Doing our bit...

[mom]

Hello all!

In light of the problems with environment, global warming, water wastage, pollution and such, my wife and I have started to change some of our home and motorhome habits.  I don't wish to debate global warming, as this is being done quite adequately elsewhere, but I am a firm believer that the human race is doing terrible damage to the world in many areas, GW crisis or not, and in an attempt to get one's own house in order, we are trying to do better.

I am hoping that many of you out there can reply to this with suggestions for improvement - tips and tricks if you like.  Unfortunately, the story behind most of the environmentally unfriendly things we do is complex, and after scratching beneath the surface, our solutions are often as bad or worse than that which they try to correct.  This in itself can bring debate.  But that's no reason not to try.

One last thing!... leaving the van at home and catching the train, as an attempt to reduce fuel emissions, might be environmently friendly, but it's not mom-friendly! 

To get the ball rolling, some of the things we have started to do recently...

In the motorhome...
- We use recycling bins if available

- I have started to use "much" less washing up liquid.

- When we travel in winter, we turn the heater down a notch and put a jumper on.

- We don't use electric hook-up in the summer.  Instead, we stay on CLs as much as possible.

- We try to use public transport into towns and cities.  Either local buses if they are near to the campsite, or Park and Ride.

In the home:
- We compost everything we can

- We make sure all lights are off when we're out of the room.

- We put on a jumper rather then a heater (when we can!!)

- We turn off the tap while cleaning teeth

- We wash our cloths on warm, not hot.

- We're avoiding plastic packaged foods when we can (not often in most supermarkets!)

- We have our milk delivered in bottles.

What other "realistic" things could we be doing?

[Brian Kirby]

mom - 2007-03-30 10:58 PM

Hello all!.........................................

To get the ball rolling, some of the things we have started to do recently...

In the motorhome...

- We use recycling bins if available. Agreed.

- I have started to use "much" less washing up liquid.  Agreed.

- When we travel in winter, we turn the heater down a notch and put a jumper on.  Not sure this makes any real difference.  All you do with the vehicle heater is capture some of the "wild" heat from the engine into the 'van.  If you take less to inside, you just dump more outside, via the radiator.  I think you should put that heat to use and travel warm!

- We don't use electric hook-up in the summer.  Instead, we stay on CLs as much as possible.  Probably sound, although you'll burn more gas.  If the CL has "green" electricity, using that and saving the extra gas would probably be better overall.

- We try to use public transport into towns and cities.  Either local buses if they are near to the campsite, or Park and Ride.  Only sound if you accept the bus would run anyway.  Otherwise, walk/cycle is obviously "greenest", and it'll do you good!  Your motorhome would use less fuel for the trip than the bus would, though!

In the home:

- We compost everything we can.  Agreed.

- We make sure all lights are off when we're out of the room.  But do you have low energy lamps in all your fittings?  If not, you could cut your lighting bill by around 75% by changing to these throughout.

- We put on a jumper rather then a heater (when we can!!)  Agreed.

- We turn off the tap while cleaning teeth.  Agreed.

- We wash our cloths on warm, not hot.  Agreed.

- We're avoiding plastic packaged foods when we can (not often in most supermarkets!)  Agreed, but in practical terms, almost impossible!

- We have our milk delivered in bottles.  Lucky you.  However, what is the delivery vehicle?

What other "realistic" things could we be doing?

See comments above +:

Current recommendation for loft insulation is 250mm/10".  If you have less, top up.

If you have uninsulated cavity walls, get them insulated.

If your windows are vertical sliding sashes, and you don't want to lose them, you can get double glass units installed into the existing sashes - at a price - and the sashes re-balanced.  Best "hit" overall with these is to install draft stripping by Ventrolla, or similar, which is superb.

Draft strip all doors/windows.

If the existing windows are knackered, replacement with double glazed is obvious.  However, experiment with the glazing options such a "low E" glass, and possibly with argon filling the cavity.  Also, at not too great an extra cost, you can get laminated glass in the outer pane, doesn't do anything for the emissions, but your friendly neighbourhood tea leaf will get quite a head-ache!

If you have 15mm, or 1/2 inch, heating pipework, see if you can swap the existing radiator valves for thermostatic type.

If your boiler is nearing the end of its life, get a condensing replacement.  If you have a hot water cylinder, consider getting rid of this at the same time by switching to a combi boiler with instantaneous hot water.  Otherwise insulate the cylinder to the hilt.  If your hot water system isn't thermostatically controlled, fit a cylinder stat and wire it to stop the boiler firing when the water in the cylinder is hot.  This can pay for itself in one summer quarter!

