Ecobuild 2010 in London

by Jamie on February 25, 2010

Next week sees Ecobuild, the “biggest event in the world for sustainable design, construction and the built environment”, coming to Earls Court in West London.

There will be around 850 exhibitors present covering both new build and refurbishment, residential and commercial properties.

This should be a great opportunity to get up close and personal to the materials and technologies which will be used in refurbishing your home.

The event runs from Tuesday 2nd March to Thursday 4th March. Tickets are free but you need to register.

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Fridge Freezer Temperature

by Jamie on February 23, 2010 · 1 comment

I picked up a bunch of thermometers this week for TTSN people to check their freezer and fridge temperature. These thermometers are cheap as chips (and apparently reasonably accurate – thanks WRAP) and could save you a tidy little sum if you’ve been overchilling your food. I’ve just popped one in the freezer compartment and it seems to be reading -19 degrees. According to Iceland (and they should know)…

Star rating Location Temperature Storage
* Ice box -6 degrees 1 week
** Ice box -12 degrees 1 month
*** Ice box -18 degrees 3 months
**** Freezer -18 degrees Long term

So apparently I can store frozen food long term but I don’t really need the freezer compartment as I buy all my food fresh, in small quantities, and eat it straight away. But I can’t turn the freezer part off and leave the fridge part on.

So what about switching the whole thing off? In winter I could get a cool box and stick it in a shady spot out on the balcony – you don’t want your food (or indeed beer) to be frozen and thawed as would have happened quite a lot this year so a cool box should provide a bit of a buffer.  In summer I think I’d need to switch it back on, but if I could switch it off for half the year…? It seems some are already trying it.

Of course you don’t want to save CO2 by cutting your fridge or freezer consumption if your food is going to spoil and be wasted.

I’ve stuck my fridge freezer on a plug in electricity meter to see what it consumes over 24 hours on its current setting. I’ll then increase the temperature and see what the difference is – empirical science going on right here, just for you lucky people!

1st Results – OK over the last 24 hours my fridge got through 0.4kWh, very roughly suggesting consumption of 145kWh and 80kgCO2 per year. But I checked the temperature in the freezer compartment at one point and it was down to -14. This was towards the end of its off cycle and I’m guessing the -19 reading was taken somewhere around the end of the on cycle. I’ve cranked the thermostat from “3” to “4” and we’ll see what happens (I’m not even sure if it’ll make it colder or warmer at this point).

2nd Results –  Consumption over 24 hours at the “4” setting was 0.54kWh, a 35% increase. Next I switched it up to “5” and consumption increased to 0.71kWh, a 30% increase again. I’ve now turned it down to “2” and we’ll see how it goes.

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Cheap Loft Insulation!

by Jamie on February 20, 2010

Just saw a B&Q ad offering 3 rolls of loft insulation for £2.50, up to 18 rolls per customer allowed. This is a really good chance to top your loft insulation up if you haven’t already. Find your nearest store here. I doubt this offer will be around for long so be quick.

This insulation is being subsidised by the Carbon Emissions Reduction Target programme which requires energy suppliers to fit energy efficiency measures in UK homes.

Edit: Tim also pointed out this npower offer.

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Landlord’s Energy Saving Allowance

by Jamie on February 16, 2010

For those of us who rent there are much fewer options open to us when it comes to reducing our CO2 emissions in the home. The no cost and low cost measures are well within our grasp and they can make significant savings, but to make bigger cuts money needs to be invested.

As a renter, there is little incentive to invest in energy efficiency measures as you may only be living there for another year or two, and your landlord may not be interested in improving the energy efficiency of the homes they own because they don’t pay the bills.

To help break this Catch 22, there is a nice little incentive to tempt your landlord into making that investment: the Landlord’s Energy Saving Allowance (LESA).

This is a tax deduction which allows a landlord to reduce their taxable income by the cost of certain energy efficiency measures up to a value of £1,500 per house per year.

The measures covered by the LESA are:

  • Cavity wall insulation
  • Loft insulation
  • Solid wall insulation
  • Draught proofing
  • Hot water cylinder insulation
  • Floor insulation

Other measures such as double glazing and boiler replacement may be entited to other tax deductions.

