Questions & Answers FAQ

Airtightness is the foundation of a warm, comfortable home or building. (note: do not confuse this with passive houses, which is something different)

Install a whole-house MHVR (mechanical heat recovery ventilation) system, remove your chimneys, do not seal them, get rid of them completely. Close all your open vents (as you now have an MHVR). If you are building a new home, you will be doing this regardless.

This work will halve your heating bill all on its own and deal with mould & condensation, which insulation upgrades, especially major insulation upgrades, always create.

Tea Cosy your attic space. (we explain how to do this on the technical FAQ)

Next, you can add HONE high powered renewable energy to deal with the rest of your energy & transport needs.

Your home will be very comfortable, warm without mould or condensation, and you can quickly achieve a Zero Emissions A-Rating when using HONE renewable technologies. You could even go for an A1/A1++ maximum and get yourself into the Top 100 homes in Ireland/UK.

Also, you will have significantly improved the value of your home.

To avoid doubt, you can do this to both new homes and older homes of any age.

An added benefit is, you stay in your home during the upgrade with minimal disruption.

Are heat pumps new technology? Sorry, that would be a “no”, they have been around since the 1860s, and the science is that old.

The primary driver of electric heating (heat pumps) is your government. You have to ask yourself why Governments aren’t promoting renewable technologies that produce free clean energy directly on your buildings with the same vigour. The reason is simple; it’s all about taxation.

As the Paris Agreement targets fossil fuel consumption, this inadvertently impacts the vast billions of hidden taxation governments receive each year from their citizens.

The governments’ solution is to move everyone currently purchasing fossil fuel onto their national grid, thus transferring all the hidden fossil fuel taxation onto the electricity system. They then subsidise significant scale wind and solar to green the grid to 100% renewable energy, and you will still purchase your energy as usual.

Happy days and the status quo remains.

Hence, electric cars, electric heating (heat pumps), electric everything.

Citizens continue to buy their energy centrally, and the government maintains its taxation receipts as before.

BUT you can decide to do it all yourself instead and keep the profits of the energy companies in your pocket.

2019 UK Government Data – To give you an idea of how desperate Governments are to transfer this hidden taxation to the electricity grid, see what they stand to lose. In 2019, the UK exchequer took in £27.57 Billion on petrol and diesel fuel duty and another £12.84 Billion on VAT on petrol & Diesel, totalling £40.41 Billion (€46.87 Billion)/($56.98 Billion) in one year.

This taxation was just on petrol & diesel sales. By 2050, not so far away, they will no longer receive this type of hidden taxation. If you now add the national gas grid, power gen, industry, housing, etc. i.e. all the other fossil fuel consumption that they collect taxation on, you can probably see how important it is that they convince you to get onto heat pumps and electric cars as fast as possible.

We always hear about the optimum performance of heat pumps but don’t always get a rounded experience of how a heat pump works in real-life experience.

A heat pump uses energy that is naturally present in the air or ground, and with an electric compressor turns this into higher temperature heat, typically 35C. Due to the low temperatures of a heat pump, you need to install underfloor heating or large multi-layer aluminium radiators.

Why do you need a big electricity connection? in Ireland? You need to upgrade your standard electricity connection from 12KW to 15KW to run a heat pump; it’s already at 18KW as a common connection in the UK.

The real secret is what happens when it is cold outside or when you turn up the thermostat.

When this happens, your heat pump cannot provide all the heat, nor can it provide instant heat as it is NOT a boiler. There are a few options to deal with this. Note that this problem is magnified if you install a heat pump in an existing house.

1/ You install a backup oil or gas boiler alongside the heat pump. (This is relatively common on large new houses)

2/ You install a traditional heat pump on its own. (which has a little secret called emergency mode or Boost, delivered by one or more immersion elements typically slightly bigger than the heat pump, i.e. 5KW heat pump would have a 6KW immersion backup for cold weather when the total power consumption would be 11K. If you had a detached home with an 11KW heat pump, this may have a 6KW-12KW backup immersion and will be available in 3 phase or single phase supply) – This is why you get big electricity bills with heat pumps in cold weather. The auxiliary heater plays a part once the air temp drops below 8C and is fully on below 3C to prevent your heat pump from freezing up.