If your heating system is knackered, shop for a replacement that provides an optimiser of some sort in lieu of a simple room stat.  Try to get the sunny side of the house as a single zone with the North/East side as the other zone.  Then fit rad valves to the bedrooms on both zones.

Apart from that, consider building a new house to "zero carbon" standard, and make sure you try to select building materials with low carbon footprints.  That should just about do it!

[Mel B]

Brian ... Using the park and ride ... Brian, the bus will be going anyway, taking your motorhome would be an extra trip.

:-S

 

At home, turn off all electrical equipment at the wall socket that you can when not using it, the kettle, microwave, TV, PC etc as leaving them on standby in some instances is as power hungry as if they were being used! 8-)

 

Takes showers, not baths if you can.

 

Do batch cooking - it takes no longer to cook a large pan of bolognaise sauce than a small one, you can then freeze the rest Iin re-usable tubs) and it only needs to be warmed up for a meal, not completely cooked through, so it saves time and therefore fuel, especially if you take it away in the motorhome! :->

[Brian Kirby]

Mel B - 2007-03-31 5:32 PM Brian ... Using the park and ride ... Brian, the bus will be going anyway, taking your motorhome would be an extra trip. :-S At home, turn off all electrical equipment at the wall socket that you can when not using it, the kettle, microwave, TV, PC etc as leaving them on standby in some instances is as power hungry as if they were being used! 8-) Takes showers, not baths if you can. Do batch cooking - it takes no longer to cook a large pan of bolognaise sauce than a small one, you can then freeze the rest Iin re-usable tubs) and it only needs to be warmed up for a meal, not completely cooked through, so it saves time and therefore fuel, especially if you take it away in the motorhome! :->

All good stuff Mel, but I did say re using public transport:  "Only sound if you accept the bus would run anyway".

One thing I forgot to mention is that you can get a green deal on your electricity.  Some of these schemes are a bit of a sham, but there is a deal from Scottish Power called Green Energy H2O, which is a combined gas and electricity package.  The gas is no different, but the electricity is guaranteed to come only from Scottish hydro power stations which, unlike wind turbines, generate all year round.  The scheme is independently vetted, so the claim to supply just hydro power should be genuine.  Thus, although all that turning off would save money, with hydro power, if you forget, it isn't contributing any carbon.

Just one word of caution.  Getting Scottish Power to do this switch using U Switch was the most frustrating catalogue of errors I have encountered for years.  They seem to work out of a Glasgow call centre, so some of them are nearly as difficult to follow as the Mumbai call centre staff!  All very nice helpful people, but seeming to have no influence over Scottish Power's systems.  Whether their accents confuse each other I  know not, but every time I was assured the last error had been corrected, the next communication repeated it, or introduced another.  It seemed all their systems were set to default to a standard combined power package, rather than the hydro power version.  I now have 14 different confirmations from them for one dual fuel switch!  Probably not a record, but they're bl**dy hard work!  Still, I've now got green leccy, so there!  Oh, and there is only a single, combined, direct debit for both.

[mom]

Thanks guys.

 

Yep, I was considering that the bus would run anyway. It seems to me that the most eco-friendly way to move large numbers of people around is buses and trains, but only when they are working to capacity. Buses are often empty. This is such a pity. Trains (intercity) are overfull, infrequent, expensive and unreliable. Hence most people, me included, jump in the car.

 

The big question is "how do we move trains from this to cheap, pleasant, reliable and frequent"?

 

We have insulation but unfortunately live in a Grade II listed house that prohibits double glazing and many other green initiatives (e.g. solar water). I guess they weren't thinking carbon neutral 500 years ago!

 

The Scottish electricty thing confuses me a little. Given that we still have the same wire into the house, then electricity must come from a "national grid" that is fed by many sources. My wife once said, in response to a quip on electricity usage, "Ah! I only use the amps that come from wind farms!" It was funny at the time, but of course there is no way to tell. Electricity usage has always been a hard one for me to understand. If I alone use 20% less, presumably that won't cause less coal or gas to be burned. If we all use 20% less, then I guess that electicity company will burn less coal to match the decrease in revenue and subsequent over-supply of electricity. But on a case by case basis, the leccy is already generated. The effect that we might have on decreasing production by decreasing consumption would be "buffered" and slow, and subject to other factors like the need for the companies to ride peaks and troughs in usage etc.

But back to Scottish leccy... I guess what we're really doing is diverting funds, causing the coal and gas sourced companies to decrease production?

