the first place! Under the Low Carbon Buildings Programme, government grants are available to help homeowners fund the purchase and installation of solar panels and other ‘micro-generation’ technologies.

In some cases you may be eligible for a grant of up to £2,500 towards the installation of micro-generation systems including photovoltaic solar power. This means a significant proportion of the original cost can be avoided altogether, making it far easier to get a return on your investment.

Adding It All Together

Back to the original question, though – when you add it all together, do Solar Panels pay for themselves?

The answer really depends on factors such as where you live – solar panels fitted on a rooftop in the Orkneys are unlikely to end up paying for themselves, to be honest, whereas the same panels in Newquay stand a very good chance of doing exactly that. Perhaps more surprisingly, though, in most cases you’re more than likely to come good across the life of the panels, after factoring in all of the above savings and grants.

What's more, photovoltaic solar panel technology is always getting better – panels are growing more efficient, batteries more effective and systems cheaper to produce. So even if a solar panel right now isn’t likely to pay for itself in your area, it's probable that within a decade or two we'll have the technology at hand to let sunshine win the day.

Get your online solar panel installation quote for either Hot Water or electricity generating solar panel systems from Solar Panel Quoter - a free service to homeowners.

Triple Glazing - Worth the Money?

Triple glazing is more prevalent in places like Scandinavia than in the UK due to the colder climate – although with the weather we’ve had recently maybe that’s in for a change!

Triple glazing is, as the name suggests, where the glass within a window frame is made up of 3 rather than 2 panes of glass. The extra glass/space layer does increase the insulation of your home whilst also reducing its solar gain in the Summer, which means that in terms of heat and energy efficiency, triple glazing will always out-perform double glazing.

But is it worth the additional cost? Prices for triple glazing can be anywhere between 20 and 40% higher than double glazing for the same window.

Get instant, free online quotes for glazing from Window Quoter.

The last few weeks excepted, typical UK weather wouldn’t normally warrant the extra cost unless you live in the very far north – but there are still significant benefits which make triple glazing worth considering. These include lower fuel costs and lower carbon usage, which can actually go some way towards paying the difference in price between double and triple glazed installations – particularly if your house has large expanses of windows.

The value of triple glazing also hugely increases if you home is next to a busy road or you live in an area of high noise levels, such as near an airport, then the additional sound insulation you get with triple glazing may well be worth it.

Triple glazing in such circumstances can increase your property's value and may give your property the edge over similar properties in the same street should you need to place it on the market.

Also, if you’re planning a large expanse of glass ‘walling’, then choosing the triple glaze option may make life more comfortable all year round.

You may find it harder to find a supplier of triple glazing than double glazing but it’s always worth asking, especially if you think your circumstances really make triple glazing the best option. You can use Window Quoter to get free online quotes for all kinds of glazing, in minutes.

Warm Front or Boiler Scrappage Scheme?

At the beginning of January (2010), we launched our new site HeatingQuoter, coinciding with with the launch of Government’s Boiler Scrappage Scheme. We’ve been astounded at the popularity of our newest Quoter website, with over 1,000 homeowners using the site within the first 24 hours to get an instant online quote for their replacement boiler or central heating system installation.

Industry figures suggest that there may be as many as 4.2 million central heating boilers currently being used in homes around England that are eligible for the scrappage scheme, and the Government has estimated more than 125,000 households stand to benefit.

If your boiler has a permanently lit pilot light, is more than 15 years old and gas fired, then it’s likely to qualify for the Boiler Scrappage Scheme.

Two national power companies have already promised to match the £400 allowance with £400 of their own in an attempt to entice homeowners to their business and use their own installation services.

However, charity body Help The Aged has warned pensioners and low-income households receiving benefits to check their eligibility for the Government’s Warm Front scheme before committing to the Boiler Scrappage Scheme. The Warm Front scheme offers up to £3,500 to qualifying households towards the cost of loft insulation, draught excluding and the repair or replacment of heating systems.

