£100 a year heats a six bedroom house

But what's even more surprising is that it's a six-bedroom house yet the cost for central heating and hot water is just 60-70p a day.

Owner Garry Woods said this week that the fuel bill to maintain a year-round comfortable shirt-sleeve indoor temperature, regardless of the weather outside, and to supply his family of four with constant hot water since they moved in at the beginning of this year has been less than £100. Over the past 20 days it has set them back no more than a tenner.

Building an environmentally friendly new house in part of the garden of his 300-year-old cottage next door has turned out to be a life-changing experience for the 42-year-old former telecommunications consultant.

He first applied for planning permission in 1998 after he discovered he had a life-threatening heriditary liver disease.

He explains: "I knew I'd have to give up my company and I'd have no income coming in for a year or so but I'd had an offer for the land and I thought the sale of the land would help to tide me over."

However, the sale of the land fell through after planning permission was grantedin 2000 but by Continued on page 41 then he'd had a successful transplant. He points out: "When you've been given weeks to live, money or the lack of it loses some of its importance. Quality of life is the main thing. So when I lost the buyer I thought why don't I have a crack at this myself and go down the green route."

Since then, all his energies have been directed, not just at building himself a house which wastes not an atom of precious energy, but also with the longer term aim of convincing developers and the world at large that green sustainability is the only way forward for housebuilding.

During long months of research while he was recovering from his operation he searched the UK and European markets for products that could deliver renewable energy as part of an integrated heating system.

"I found most manufacturers only focussed on their own product," Garry reports, "they had no interest in how it could be linked to other products from competitors to provide the ultimate intelligent heating system. What it amounts to is these companies all do their own little bit but that's it."

Garry has now used the design skills he employed to install sophisticated phone systems for multi-national companies to take forward his crusade to create a healthy living environment in British homes for minimum running costs.

As a first major step, along with setting up his Greentec company, his house has become a test bed for the fully-automated integrated heating system he has designed. He points out: "All the products I've used are available on the market individually but so far as I'm aware I am the first to design the linking technology."

The system provides underfloor heating on three floors through the cold months and generates cool air in the summer.

Although Garry's concept has yet to reach its potential for a totally cost-free heating supply through the added assistance of solar power, Garry has already designed sustainable heating systems for the first three clients of his new company one is building a large new house in Gerrards Cross, another is building near Gatwick and the third is a client with a plot near Poole in Dorset.

This weekend, the Woods are expecting a visit from Beaconsfield MP Dominic Grieve. Garry says it will be the first time he has explained his thesis to an outside observer. "Until now we haven't done any marketing. The clients have come from word of mouth."

The three main components of the system installed in Twin Oaks are a Swedish heat pump the size of an upright fridge in the boiler room, 600 metres of coolant-containing pipe laid in a loop a metre underground in the garden and a heat recovery kit in the loft.

Basically speaking, the pump takes the heat from the underground store and pumps the coolant through the system up to the heat recovery kit where the heat from the stale air is extracted to warm the fresh air coming in. Garry explains: "Air continually circulates throughout the house and it's changed every two hours. It's the ideal environment for asthma or allergy sufferers because the air is virtually dust free and it can't create a breeding ground for dust mites.

"We are not burning fossil fuel here so you get no poisonous gases. The heating gets hotter as weather gets colder outside. The reverse happens in summer. the house gets colder as the weather gets warmer. The system takes heat out of the fresh air coming into the house. The warmth is pumped down into the subterranean store where it is saved for the following winter, helping to reduce the amount of work done by the pump.

"The cooling works for as little as ten pence a day and on the coldest day this year the heating cost 80p."

Garry is already working on his mark II house which will incorporate solar panels and a hidden wind turbine for which he is applying for a patent.

"Surveys have shown that buyers are prepared to pay more more for an environmentally friendly new home so long as it doesn't change the way they live their lives and they're fuel bills will be almost nothing," says the environmental entrepreneur, He added: "People looking for our house expect to see something built of steel and glass with a grass roof. They don't expect to see a cottage that's not that much different externally from the one that's 300 years old next door."

then he'd had a successful transplant. He points out: "When you've been given weeks to live, money or the lack of it loses some of its importance. Quality of life is the main thing. So when I lost the buyer I thought, why don't I have a crack at this myself and go down the green route."

Since then, all his energies have been directed, not just at building himself a house which wastes not an atom of precious energy, but also with the longer-term aim of convincing developers and the world at large that green sustainability is the only way forward for housebuilding.

During long months of research while he was recovering from his operation, he searched the UK and European markets for products that could deliver renewable energy as part of an integrated heating system.

"I found most manufacturers only focused on their own product," Garry reports. "They had no interest in how it could be linked to other products from competitors to provide the ultimate intelligent heating system. What it amounts to is, these companies all do their own little bit but that's it."

Garry has now used the design skills he employed to install sophisticated phone systems for multi-national companies to take forward his crusade to create a healthy living environment in British homes for minimum running costs.

As a first major step, along with setting up his Greentec company, his house has become a test bed for the fully-automated integrated heating system he has designed. He points out: "All the products I've used are available on the market individually, but so far as I'm aware I am the first to design the linking technology."

The system provides underfloor heating on three floors through the cold months and generates cool air in the summer.

Although Garry's concept has yet to reach its potential for a totally cost-free heating supply through the added assistance of solar power, Garry has already designed sustainable heating systems for the first three clients of his new company one is building a large new house in Gerrards Cross, another is building near Gatwick and the third is a client with a plot near Poole in Dorset.

This weekend, the Woods are expecting a visit from Beaconsfield MP Dominic Grieve. Garry says it will be the first time he has explained his thesis to an outside observer. "Until now we haven't done any marketing. The clients have come from word of mouth."

The three main components of the system installed in Twin Oaks are a Swedish heat pump the size of an upright fridge in the boiler room, 600 metres of coolant-containing pipe laid in a loop a metre underground in the garden and a heat recovery kit in the loft.

Basically, the pump takes the heat from the underground store and pumps the coolant through the system up to the heat recovery kit where the heat from the stale air is extracted to warm the fresh air coming in. Garry explains: "Air continually circulates throughout the house and it's changed every two hours.

"It's the ideal environment for asthma or allergy sufferers because the air is virtually dust free and it can't create a breeding ground for dust mites.

"We are not burning fossil fuel here so you get no poisonous gases. The heating gets hotter as weather gets colder outside. The reverse happens in summer. the house gets colder as the weather gets warmer. The system takes heat out of the fresh air coming into the house. The warmth is pumped down into the subterranean store where it is saved for the following winter, helping to reduce the amount of work done by the pump.

"The cooling works for as little as ten pence a day and on the coldest day this year the heating cost 80p."

Garry is already working on his mark II house which will incorporate solar panels and a hidden wind turbine for which he is applying for a patent.

"Surveys have shown that buyers are prepared to pay more more for an environmentally friendly new home so long as it doesn't change the way they live their lives and their fuel bills will be almost nothing," says the environmental entrepreneur, He added: "People looking for our house expect to see something built of steel and glass with a grass roof.

"They don't expect to see a cottage that's not that much different externally from the one that's 300 years old next door."

Greentec can be contacted on 01753 891642 or visit Greentecsystems.co.uk