This home for sale near York generates its own energy and costs nothing to run

The live-work house is now for sale for £1.5m with Croft Residential and not only is it immaculate, it also runs on renewable energy. Since buying the property, Nick has built a workshop in the grounds and he and Sue have modernised and remodelled the house with new bathrooms and a new kitchen.

The property previously ran on oil but now has air source heat pumps powered by electricity from photo-voltaic panels while solar panels heat the hot water. The renewables also come with two years left on a government incentive. “We have no energy bill and the government pays us £1,500 via the incentive and that is a big selling point,” says Sue.

She and Nick are selling to downsize but she says: “We have loved living here and it has been a fantastic place for the children while growing up. There’s an abundance of wildlife and yet they are only a 10-minute drive from Easingwold and a 15-minute drive from York."

On the ground floor the property has an open plan kitchen/dining/family room, a sitting room. There is also a gym with studio above, master bedroom suite with built-in wardrobes, a dressing room and ensuite bathroom. Bedroom three has an ensuite shower room and there is a study/bedroom four, a house bathroom, utility room, boot room, and double garage with electric roller doors. On the first floor is a double bedroom suite with sitting area overlooking the rear garden. There is also storage in the eaves and an ensuite shower room.

Outside is a large workshop with an office, a timber carport, summer house, breeze house, log store, tool shed, a lawned rear garden with surrounding woodland, lake and boat house and driveway with electric entrance gate.

Sutton-on-the-Forest is a much sought after former estate village renowned for its chocolate box appeal and with historic Sutton Park at its centre. It has an active church, a local pub, bus service and Sutton-on-the-Forest CE Primary School, which is on Main Street.

Contact: Croft Residential, tel 01904 238222, www.croftresidential.co.uk

*Here, Chris Delaney, Director of Yorkshire-based Green Building Renewables, to give us the low down on heat pumps, how much they cost and why they matter. Here is what he said:

Why heat pumps? As the National Grid is increasingly generating power from renewable energy, heat pumps can offer an energy efficient and low carbon method of heating your home. Heat pumps also often work well with solar photo voltaic, aka electricity generating solar PV, and battery storage, enabling greater energy independence and helping future-proof homes. As well as reducing carbon emissions, heat pumps can also potentially offer a cheaper form of energy for homes in rural areas that are off mains gas grid and rely on stored oil or LPG for heating.

How do heat pumps work? Air source and ground source heat pumps absorb heat from the outside ground or air and convert that into heat and hot water for your home. Heat pumps use reverse refrigeration technology to deliver an energy multiplier effect. The efficiency of how the heat pump converts electricity to heat using the refrigeration process is called the Coefficient of Performance (CoP). For example, if a heat pump system has a CoP of three, then for every 1kWh of electricity used to run the system you will potentially get 3kWh of energy for heating. Typical CoPs for air source heat pumps are around 3.5 and for ground source heat pumps CoPs are around 4.5.

Ground or air source? There are two main types of heat pump available: Ground source heat pumps rely on absorbing the heat from under the ground using cables that are buried one metre underground in 50 to 100 metre lengths. Ground source heat pumps are more efficient and have a greater CoP than air source systems as the temperature of the ground is fairly constant. However, ground source pumps do require a large outside space for all the pipework, the equivalent of half a football pitch. Typical system costs are £20,000 to £25,000.

Air source heat pumps involve a small-sized unit being located outside close to the building. Air source heat pumps are not as efficient as ground source in terms of converting electricity to heat but they are about half the price and do not require a huge amount of outdoor space. Typical system costs are £10,000 to £12,000.

Things to consider: At present, the running costs of a heat pump are roughly on a par with heating your home with mains gas. However, if you are off grid and replacing LPG or oil-fired heating, heat pumps are almost always cheaper to run.

Heat pumps aren’t always suitable for every property. For a larger uninsulated property, the heating demand could be so high in winter that the lower temperature heat pump system would need unfeasibly large radiators to keep the space warm. In such a case, we would recommend insulation and airtightness measures before installing a heat pump.

Financial support: The Government’s s Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) scheme is due to end in March 2022. It works by making payments to householders over a number of years ranging from between £6,000 – £10,000, depending on the amount of renewable heat generated. The RHI will be replaced by a new Government grant scheme starting this month, April 2022, which offers homeowners upfront payments of £5,000 for air source and £6,000 for ground source pumps. The grant will not cover all installation costs.