If your landlord fits loft insulation, floor insulation and draught proofing in your home and it costs, say £1,000 in total, they can deduct £1,000 from their taxable income at the end of the tax year.  If they pay tax at 40%, the insulation will end up costing them £600 rather than £400, if they pay tax at 20%, the insulation will end up costing them £800.

The LESA is open to both individual and corporate landlords (although it cannot be claimed if the let is under the Rent A Room Scheme or a holiday let) and will run until 1st April 2015.

As energy prices continue to rise, renters will become increasingly interested in the energy efficiency of prospsective homes. Landlords now have to show an Energy Performance Certificate to potential new renters and by taking steps to fit insulation and other energy efficiency measures, the rating will improve making the home more attractive.

The LESA coupled with the fact that a wide range of energy efficiency and microgeneration measures qualify for a reduced VAT rate of 5%, makes a strong financial incentive for landlords to improve the energy performance of the homes that they own. So get friendly with your landlord and try and persuade them to takes steps to improve your home.

For more information see the DirectGov page.

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Boilers Pt 3 – Boiler Brands

by Jamie on February 10, 2010

Replacing your boiler is an expensive undertaking and it’s not hard to find stories of boilers dying in fairly short order.

Like most things in life, you get what you paid for and boilers are no exception. Cheaper brands are likely to use cheaper components that are more prone to malfunctioning and can easily cost you more in the long run.

But if you buy a good quality condensing boiler and it’s installed and maintained well, there’s no fundamental reason why it shouldn’t have a long life of delivering substantial energy savings. But which boiler brand is best?

There aren’t any scientific comparisons, but the excellent consumer magazine Which? ran a survey (sub required but you can get a one month trial for £1) amongst 3,000 of their members who had purchased condensing boilers since 2005, rating customer satisfaction.

The survey found the highest customer satisfaction came from Vaillant and Worcester Bosch customers. Runners up were Vokera, Potterton, Glow-worm and Baxi.

The boiler scrappage scheme is currently underway, offering £400 for the replacement of a G-rated boiler with a new A-rated condensing boiler. You can find out if your boiler qualifies by checking here.

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Heating Controls Pt 2 – Programmer and Room Thermostat

by Jamie on February 9, 2010

This one often causes vigorous disagreements, but I’m going to stick my oar in and describe how I think the programmer and room thermostat (see Pt 1 for a description of these controls) should be set in a home.

The very quick version is:

1) Work out what the minimum comfortable room thermostat setting for your home is and then

2) Set the heating to come on for as little time as possible

It sounds simple but there are some subtleties to it that I’ll discuss now. Unfortunately there isn’t a great deal of hard research to go on. This is my best guess and I’m happy to hear contrary views. If anyone can dig up proper research, I’d appreciate it.

Now first up, there is some evidence to suggest that if the fabric of the house is cold then you need to heat the air to a higher temperature in order to feel warm. The thinking goes that the additional radiated heat from the walls makes a difference to comfort and as a result, if you let the walls warm up you can get away with a lower air temperature.

This is borne out by plenty of anecdotal tales of people changing from bimodal heating (having it on twice a day) to continuous heating but setting the room thermostat to a lower temperature and reporting energy savings while still being comfortable.

Unfortunately it’s very difficult to compare two different heating patterns because your home’s energy consumption is so dependent on the outside air temperature (it is possible though by taking regular meter readings and doing a degree day analysis, but that’s for another time).

Turning your thermostat down does lead to substantial savings. Everything else being equal, heating consumption is cut by about 10% per degree you turn it down. But having your heating on all the time? I’m certain that’s not efficient because you’re heating the home when you’re fast asleep or out of the house and I’m sure you could at least shut it down for a few hours in the middle of the day or night.

If your home is not very responsive (i.e. it takes a long time to heat up), which many solid wall homes are, it might take a long time to heat up the walls and so it might seem like you’re ignoring the second part of the above advice.  might mean that you need to have the heating on for quite a while in order to get the fabric of your home up to temperature.

