Iberdrola , electricity supplier , have certainly hiked the bills up this year despite other problems with money .
Now I am stressed out and am thinking of seeking redress . Back of hand to forehead as I wonder who to try and take to the cleaners . I may have a few years left in me . What a carry on

Install a new high efficient wood burner and solar panels for hot water and watch the electricity bills go down instead

You are right EC , that is the plan for later in the year . We have approximately 8 tonnes of wood to carefully drop onto our plot . I meant to say place onto our plot . There is the o/s kitchen and the house to avoid if at all possible . Solar panels cost don´t they ?

8 tonnes of wood would last me 2 years and a high efficiency wood burner gets a grant of 30% in Andalucia as do the solar panels. Solar panels fully installed with all the extras does come out at a bit over 2k but they are my next purchase.

Will try out our province for grants , you never know .

You've got a HE woodburner? are you inland/mountains or coastal? How many weeks of how many hours a day would 8 tonnes see you for 2 years? Forgive the detailed questions, I'm not trying to be cynical/sceptical, I'm just a huge believer in the green option wherever possible but it needs to be realistic. The initial cost of the HE woodburner approx? Do they ever have back boilers in Spain? Do you reckon you would get some use out of the solar most months of the year? don't they get a grant too? what about photovoltaic? and/or for pool water?
No doubt some wag is going to point me at a search & I should have found all this is available already

Hi Fiona, one of these - http://www.hergom.com/pr_es_es_shell...ha/Shellburne/ - we are sort of inland and have had a few nights down to minus 2. The fire has been alight constantly since mid November and is still alight. 24/7 throughout the winter although it will tick over or roar out huge heat when wanted. Initial cost all installed with new brick surround and metal flue was around 3k but something had to be done as the old fireplace and chimney was beginning to fail structurally. I have heard of back boilers but they are not common. Most people reckon we will get all hot water needed for 8 months of the year and more during the winter months when the sun comes through. Solar panels get grant from same scheme as the HE wood burner. You see from the tech data in the link, the Shellburne is rated at about 75% efficiency and few get that high. Individual PV is rather too costly for my taste at the moment although there are a few fields put over to it locally. As for the pool, I find a solar cover (big blue bubble wrap) gets the water up to well over 30 if we want it in the summer, conserves chemicals and water and extends our swimming season by quite a few weeks either end.