This rapid heater automatically clicks when the weather gets cold, or you suddenly turn up your room stat by 1.5C. The heat pump is a slow heat source and cannot react to that sudden request for instant heat or heat in cold weather, so the heat pump controller switches on the backup electric heaters. The same happens if you turn it off and this is why it must be left running 24 hours a day.

3/ There are also some high-cost heat pump options where you install one heat pump outside, which delivers lukewarm water into a second heat pump inside the home, which does the rest. These are generally sold as a package, and the two heat pumps may not necessarily be made ultra-clear in the sales paperwork for obvious reasons. This involves 2 heat pumps, of course, and twice the energy.

The little secret we refer to is the built-in immersion elements or electric heaters, depending on the unit.

Typically they will be 6KW in size on smaller apartment systems (exhaust air heat pumps) up to any size in theory on 3 phase heat pumps. The 6KW backup on the small exhaust air heat pump mentioned is in addition to the heat pump rating, so your 4KW apartment heat pump is really a 10KW heat pump.

Next time you hear someone concerned about their large electricity bills in winter due to a heat pump, send them this FAQ. There isn’t anything wrong with the heat pump; this is how they work; the industry and government oversell heat pumps as some magic device with low-cost heating bills.

You rarely see this explained, but we like the explanation from the non for profit Housing Association, Community Housing Partnership, who made this video below to help explain to their tenants the realities of operating a home with a heat pump.

This depends on your location and how old your electricity connection is.

You will hear this phrase concerning Heat Pumps on retrofit houses in Ireland as you cannot run a Heat Pump on a standard 12KW connection in Ireland.

This is very problematic for houses on rural tariffs. The upgrade from 12KW to 15KW will not just include the price of a technician changing the fuse outside your home but also factor in your contribution to transformer upgrades required to accept Heat Pumps in the longer run. (This is the theory).

In Ireland, to get an enhanced connection for a Heat Pump is expensive even if you are just outside a big town. We have been quoted €4,300 for this upgrade on a project.

OK, this is partially true, but only if other measures are done first and don’t over-insulate your home as it will modify the dew point of your walls, and that is “not” a good thing. (a new home is a different discussion)

The main thing you need to do to lower your bills and make your home more comfortable is deal with airtightness first. This is where you lose most of your heating OR let in the heat if you are in a hot climate trying to stay cool.

NOTE: If you “over insulate” your home or building and don’t do anything about managed/active ventilation, then you will end up with significant dampness, black mould and large amounts of morning condensation, and this will require you to open windows more often and especially on colder days.

Your house will feel colder than before.

If this happens, you have probably changed your walls’ natural dew point, which has significant implications to your wall structure, the wetness of your cavity, the moisture content & effectiveness of any wall insulation, and many other implications, so tread carefully.

Walls are designed to use the heat you generate in your rooms to push moisture out through the walls and keep them warm, which raises the dew point and keeps your walls dry and free from mould. The point where your heat meets the cold air of the outside entering your wall structure is the “dew” point.

NOTE: Anything that interferes with your heat’s ability to travel through your walls will change the science of how your walls and dew points work. This primarily applies to external wall insulation or drylining on the inside, which directly blocks this natural action.

Pumping your cavity with PVA bonded bead has limited blocking but high insulation benefits, however, so that is always recommended.

Yes, on all inside doors. When you hand your home over to an MHRV system, it is now in control of your air temperature, and the air inside your home needs to move freely around the house.

If you have individual room control thermostats, these will also be redundant. The ventilation system is now in control.

If you are building a new home, don’t install individual multi-room control or underfloor specific to individual rooms as they won’t have any individual room control.

Kerosene boiler or natural gas (LPG included) with standard radiators are still by far the cheapest install cost, and you can still have a Zero Emissions energy rated home.

In Ireland, for example, the best energy rated home in the country is certified as heated by kerosene and the second-best by gas.

