SolarAirTech

This story was submitted to the site yesterday, Dennis the writer is interested in raising awareness of solar ventilation products as an alternative to gas and oil-based ones. He had an interesting encounter with a local firm who specialise in servicing oil boilers. In short, they are experiencing a decline in demand for their services as customers are becoming more interested in "Greener" technology. Read on for Dennis' first Blog installment. 

Oil servicing firm re-brands itself "Green"

These guys - www.greenenergyshropshire.co.uk - have built a business from servicing oil and gas boilers and are Oftec registered (oil firing technical association), they have worked out that the demand for oil fired central heating systems have begun to decline, so they are beginning to turn their business green. Hence my story of OFTEC registered engineers becoming a good source of solar solutions for both air and water.

The Story

My oil central heating boiler was due a service recently, and I had a real surprise when I called the company that had left their service sticker on the boiler cabinet. I expected the obligatory service engineer to turn up and do their stuff. The engineer was a pretty smart type, a real techie. When the service was done I was suddenly led into a conversation about the cost of oil and the potential for all carbon based heating energy to rise in price. Once we had agreed that heating oil was becoming horribly expensive the conversation was directed to all things solar and what can be done about it.

This particular company had rebranded itself GreenEnergy (Shropshire), and their intention moving forward is to help their traditional base of customers with oil and gas fired systems add solar technology to help reduce fuel bills. My boiler technician was a full of sensible information as to how to save money. They had infra red heating technology, ground source heat pumps, really innovative hybrid solar heating systems, even a range of wood burners.

Why? I asked are you doing this. The answer was simple but fascinating: the sales of gas and oil boilers are already beginning to decline. For OFTEC members the market is already shrinking.

"Hydrocarbon based heating systems are seen as a bad future investment."

I liked the honesty of this company; it seemed to be all a about green evolution as opposed to  revolution. My engineer from GreenEnergy (Shropshire) had a clear view on how a householder should begin the green evolution.

- Do not throw the baby out with the bath water, your central heating system works and has value.

- Most people cannot move to some expensive technology, most people want to start modestly and develop a strategy for saving money. So I asked the question. “If you were me and wanted to spend £500 improving the heating efficiency of my home what would you do?” 

The answer is solar ventilation, so I am off to Chirbury Shropshire to visit their brand new show room to find out all about products like SolarVenti.

In the meantime my OFTEC engineer recommended I visit Solarairtech.com to catch up on the solar chat and find out more about solar ventilation, and issues such as humidity damp mould and all the stuff that says your home and heating system is not up to scratch. Thanks OFTEC and Solarairtech. I am learning some sensibly priced green lessons!

Dennis