So here is my patent pending method for setting your heating programmer and room thermostat:

A bit of experimentation is called for…

Stick your heating on for a good length of time on a reasonably chilly day and let the fabric of your house completely warm up and stabilise at a higher than usual temperature. Then start lowering the room thermostat until you get to the lowest temperature at which you are still comfortable. Depending on your home it may take a little while to let the temperature adjust.

Next turn your heating system off and note how long it takes to cool down enough so that you’re starting to feel a wee bit nippy. This is your home’s cooling down time, we’ll call it C. When your home’s cooled down completely, turn it back on and work out how long it takes to get back up to the comfortable temperature. This is the warming up time, W.

You then want to set your heating so that it comes on W minutes before you wake up in the morning and switches off C minutes before you leave the house. Set it to do the same before you get home in the evening / go to bed.

If you have it on any longer than this, you’re heating your home unnecessarily, but do bear in mind that it might take a while to get the fabric of the house up to the right temperature.

Does that make sense? It’s not an exact science but this is the best I’ve been able to come up with. As I said, comments gratefully received!

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

New Transition Town Stoke Newington Website Launched

by Jamie on February 8, 2010

After various problems with the ning site, we now have a shiny new website which is looking very good indeed:

http://ttstokenewington.org.uk

It’s got group pages so you can see the latest happenings in each of TTSN’s gropus, a forum for more live discussions about everything Transition, an events calendar, social networking tools, blogs, video and picture uploads. Basically it’s got it all and it looks lovely. Good work for setting this up Selim!

Go and register, join the Buildings Group (and any others that are of interest) and start communicating! The ning site will slowly be phased out but will be open for a while as people move across.

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Secondary Glazing Pt 1

by Jamie on February 4, 2010 · 4 comments

Many of the homes in Stoke Newington have single glazed sash windows. These leak heat very readily, both directly through the single pane of glass and through gaps around the frame.

Double, or even triple glazing is the most effective solution to this problem. The multiple panes of glass are separated by a sealed gap filled with air or a dense gas such as argon. By completely sealing this gas you get very little movement and this reduces heat transfer.

Air is a very good insulator, as long as it isn’t allowed to move too much, because it is a poor conductor of heat. If it moves, it will transfer heat across a gap through convection. This is exactly how a wooly jumper keeps you warm – the fibres keep pockets of air stationary, keeping the heat in. Argon works even better because it is denser than air and movement is further reduced.

While multiple glazing is the most effective solution (and one we’ll go into in more detail), it’s also a pricey solution and if you live in a conservation area, it may not be an option open to you.

A cheaper solution, and one that doesn’t change the outside of your home, is secondary glazing. This is not as effective as multiple glazing but it does make a substantial difference. By fitting an additional pane of glass or perspex on the inside of your window you save energy in two ways: you cut out the draughts coming in around the frame and the additional pane of glass traps a layer of air that acts as an insulator.

Secondary glazing is often removable, so you can fit it during winter and remove it during the summer. Other types are fixed permanently, opening like the window they are covering.

In part 2 we’ll take a more detailed look at different types of secondary glazing, but before I go, here’s something I haven’t seen before: DIY magnetic secondary glazing. You get a reel of steel tape and a reel of magnetic tape, each with adhesive on the back. You fix the steel tape to the window and the magnetic tape to some perspex.

Does anyone have any experience of this? Seems like it might just work… Would the strips look odd? Maybe if they made the strips white they could merge quite nicely with your window frames.

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Draught Proofing Pt 3 – Easy Draught Proofing

by Jamie on February 3, 2010 · 2 comments

In part 1 we looked at the difference between ventilation (which we need) and draughts (which we definitely don’t need). Then we looked at the ways air can leak out of your home.  Now we can start looking at doing something about it.

There are some obvious gaps to block in most homes. The keyhole and letterbox are prime contenders for your first hit. It’s quick and easy and cheap.

Unused (or rarely used) chimneys should also be blocked as they’re big holes in your home which let the air out easily. You can buy chimney balloons but they’re on the expensive side.  Improvise and let me know what works.

If you live on the ground floor and you have suspended timber floors, it’s likely that you have cold air from the cellar coming up the cracks between floorboards and around the top and bottom of the skirting boards. These gaps can be blocked using a silicone sealant (mastic) which you can get in different colours. This isn’t a quick job but you can do a bit at a time as and when you have a moment.

