Category: Ecoretrofit
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Procrastination – the enemy of energy efficiency
I have a confession to make, my boiler is over 15 years old and spectacularly inefficient. Not a very good thing for Ecoalex. According to SEDBUK the database of boilers it operates at about 65% efficiency. A new condensing boiler could work at about 90% efficiency. I have known this anecdotally for about 3 years…
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What can I do to reduce my power bills? – top ten tips (and a small rant)
When I am out talking to people about their homes the biggest concern they have is not the environment but how much money they are spending on gas and electricity. The announcement of a 9% price hike by Scottish and Southern Electricity is probably just a precursor to more increases from the other energy suppliers…
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Thermal blinds
Catching up with a few things round the home today and finished installing my new thermal blinds in the bedrooms. These serve two purposes, they are blackout blinds to keep out the light from buildings behind and they also thermally regulate the rooms. I got the blinds from Blinds 2 Go, whilst the blinds…
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Rain not just good for ducks
The green roof I built in Hertfordshire last year has put on a remarkable growth spurt in recent weeks: I am very pleased with how it looks now. We had been experimenting with a micro irrigation system to keep it watered in the hot months but this has been redundant given the weather lately. In…
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Simple ways to improve the efficiency of your home – Part 2
The second and possibly shorter post on improving your home. Water efficiency Start with your water companies website and see what you can get for free from them. My local company Thames offer a few here. I suspect that like the energy companies they don’t do this out of the kindness of their hearts but that…
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Simple ways to improve the efficiency of your home Part 1
This is based on my recent talk at the London Green Fair and includes links to extra information and websites that may be useful. The ideas here are deliberately simple and hopefully easy for most people to follow at home. There are no numbers, U values and technical terms, just ways for you to make your…
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Loft insulation with clutter part 2
So a slow update, didn’t take long to get the stilts in but got caught up in other projects and only just returned to writing this up. The stilts arrived in a timely manner, they are made of recycled plastic and feel very tough. We then spent most of the day preparing the loft and…
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Mini green roofs
I am giving a short talk at the London Green Fair next month on building your own green roof so I have been looking around for examples. They are starting to appear all over the place now. Near my home in Lambeth there is a lovely community roof on some garages where they grow wheat…
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Loft insulation with clutter
I have just started working on a little project to insulate a loft without losing the storage space in the loft for my company Ecoalex Ltd. Like most people in London my customer has a lot of junk in the loft and doesn’t want to lose it as a storage space. We are planning to…
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Green roof workshop
Just returned from a great green roof workshop organised by Ben Kimpton at The Ecology Consultancy. The workshop was by Gary Grant and Dusty Gedge of The Green Roof Consultancy and covered green roofs and living walls. Some interesting elements included popular myths and why they aren’t true: Fire – The risk of fire is greater on…