All new kerosene boilers in the UK & Ireland are HVO compatible, and existing kerosene boilers can be converted to HVO for approx €300. HVO is 100% renewable liquid fuel and is already available to UK customers, including Northern Ireland.

It is not currently available in Ireland as the government has not introduced an appropriate low home heating duty & tax as is the case with all other fuels. As soon as this is the case, then you will be 100% renewable with your vegetable oil boiler.

NOTE: If you are building a new property or adding renewable central heating to a retrofit building, you will only require a micro version of those boilers (and you probably didn’t even know they exist). If you recently bought a new condensing boiler, you can have it converted to run HVO.

You are then all set up to switch easily to HVO, green hydrogen, green gas or liquid biofuel when it’s available. (NOTE: 100% Renewable Green Gas (bioLPG) is already available from Calor in Ireland & the UK) 

Depends on your country.

Typically electricity has the highest emissions unless you are in France, where electricity is primarily nuclear power.

Kerosene & Natural Gas have the lowest emissions. bioLPG is 100% renewable & green, HVO is 100% renewable & green.

Example- Ireland.

Electricity – 850 grams/CO2/kWh at point of use  (SEAI DEAP)

Kerosene – 299 grams/CO2/kWh at point of use   (SEAI DEAP) – soon to be zero-emission and 100% renewable with HVO.

It would be best to use renewable electricity for electricity applications and renewable heat for heat applications.

In the long-term, you will get a price paid for export or possibly none at all; in any case, this could be in the region of market values for generation at about 3c – 4c per kWh, which is no return on investment. It would be cheaper to buy electricity from the grid. Governments also tend to change their minds.

It would be best if you looked at high-value use financial models. The approach is to avoid electricity purchasing with your renewable generation, which varies from 18c to 40c per kWh across Europe.

If you add electric car charging, then the numbers change significantly. The most efficient EV will consume 11.53 kWhr for every petrol/diesel equivalent of 40 mpg/68 km(pg).

This equates to savings (or value) on the fuel of 59 Eurocents per kWh equivalent.

We will assume a 0.20 c/kWh electricity price & €1.35 per/L petrol/diesel for this model.

If you produced 10,000 kWhrs of your own free green electricity and you used 50% of it to slow down your meter and 50% directly for EV charging, then your blended saving per kWhr would be 39.5c x 10,000 = €3,950 savings in year 1.

This will be circa €8,030 annual savings by year 25 with an assumed 3% annual inflation.

This model would give you all your annual electricity consumption plus free EV driving of 28,000 km annually split between two electric cars. (14,000 km each)

Image 1 below: It would also give you cumulative savings over 30 years of €187,933.

Image 2 below: Compare the above to the model below, exporting 100% electricity to the grid. You save only €350 in year one and cumulative savings of €16,651 over 30 years; this would NOT even cover the cost of purchasing the system.

Image 3 below: Using another model below where 50% of the electricity is avoided purchasing from the grid, and only 50% is exported to the grid, you have a cumulative saving over 30 years of €55,901, a shortfall of €132,022 over the model where 50% is avoided purchasing from the grid and 50% for electric vehicle charging.

In simple terms, selling to the grid is the “least” rewarding strategy. Designing a renewable electricity system with a mix of EV charging and avoided electricity purchasing is a powerful investment return. This strategy is even more critical for businesses and commercial projects as multiple EV charging improves the model further.

It also means that no matter how Governments change their minds, as they have in the UK and most other countries, it won’t impact you in the slightest. Next, you need to make sure you buy the best performing technology to maximise that return.

The biggest mistake is the assumption that the more fabric you apply to a building, the better its energy rating will be.

This is totally incorrect.

Fabric such as insulation, windows, airtightness, etc., are all part of national building regulations in each country.

The Energy Rating (currently nZEB or Net Zero & becoming ZE -Zero Emissions from 2030) comes from the EU Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (UK – Net Zero – soon to be released Future Building Standard) and measures energy imports into a building. You technically can meet nZEB/Net Zero with no insulation or doors because they have nothing directly to do with energy imports into your home or building.

