Category: sustainability
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Sustainable India?
On my holidays at the moment having an amazing time in India. Thought I might try and write something about sustainability. So far I think the natural air conditioning is my favourite. This is from the Red fort in Agra. Nice carvings but the point too look at is the thick walls. These conceal a…
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Green roofs of Verona
In Italy at the moment taking a short break. We went to the opera at the roman amphitheatre in Verona last night. In the cheap seats you have to arrive an hour or two early to get a good position so we had quite a while to look around before the opera started. When you…
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CEEQUAL assessor
Just completed the CEEQUAL assessor course to upgrade to the new CEEQUAL version 5. The course was carried out online which was interesting, it was certainly more compelling than most online courses I have seen before. The new version 5 has a reduced number of sections from 12 to 9 and the layout of the…
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It’s raining meadows
After last weeks exciting pictures of the roof in Hertfordshire there has been even more growth: Even the local wildlife is taking a keen interest: There are also some fungi appearing, will have to get the mushroom book out and see if these are edible ones: It looks like the roof is fairly comfortable with…
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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 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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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…
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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…
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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…