Conservation and renewable energy

I get a number of enquiries about energy in the home.

My best advice is to do a Cambridge Carbon Footprint "Foot print group" http://www.cambridgecarbonfootprint.org/#CCG. As a follow up to the groups, which spend an evening taling about energy in the home, we also provide a network of contacts to support chanbe and a 'House Doctor' scheme were various experts can provide advice and practicle help.

There are a number of options.
You might like to take advantage of the EST free advice
service:http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/ "For free, independent and
local energy saving advice call 0800 512 012"
You can also get free advice from the Centre for Alternative Technology, www.cat.org.uk, 01654 705989. (They may be able to put you in touch with graduates of the the Renewable Energy course working as consultants.)

Cambridge Architectural Research (www.carltd.com, 01223 460475) can provide background and strategic advice on conservation and renewable energy. If you wanted to come to our offices with photos and plans, Jason Palmer and/or myself could provide a couple of hours consultation
for a fee (appx. £200). You would then be in a position to request quotations for installation of the technologies that suite your buildings.

We know of 3 architectural practices in Cambridge who advise on thermal
upgrades, sustainability and renewable technologies.

Granta Architects www.grantaarchitects.com 01223 305550
AC Architects, www.acarchitectscambridge.com, 01223 576315
Ecoways consulting, www.ecoways.org.uk, 01223 654 163

There must be more in Cambridge and region. I look forward to contacts!

Another useful resource is the Association of Environment Conscious Builders, www.aecb.net, who have a data base of local consultants.

We are also aware of some contractors who have contacted CCF:
Dragon Contracts, www.dragonbc.co.uk, 01799 598 086
Hutie, www.huttie.com, 01223 292 295

Some info on energy meters

This list of monitors includes some links to suppliers. It is nothing
like complete.

Plug In Appliance Monitors
I have tried these two:

Westfalia Wetekom Energy Cost Meter
£9.99
It has a small display and will not tell you average consumption as
the 'duration' counter only counts the time the appliance is on.
http://www1.westfalia.net/...

Plug-In Mains Power and Energy Monitor
£27.99
This was the first one we found from Maplin. It is often cheaper
in the shops!
http://www.maplin.co.uk/...

There are now a lot of cheaper units around. I have not tried any
of these:
EcoSavers Energy Meter
£11.99

http://www.smarterproducts.co.uk/...
http://www.ethicalsuperstore.com/...
http://www.biggreenshop.co.uk/...
http://www.allthingsgreen.net/...
http://www.earthwhile.co.uk/...
http://www.ethicalgadgets.co.uk/...
http://www.greenthinking.eu/...
http://www.nigelsecostore.com/...

SMJ Plug In Energy Efficiency Meter

http://www.smjuk.com/...
£12.99
http://www.biggreenshop.co.uk/...
http://www.robertdyas.co.uk/...

ProTeam Plug In Energy Tracker
£15.99
http://www.housemakers.co.uk/...
www.electricity-monitor.com

Plug in power meter
£19.99
http://www.electricity-monitor.com/...

http://www.windtrap.co.uk/...

Power Cost Meter
£24.99

http://www.maplin.co.uk/...

Whole House Monitors
We have tried two.
Electrisave Wireless Energy Monitor
Originally known as the cent-a-meter in Australia and the USA it
has now been been replaced by the OWL. Although expensive, it
demonstrated that smart displays of electricity consumption raises the
awareness of the whole household.
£78.00
Efergy Smart Meter
The first of the cheaper units on the market. We have found them OK.
£44.99
Eco-Eye Mini Wireless Electricity Monitor
£39.99
The latest unit on the market, with a choice of displays. It has
added functions, with historical records and cost predications. A
computer interface unit is in development.

http://www.electricity-monitor.com/

http://www.reuk.co.uk/Eco-Eye-Review.htm
OWL portable wireless electricity monitor
The upgraded Electisave/Cent-a-meter.
£59.95
Wattson Energy Meter
More of a designer object, but includes a computer interface!
£149.99

Email lists

Christmas is with us with all the environmental damage it causes. However, the admirable trend to forgo sending cards for friendly emails may be being offset by the generous use of the cc: button

While its nice to know that I am one of a long list of friends, I may not be so keen to have my address distributed to so many people I don't know. I have nothing against other peoples friends, just their computers. Who knows where they have been and if they practice safe email.