The energy you import is directly related to the amount of external energy you need to purchase for heating, hot water & electricity. The value you are allowed to import is typically less than 45 kWh per sqm of primary energy across the EU since Dec 31st 2020; the UK is slightly behind on that step due to Brexit. EU is changing to zero energy/zero emissions per sqm from 2030 when nZEB will be retired in favour of ZE.

Your heating energy requirement is currently low on new homes due to enhanced building regulations and airtightness. Still, you won’t impact your hot water usage or electricity usage by adding more insulation to your building.

To get an excellent energy rating, you need to deal with all three energy requirements, heat, hot water & electricity. This is why HONE solutions have spectacular results in getting excellent energy ratings and low energy bills.

The image below shows you the typical energy profile of a newly built home. The heating load is low, but hot water & electricity consumption is high. Dumping loads of extra insulation on a new build will have little benefit to your energy rating, but adding powerful renewables to make free hot water & free electricity is what you address to get an excellent energy rating in a new build.

On a detached home, it will be approx €70/£60 a year on a 2 bed detached home to €150/£140 a year for a 4 bed detached home.

The SEAI DEAP calculation will verify these values in Ireland as will the SAP calculation in the UK.

Typically, a new build is an example of a 140 sqm floor space detached four-bed home.

You will need a HONE 6TE (Thermal/Electric) and HONE 6E (Electric) system.

As our panels are small, you only need a space of 4.2 metres x 4.2 metres, which can be longer or wider depending on the roof.

HONE systems hold the highest performance certification versus traditional renewable technology. We can quickly get you an A1 Zero Emissions (2030 EU standard) or A1++ Net Zero UK on any size home or apartment.

This also applies to commercial projects and apartment buildings of any size.

The bonus is that you have a lower construction cost to meet an A1 Zero Emissions with HONE versus only meeting an A2 nZEB with a heat pump.

The same goes for meeting A90 upwards SAP Rating in the UK.

Underfloor heating is similar to storage heating; it consists of pipes sunk into a concrete screed. There will be a lag in heating and cooling downtimes of up to 3 hours. It is also much more expensive to install and repair than standard radiators, which are now small in new builds.

Because your new home (and retrofit) will (should) have an MHRV system, your space heating is managed by this system via the air flows.

Underfloor heating will also consume more energy annually than using micro-sized standard radiators. You can place radiators on any wall, not at windows like in older houses.

You can use HONE with any heating system.

An underfloor heating distribution system is now 15 times more expensive to install than a standard high-temperature heating system with regular steel radiators.

NOTE: As your underfloor heating system will be off for several months a year in a new build, you need to consider what will be required concerning annual maintenance to flush it out to protect valves/pumps from seizing/failing. Underfloor heating is an expense to service each year but repairing due to lack of maintenance is a much higher cost.

This applies to new build or retrofit.

Get a system professionally installed and balanced.

Get a unit with remote control (downstairs) to display events such as filter change warnings. (typically once a year depending on where you live)

Ideally, ensure the MHRV unit is not installed in the attic over a bedroom.

If in the attic, always mount against the gable wall, not on the floor.

Make sure a minimum of 10 metres of ducting pipe from unit to bedrooms even if you have to duct away from the bedroom (5m) first and then double back (5m). This will ensure the fan air vibrations are lost before the air hits the bedroom. This also applies where manifolds are used.

Using rigid piping is better as you can seal it in between the timbers with foam if possible, and this method ensures it is hidden and permanently locked away. The alternative using soft insulation ducting lying on top of timbers is more prone to heat loss and damage.

Oil boilers can switch from kerosene to HVO, 100% renewable liquid fuel. All new oil boilers are HVO boilers, and older ones can have a simple conversion.

From about 2025, green hydrogen boilers will also become more regular. Many green hydrogen production projects are underway worldwide, Wind to H2 in Ireland, UK, Germany, Netherlands and H2 from large Hydro in Germany. You will swap out your existing boiler for a new H2 one.

They are already being pre-installed with a potential law mandating all new gas boilers installed after 2025 being H2 compatible in the UK. At this stage, installing heat pumps is already falling out of favour due to installation costs and running costs, as electricity prices have nearly doubled in price in some countries.

