Mr and Mrs Whiston live in sunny Padstow in two houses which have been merged into one property. It was important to them, both environmentally and financially, to try and adapt their home to achieve an ‘off grid’ lifestyle as much as possible.
The solar panels on the roof of the property and their garage.
Back in 2022, they invested around £30,000 buying a 12kWp array of 32 solar panels (SunPower Max3 375W) together with a Tesla Powerwall 2 battery and an Eddi diverter. At this stage they didn’t have their Everhot Cooker and their only heat source in the house was their large 12kW wood burner. Mr Whiston says, “The system was designed to maximise our consumption from solar ourselves, rather than exporting electricity to the Grid which offered a very low return.”
Although their house roof is east to west facing, with panels installed on both sides of the roof, they are pleased with the level of production they have achieved.
In the summer of 2023, they bought an Everhot 110+ in Tangerine for their kitchen, both for its cooking capabilities and the warmth. They run their Everhot using its automatic ECO function throughout the spring, summer and autumn, which means that it drops into half temperatures overnight between 9pm and 6am. In the winter they run the cooker on full power mode throughout the day and night to give them more heat in the house overnight. They are heavy electricity users, consuming on average around 11,000kWh a year.
Mrs Whiston cooking on their Tangerine Everhot
They chose Octopus Energy as their electricity provider and use the Eddi to heat their water overnight on Octopus’ cheaper electricity rate. They did notice an upturn in electricity use after purchasing their Everhot however Mr Whiston says: “This has proven beneficial in that we have burned circa 20 per cent less wood this winter. Logs cost approximately £800 a year as we buy green split logs and season them for two years before burning.” They are finding that the Everhot is enough to keep the house toasty whilst working from home and only use the log burner on colder winter evenings.
In the below graphs, taken from Mr Whiston’s phone app, you can see the annual consumption versus production statistics for their solar panels for 2023 on the left. On the right you can see these figures for the month of June only – to give a more detailed example.
Their Everhot 110+ (which in ECO mode consumes 90 kWh of electricity each week) was installed at the end of June 2023. Despite their overall increase in electricity use through the purchase of their Everhot, Mr Whiston says: “We were able to be almost off grid for the summer months in 2023”. In April last year 94 per cent of the electricity they consumed was self produced, in June the figure rose to 97 per cent. It dropped to 91 per cent in July after buying their Everhot, and in August it was 85 per cent.
Things are working so well for them that they plan to purchase an electric car next year to maximise their use of solar and battery.