Lastly (for the moment), check out any pipework that passes from the warm interior to a cold space whether it’s outside or to the cellar or loft.

Your home will have an array of pipes which provide the services that you need (gas pipes, waste water, boiler flues, electricity cabling etc) passing through the structure. These often have holes bigger than the pipes that pass through them and air will leak in and out as a result. You can use either silicone sealant or you can get pipe collars (grommits) that attach to the wall and fit snugly around the pipe. Airtight adhesive tapes might also prove useful.

So there are some starting points. If you want to read more, check out the Energy Saving Trust’s Improving Air Tightness in Dwellings and the Scottish Ecological Design Association’s Design and Detailing for Airtightness.

More to come!

http://www.seda2.org/dfa/dfa.pdfD

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Details of UK Feed In Tariff Announced

by Jamie on February 1, 2010

The overdue announcement of the UK’s Feed in Tariff (FiT) is at last being made by Ed Miliband today, ending a period of uncertainty for the UK microgeneration industry. FiTs have, for the most part, been hugely successful in a wide range of countries around the world and their introduction to the UK is long overdue.

The good news is that it’s looking better than expected; it’s certainly better than the rates proposed in the consultation.

The key to the success of FiTs is that they offer security to people considering making the leap into the microgeneration world. The UK FiT will be have a lifetime of 20 years (25 years for solar photovoltaics) and should mean you can make a return of about 8% on the investment, considerably better than what any bank will offer!

The UK FiT will pay a fixed incentive for every unit of renewable electricity generated by microgeneration systems, whether the electricity is used on site or exported to the grid. The rates paid (detailed here) will vary depending on the technology and the size of the system.

For retrofit solar photovoltaic installations up to 4kW, the initial rate will be 41.3p/kWh (about 5p/kWh higher than the rate put out for consultation which is very good news). The average size of a residential PV installation is about 2kW to 2.5kW. Rates for larger PV installations are lower presumably because economies of scale will start to kick in you’ll get a lower installation cost per kW.

Small wind turbines are also eligible but not recommended in urban locations, along with micro hydro (probably a bit tricky in N16) and anaerobic digestion (ditto).

The announcement also includes details of the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) which is due to be introduced next year. My reading of the press release is that solar hot water will get 18p/kWh but that’s so high I can’t believe I’m reading the table right.

The FiT rate that an individual receives will be constant over the FiT lifetime but for some technologies the rate will reduce for later entrants, so the later you get involved, the lower the FiT paid over the lifetime rate will be. To illustrate, if you buy a PV installation this year you will get 41.3p/kWh, if you buy it in the third year you will get 37.8p/kWh.

On top of the FiT, any electricity you export to the grid also has value. The consultation was proposing to fix the export tariff rate but I can’t see any evidence of that in this press release, but you can search for the best export tariffs on the Energy Saving Trust’s website.

More good news is that the FiT will apply to installations made after July 2008 rather than July 2009 as proposed in the consultation. This is good because it means that some of the early adopters won’t be penalised for being ahead of the curve, although many will. (see update below)

Of course these things don’t come for free though and the cost of the FiT will be shared around all households, with the levy expected to be around £10 per year per household.

This is a fantastic incentive which will give the UK microgeneration industry a much needed boost, however you should really have done everything you can to lower your energy demand before opting for microgeneration technologies. Look at your home’s electricity consumption, insulation, air tightness and boiler efficiency before looking at microgeneration.

Updates:

  • It turns out that the DECC press release has a typo in it and installations made before 15th July 2009 will be ineligible for the FiT. Details can be found in point 179 of the Government’s Response to the FiTs Consultation.
  • The export tariff has been reduced from the proposed 5p/kWh to 3p/kWh
  • FiTs and export tariffs will be indexed to the Retail Price Index so they will rise with inflation.
  • FiT income from domestic installations will not be taxable for the purposes of income tax.
http://www.decc.gov.uk/Media/viewfile.ashx?FilePath=Consultations\Renewable%20Electricity%20Financial%20Incentives\1_20100201131016_e_@@_GovernmentResponsetotheFITsConsultation.pdf&filetype=4

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →