I've done it all, barring the cavity wall insulation as my walls are 2ft. stone. After the boiler was installed, I read that it will averagely take 12 years to recoup the investment - but I'm not convinced that I've saved myself anything on energy bills.

I think that we have to radically re-think the way we run our homes to make real savings, most are run on lines Queen Victoria would have found familiar!

1. Water is a poor conductor, so we heat it up enough to heat radiators twice a day. The water we want to use for washing we then have to dilute down to a manageable temperature, added to which, in most systems, we waste as much as we use waiting for the hot to draw through after the cold. Most houses have one thermostat to decide how warm our whole house should be.

Why don't we just have an instant water heater at each sink, like the shower ones, and only a cold water system throughout the house? In our house, we all shower daily, so we don't need a bath's worth of water heated twice a day. For heating, we have the technology for a PC not just to monitor the temperature of each room, but also the habits of the household, thus building up a pattern to switch electric/gas heaters on, strictly when needed.

2. Most electrical appliances in our houses work, or could be adapted to work, on 5,6,9,12 volts. Surely it would be easier to wind or sun generate and store say a 12volt system*, rather than all the rigmarole of feeding power back to the grid, which I understand power companies are lukewarm about anyway.

*Yes, I know from another forum that the wiring would be as thick as water pipes!