Category: Ecoretrofit

  • Home Energy Masterplans

    I have nearly completed my training to become a Home Energy Masterplan surveyor for Parity Projects. This seems to be the perfect complement to the rest of my work as it provides detailed energy modelling for each house. Their masterplan covers energy use in the home in tremendous detail, modelling the energy performance in the…

  • Eco audits

    I have completed Eco audits on a few houses now for Ecoalex and thought I might share with you some of the things I have learnt. Most people so far have been more interested in getting their houses warmer rather than saving money. Their houses are failing on the most basic of functions, keeping the…

  • Energy savings from insulation project

    I have just got the energy bills from my first insulation and draught proofing project for www.ecoalex.com and they are excellent: This was for a four bedroom detached house in Hertfordshire and we carried out the following measures in November/December last year: Draught proofed each room around skirtings, windows and other holes Added temporary secondary…

  • Flash workshop

    I have joined the Flash programme funded by the Institute of Sustainability. It is supposed to help me take advantage of the low carbon economy http://www.instituteforsustainability.co.uk/flash.html I guess I will find out about that over time but the first workshop was useful. I went to a retrofit workshop at the Mayville Community Centre in Islington. This was still…

  • Blinds and curtains, a traditional solution

    I have been having quite a long chat with Roz from Little Purple Dot about windows. She has sash windows with brushes installed but still finds they are draughty. Obviously the most effective thing to do would be to add secondary glazing or replace the windows, however secondary glazing looks a bit ugly and new windows…

  • Sign of the future…

    All the estate agents I have seen in Brittany list the energy certificate in the window alongside the house details. Some of them even include predicted emission levels for the houses. Certainly makes some of those cottages look tricky to keep warm.

  • Will making my house green save me from the zombie apocalypse?

    I was pleased to see lots of discussion of the zombie apocalypse on twitter the other day, all sparked by this blog from the US Centre for Disease Control http://blogs.cdc.gov/publichealthmatters/2011/05/preparedness-101-zombie-apocalypse/ So I was thinking about how the zombie apocalypse might affect my business of eco retrofitting, pretty badly I think and I am not sure…

  • Green roof update

    Just a quick one, not finished yet but the roof is progressing nicely, we have the sedum in place for the middle of the roof and drainage channels laid out in pebbles across the rest of the roof. Now all we have to do is add in soil from the garden in the gaps so…

  • Eco retrofit part 2: Insulation

    Work on the house is ongoing and I have been looking at ways of adding extra insulation into the house without taking the walls down. I think if we are going to do the major insulation work it will have to wait for the summer. However we took a picture of the house in the…

  • Eco retrofit

    I have been working on a really interesting eco retrofit project for the last few weeks. The house was built in 1922 as part of a Daily Mail Ideal Home Village for that year and is timber frame with lath and plaster walls and cedar tile cladding. The house has cavity walls which are currently…