Once you have received a grant from either Warm Front or the Boiler Scrappage Scheme, you will not be eligible to apply for the other – so Help The Aged advises pensioners or those on benefits to apply for the Warm Front scheme first. If your Warm Front application is unsuccessful, you can still apply to the Boiler Scrappage scheme.

Mervyn Kohler of Help the Aged added, “If you are not claiming means-tested benefits then we’d recommend you apply for the Boiler Scrappage Scheme.”

Both schemes have a cap on the total amount available to spend in any given year – so if homeowner interest is high, funds may well run out before everyone eligible has applied. This means it will pay to start making enquiries sooner rather than later if you think you have an older boiler that may me eligible for Government funding.

Whether you’re applying for Warm Front or the Boiler Scrappage Scheme, or you just have an old boiler that needs replacing, you can find out more and get a free online quote from HeatingQuoter.co.uk

Experts also predict a £200 a year energy saving, with a new energy efficient boiler fitted compared to older G-rated models.

Paving Savings - Small Driveways, Big Discounts

How you can get big discounts from paving companies, even when you only have a small driveway.

For paving companies, big jobs mean bigger discounts when buying raw materials – discounts that can be passed on to you, the customer.

From a paving company’s perspective, when it comes to the cost of a paving or driveway job, the larger the area, the more materials it’s going to need, hence a bigger discount when purchasing the raw materials and the saving that can be passed onto you the customer. The labour’s relatively fixed – x amount for x man hours the job requires.

Other factors may include the distance the installation team have to drive from their premises to carry out the installation and special accessibility issues on site.

If you only have a small area you want block paving or covering with impressed concrete or tarmac, you’ll have a harder time getting discounts from a paving installation company that doesn't have a lot of leeway with which to negotiate discounts or savings on raw materials unless buying large amounts.

One way around this is to offer the paving additional work on the property.

In the long run, whilst initially paying a little more, you’ll save money because of the higher costs of having paving work done in small chunks - assuming can get a paving company to come out and quote at all for paths and patios separately at all.

What about including the pathway up the side of your house in the paving project? You’ll also benefit from the closest possible match of materials and levels and avoid the possibility of disturbing previously laid projects, if you come back to increase them later on.

If you’ve got an existing patio or seating area - or you’d like one installed - then why not consider including that too? If your driveway is for one car only, then there’s a potential to add an area the size of a medium family car to the job, by getting a quote for paving the rear area as well.

Consider also, when having a larger area paved, that the installation company may be able to draw upon additional fitting teams so you may find you get the whole job done within the same time frame as a smaller job, which may have previously precluded a large workforce.

Other areas you may be able to negotiate a better overall job discount on include asking the paving company about landscaping of the area around the driveway, and building boundary walls or fences.

Finally – if you’re considering having your driveway re-laid, what about your neighbours? They may be thinking along similar lines. It can’t hurt to make a polite enquiry with them – if only to warn them in advance of the work you’re thinking of having done. If they’re in agreement, then perhaps the two households can negotiate a larger discount based on the collective size of the area that will want re-surfacing. This is especially effective where two properties share a central driveway area or access road.

The first stage in any home improvement project is to get an idea of cost. That’s where PavingQuoter can help. Enter a few simple measurements (don’t worry if they’re not exact) and our sophisticated quoting system will calculate a price, based on UK average prices, there and then for you.

Central Heating Boiler Scrappage Scheme - New Quoter website

To coincide with yesterdays announcement of the Governments Boiler Scrappage Scheme where homeowners are being offered up to £400 against the cost of a new central heating boiler for qualifying boilers, Home Improvement Quotes launched another 'Quoter website - Heating Quoter.

In line with our other online quoting websites, homeowners and landlords can simply enter their location details and then go on to enter some information about their property - number of rooms, present central heating system etc and our clever website will return a price guide for a new central heating system in seconds.

So, if you've been thinking about replacing your central heating boiler for a newer, more energy efficient model, and you'd like to see if you may qualify for the Governments Boiler Scrappage Scheme (scheme applies to England only), then visit HeatingQuoter.co.uk now and get an online quote in minutes.

For more information, why not visit Home Improvement Quotes website - click here.