In our fight against spam, we should not send messages to long lists of cc:'s.

It only takes one machine compromised with some viral program (lots are picked up with apparently clean downloads) to have all the addresses posted to Russia and added to a spam database.
(I, on the other hand, knowing these to be quality addresses, will sell them for a good price to the Nigerians.)
The better and simple option is to use bcc:

Bcc: stands for blind carbon copy. Addresses on the bcc: list are not included in the header of the message (with the other to: and cc: names). In fact your own name is not included on the message sent to you, which is why messaged from mailing list quite often seem to only have one recipient, usually the person who sent it.

It should also be noted that long lists of recipients is one of the things that prompts spam filters to reject messages.

E-cards are also sources of addresses for spammers, as the e-card people are known to sell the lists of senders and recipients.

So Happy Christmas to everyone. I will send individual hand crafted massages to people on my list.

Light bulbs

Foolishly, when we refitted the kitchen, we installed a ceiling light fitting that takes the small Tungsten halogen diachronic spot lamps. We had 5, 50w lamps, which made the room sparkle. The tragedy is that once we started worrying about the energy waste, we stopped using them.

However, I have purchased a number of different lamps to try in the fittings.

They were ordered over the internet. They fall in to 3 classes:

Compact florescent:

This is the technology of the ‘low energy’ light bulb.

The package was 5 cm longer than the light fitting.

They were rated at about 7 watts.

They were not focused and did not seem very efficient.

Cold cathode

This is the technology of the ‘neon’ sign.

A little more efficient than the CF and slightly more focussed,

but still in a package that sticks out of the fitting.

Light Emitting Diodes

These come with 15 to 35 little bulbs, packages in the same fitting as the 50w halogen spot, but only rated at 2 to 4 watts.

They provide a tight beam.

They are 2 to 4 time more efficient than the CF and 3 times more efficient than the halogen, but the low power means that they only provide a 15% of the light.

They do have a significantly longer life.

The latest ones have one to three much more powerful LEDs and are said to be more efficient.

Here is what I bought

www.initiallights.co.uk, (Brilux V Series 4 Watt and  Brilux M Series 3 watt.)

www.ultraleds.co.uk, (48 Day Light White leds)

www.ricamstore.co.uk

www.led-lightbulbs.co.uk

www.lighting-direct.co.uk

www.yourwelcome.co.uk

Carbon Offsetting

Carbon offsetting has been in the news a lot, and I have had to update the CCF webpage .
I also wasted some time going to a Cambridge Energy Forum discussion "Carbon Offsets – fix or fig-leaf?", but the debate centred on the technical issues. A common problem here!
So I added this post to the cam.misc topic (Carbon Offsets – fix or fig-leaf?)

" There is another issue with the voluntary offset market, which is about internationality. The concern for offsetting is to reduce personal carbon emissions. To be useful, this has to be part of a programme to make continuing reductions over the time until some target is reached. This should be 60% by 2050, in line with Kyoto as a minimum, or more realistically 90% or about 1.5 tonnes per person by 2030, as suggested by the likes of the Hadley Centre and WWF. Even if you believe in the role of offsetting in personal carbon reduction, the problem comes from the sustainability of the approach. If by 2025 you have reduced your personal emissions by 5 tonnes and offset the rest by purchasing 7 tonnes of offset, you are now totally dependant upon the CDM to maintain your lifestyle! The purpose of carbon trading and capped/validated offsetting is to prompt cost effective emission reductions, so we would expect projects to become scarcer and more expensive as time goes on. So in 2015 you now have to make the carbon savings that you have been putting off. On top of this there are the second order effects of having done so little. Eg.

* Easy jet claims there is still a demand for flying and a second runway is built at Stanstead.

* Tescos still see demand for out of town shopping and continue trash the local trade economy

* There is no demand for domestic renewable energy and the UK industry remains moribund.

So when you need to make changes, there is not a lot more you can do. So while ‘additionallity’ may mean that there is a first order saving, offsetting sends a message to the world that we don’t care about personal reduction and think that we can use the same imperial approach that got us here in the first place. If you want to discuss the moral issues, it would be more useful to read the chapter in heat by George Monbiot’s heat or look at ‘www.cheatneutral.com’

"