By installing a micro oil boiler today along with a HONE system, you are all set up for a quick switch to HVO fuel (where you won’t even have to change your boiler), or you may go with H2 boilers, green gas or liquid biofuel’s. You will still have the lowest install, operating and maintenance costs. AND THE LOWEST CO2 EMISSIONS…

Hydrogen is at the heart of Europe’s €95 Billion Horizon Europe funding from 2021 to 2027, with a 45,000 km green hydrogen pipeline planned to run across Europe, but fuels like HVO and bioLPG will all play a big part.

Everybody is buying or renting buildings based on energy ratings these days. Lower ratings are seen as obsolete.

Typically, according to data in the public domain, the value difference between the two options is 10% to 18% increased sales or ownership value depending on where you live.

Enhanced energy ratings are sought after for home and commercial building purchases as carbon tax increases.

Poorer buildings with lower energy ratings are already dropping in value.

Banks are also advertising lower interest rates for higher energy ratings and penalising homes with poorer energy ratings.

You will be switching in the future to an H2 boiler, liquid biofuel (HVO), other renewable backup heating or most likely a mixture.

Kerosene is the lowest cost option for now, and the emissions from both gas and kerosene are common and similar. You will be able to switch your kerosene boiler to HVO in future, which is 100% renewable liquid biofuel & if you buy a current oil boiler, it is already HVO compatible.

The big difference is that your mains gas monthly rental charge will be bigger than your gas bill with a HONE installation. LPG tanks and cylinders will be much cheaper, and you can get 100% bioLPG green gas from Calor in the UK & Ireland.

Kerosene & HVO have no monthly rental, and you will only need a small oil storage tank, so its economics are best.

On-grid refers to renewable energy systems connected to public (centralised) electricity or gas networks; basic examples are Solar PV, CHP, etc. On-grid or grid-connected systems are restricted to small size systems only.

Off-grid refers to renewable energy systems independent of public networks, OR it can refer to the concept of being off-grid, i.e. off the system completely, totally independent. Off-grid systems can still be technically grid-connected, but there is no restriction on the size of the installation.

Private grids refer to decentralised networks where a project has a mini or microgrid for electricity and other fuel sources such as hydrogen, tank gas or even kerosene. It can be one site or multi-site.

Off-grid and Private grids are specialist work. Europe’s and Ireland’s best energy rated home is a HONE private grid development with no energy bills. We are specialists in these types of systems.

These projects can be deployed in residential, commercial, and large-scale industrial projects requiring variable green energy sources coupled with baseload renewable sources such as green hydrogen power generation.

You are being told this because it is the skill level of the party you are dealing with.

There is, in fact, no limit to the size of the installation you can put on your home, business or large factory.

If you want to put 10 MW of generation on your home and have space, it is easy to do, but it is a specialised area not familiar to standard suppliers and installers.

This applies globally, and we are specialists in designing these types of engineering projects.

Firstly, you need to analyse your home.

You need to get a BER (Irl) or SAP (Uk) and national EPC for the rest of Europe completed on your home.

The construction file which underpins these ratings are specific to your home. You can develop a plan and in what steps before you spend any money.

Typically on a retrofit home of 1,500 sq ft bungalow, an E1 and built after 1998. (see note below on pre-1998)

1. Add a whole house heat recovery system (MHRV).
2. Remove the chimneys, don’t seal it or use a balloon; delete it as it is a significant cold bridge; imagine holding your arm out the window of your car in the depths of winter.
3. Close all the wall vents and seal the house.
4. Pump your cavity walls with PVA bonded beads.
5. Insulate your attic well. (tea-cosy model)
6. Add a HONE Heat & Power (and/or Drive) solution, which will make a substantial amount of your heating, hot water & electricity for free.
7. Upgrade your oil boiler to a micro condensing boiler (hangs on a wall). [you’ll be able to switch from kerosene to HVO in the near future]
8. Add a virtual fireplace in your old fireplace location.
9. RESULT: A2 nZEB. NOTE: as of Dec 15th, 2021, the EU has revised the energy performance of buildings directive and ALL buildings will have to upgrade to ZE – “Zero Emissions” from 2030.

This data is taken from an actual retrofit project. Install time, five days with a low level of disruption.

For homes older than 2006, you will need to check your windows to see their U value.

See the Dimplex Opti-Mist real effect fires, no cleaning, no fuel and no chimney.

Single glazed windows are not suitable and should be upgraded to double glazing.

Most homes have double glazing already, but it could be older air-filled glazing or newer argon-filled glazing coated if fitted before 2006.

To check, look inside your windows to the metal strip that separates the 2 panes of glass, search around on all your windows, and you will find manufacturing code for your windows on some of your windows; it is the same number for all your windows if they all came as one set.

You can contact the manufacturer for the technical information, even if they were installed 25 years ago. This is standard practice as you will need it for an accurate DEAP or SAP calculation.

If your windows are in good condition and are argon-filled with a coating, you do not need to change them.

If the glazing is air-filled and your window frames are in good condition, you could consider new double glazing inserts where only the glass is upgraded and only if the U value is not good, i.e. greater than 2.

You do not need anything other than double glazing for new buildings, which is now better than triple glazing was 5 years ago.

You should not install triple glazing in new builds unless there is a specific reason for doing it. You have built an extreme house such as a passive house, a costly fabric build that will need to block summer energy from entering the home through the glazing.

Also, ensure if you are installing new double glazing windows or inserts, your solar transmittance value is high in retrofit detached houses 74% (0.74) to ensure you allow maximum free light & heat energy into your home; lowering this value will increase your heating bills and lower your energy rating.

The only houses that should fit triple glazing are extreme passive homes where overheating in summer is a very high risk.

This is a challenging question, but suffice to say, the grid will need billions in investments, so the users will pay this on their electricity bills.

It is predicted that electricity prices will double between 2020 and 2030.

For 2021-2026, OFGEM in the Uk has approved £40 Billion in grid investments, not including renewable energy payment supports for wind and solar farms.

Ireland states up to €12.7 Billion in renewable energy supports 2020-2035 and €3 Billion in grid upgrades to 2030.

Jan 2022 Update: as more countries switch to gas power generation from coal and oil power generation, the gas shortage or rather the “increased demand” for gas is becoming acute to the extent that several countries are at high risk of blackouts for many years to come. This has doubled the price of electricity in some countries. As more countries switch to gas power generation through the EU’s 2050 decarbonisation program, it is not surprising that the expected doubling of electricity prices expected by 2030 has already arrived in Jan 2022.

(See more advanced detail in the technical FAQ)

Yes, you can go completely independent.

It is a significant investment, but the annual savings are also considerable.

You will need a backup as a good practice of the design, and that can still be your unused grid connection or a bioLPG green gas generator.

The design with the highest returns will deliver heating, electricity & electric vehicle charging combined.

This can be a new build, retrofit, residential or commercial.

Full Question:

I have a large tourist property with several buildings; I want my own 250 KW renewable electricity system; I have been told that I can only have a small tiny system due to regulations?

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Yes, we can do this to any property, residential or business anywhere in the world once you have space. This is a specialist engineering design well beyond a normal supplier or installer knowledge. You can have 100 MW or any size if you have space.

The perfect design for a new home is, at a minimum, the newly announced 2030 standard, an A1 ZE – Zero Emission (Irl) or A100 Net Zero (Uk).

Ideally, it would be best if you went with a PEB home (Positive Energy Building), and this standard of home can be constructed cheaper with a HONE system than a standard A2(Irl) B(UK) home with a heat pump.

A home with a HONE Thermal/Electric system and backup via micro oil/gas boiler will have the lowest emissions but will be set up for simple conversion to HVO or even H2, Green Gas and other Biofuels in the future.

Homes with HONE are cheaper to build, operate and maintain than any other alternative option available today.

With heating bills as low as €70 per year, nothing else comes close.

We will demonstrate this on your BER or SAP data as part of designing a system.

(See the case study section for more information)

Yes, and this is mainly for retrofit homes or new and retrofit commercial projects.

Using high temperature free renewable heating is becoming one of the biggest new installation measures across the globe. The EU has specifically added Solar Thermal into the new Energy Performance of Buildings recast announced on Dec 15thy, 2021.

HONE Thermal and Thermal/Electric system uniquely hold certification for use in both hot water AND process/central heating systems

(see the technical FAQ for more info)

Fabric will not get you to an A1 Zero Emissions /A100 Net Zero UK result.

The EU/UK energy rating system measures the three imported energy needs coming into your building, whether a home or a large commercial building.

Your building needs heating (or cooling), hot water and electricity. Your energy rating adds up these three imported energy requirements (their primary energy value) and divides them by your floor area. This gives you an energy rating.

To improve your energy rating, you need to reduce the importation of ALL of these energy sources. If you improve fabric, this only impacts your heating energy import, and hence it is hard and very costly to get an excellent energy rating by only targeting one element.

Your hot water and electricity consumption will not change because of fabric improvements or your home’s age.

To get an excellent energy rating, you need to produce your own renewable hot water and electricity, and HONE Thermal/Electric panels hold the world’s highest rating. That is why HONE gets you an easy A1 ZE – Zero Emissions or A100-SAP Net Zero-rating and reduces your construction costs.

Technically, you could get an A1 energy rating with zero insulation as your rating only measures your imported energy needs, not your consumption.

NOTE: An energy rating is not punishing your energy consumption. It is only punishing your imported energy amount and CO2 value.

You can mount the panels on the roof, ground, wall or any structure that can access the sky.

No, and this is one of the key advantages of HONE over any other panel technology.

HONE panels can be mounted facing any direction between east and west and at any angle.

This applies to all our panels thermal and electric.

Yes, our thermal panels are factory pre-assembled, and you lift them out of the box just like flat plate collectors and mount them, making the installation process simple and easy.

HONE Thermal collectors are the world’s only fully assembled vacuum insulated technology.

No, as the manufacturer, we supply distribution and/or installation partners.

However, we provide support to potential customers to design the best project as we have significant skills and resources.

We also provide this support to installers and distributors.

In the UK & Ireland, we have very detailed market support down to regulatory support as well as we own our distribution companies in those markets.

This type of failure has started to surface in “traditional” solar hot water systems installed into large commercial projects. This is primarily to do with the larger expansion requirements of the internal copper elements fixed to commercial non-flexible mounting systems.

There are several documented examples, and HONE has been chosen as the replacement panel for many of them.

HONE thermal collectors are designed for high-temperature operation; HONE collectors are ideally suited to operate within the 100C to 200C operating range and have been specially designed for this operational window.

Unlike standard collectors, which can stress crack at constant high temperatures, HONE collectors are designed for high-temperature operation. They have a low expansion manifold of 1.8 metres, making a HONE system as big as you want, even covering acres of land.

Have a look at our performance data, and you’ll see that even in residential systems, 110C normal operation is typical on days with significant daylight.

“Traditional” solar hot water panels should never be used for high-temperature projects.

SAP is the UK’s national Standard Assessment Procedure for delivering the requirements of the EU EPBD (Energy Performance of Buildings Directive) [this will likely change slightly as Brexit is now complete, but the result will still be the same no matter what the new UK policy is called]. It produces an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC); this certificate is your energy rating. SAP is a software program, and the certificate EPC is produced from the data about your building which is entered into the software.

DEAP is Ireland’s national Dwelling Energy Assessment Procedure for delivering the requirements of the EU EPBD, DEAP is a software program as well, and it produces a similar certificate from the data called a BER (Building Energy Rating) certificate.

Whilst the UK has adopted the EU system in its entirety, and the objectives of all countries in the world are all the same, there is likely to be some variation on this policy due to Brexit having occurred.

SAP & DEAP were both developed by B.R.E. in the UK. Building Regulations and construction methodologies across Ireland, NI, Scotland, Wales & England are virtually identical.

SAP & DEAP are virtually identical platforms in technical detail, but the user interface is different.