 

 

 

[CliveH]

At last we seem to be able to buy generators for the home. I was staggered some years ago visiting a clients home that had a water wheel. Now not everyone has one of these of course but the generator he installed on the wheel supplied all his needs and contributed to the national grid - he showed me the receipts to prove it!

 

Ruddy marvellous I thought!

 

Since that day I have always thought we have got it wrong to "transport" energy from a to b. Why not generate it at the point of use?

 

A wind turbine, solar panels, ground heat exchange - these are all methods that work and the technology is improving all the time.

 

One requirement tho' is for appliances to be far less energy hungry, and that is happening as well.

 

Does anyone else get a kick out of having a solar panel that trickle charges the caravan (motorhome) leisure battery so that no hook up is required?

 

One other thing that gives me GREAT satisfaction is our Solar Showers. Simple black plastic devices available at any camping shop. We have two, a large one that sits on top of the caravan roof and we use by putting the nozzle down through the shower vent, Piping hot showers in the early evening totally free of charge gets the evening away off to an excellent start!

 

The other one we use for washing up water. But watch out! Last July the water was scolding hot by mid day!!!!!!!

 

SO IF YOU HAVE CHILDREN - BE CAREFUL OF THESE!!!

 

 

(^)

[Brian Kirby]

Michael

Scottish Power undertakes to match your consumption, kW for kW, with the output from its hydro stations.  In practical terms this will be an averaged total, since they have no way of knowing, minute by minute, how much you are actually consuming.  However, what I assume is happening is that an amound equal to your approximate annual consumption is "ring fenced" and not made available to the National Grid to sell on as part of the general power mix. 

For every person who signs up to the H2O deal, therefore, it seems there must be less hydro supplied for general consumption.  Somewhere down the line the full winter peak capacity of the hydro stations will presumably be met, and no surplus will be available to the grid at all.  In summer, the surplus will presumably re-establish and be sold off to the Grid as at present.  As they move towards peak capacity, the demand for electricity from other sources will gently rise, and so, presumably, will its cost.

It is really no more than a way of direct selling from their hydro stations, with a payment to the Grid for transportation.  Presumably the wind farms sell on the same basis but, since the output is less reliable, they must "top up" from other sources when their output falls below demand.

The Grid were quite canny in how they managed supply to meet demand, working on weather forecasts and even TV schedules to forecast general demand and surges.  The priority was nuclear for base load (basically summer nighttime conditions, because the reactors can never be "turned off"), with coal next in line (because it is difficult to switch on/off), then gas (which is easier to modulate), then hydro and pumped storage (which can almost literally be switched on/off) for surges.  I assume wind generation is merely added into the base load mix somewhere above coal, since the output is easy to modulate, the fuel "free", but the capital cost substantial - so necessitating maximum production whenever the wind permits.

Re Grade 2, you should be able to fit the Ventrolla type draftproofing to your windows, if they are vertical sliding sashes, with full agreement from your local Conservation Officer and EH.  I installed them into a whole wing of Somerset House with EH full approval, and that is Grade 1 listed!  You should also be able to install double glazed units into your existing sashes, unless they have the very fine early Georgean glazing bars.  The windows are de-glazed and the glazing rebates routed out to take the thicker DG units.  Done that at the Queen's House, Greenwich, and that is Grade 1 listed and an Ancient Monument to boot.  As I said, it'll cost you though!

[Mel B]

Brian Kirby - 2007-03-31 6:53 PM

p>All good stuff Mel, but I did say re using public transport:  "Only sound if you accept the bus would run anyway".

 

Sorry Brian, must've gone cross-eyed at that point! (why isn't there a cross-eyed emoticon? 8-)

[Guest starspirit]

Brian Kirby - 2007-03-31 6:53 PM

p>All good stuff Mel, but I did say re using public transport: "Only sound if you accept the bus would run anyway".

 

Buses only run on the Isle of Man Brian where they replaced all the tyres with three legged men to cut down on rubber tree exploitation and all the tyres were recycled into padded cell liners ready for as many politicians as we can successfully lock up.

 

 

[Hymer C 9.]

When we can we use our electric bikes which are powered by battery, which is charged via the inverter which in turn is powered via the solar panel so powered free (I think), if not we use the bus or walk this way we see more of the local areas before moving the motorhome on. Carol.

[Brian Kirby]

starspirit - 2007-04-01 9:49 PM  Buses only run on the Isle of Man Brian where they replaced all the tyres with three legged men to cut down on rubber tree exploitation and all the tyres were recycled into padded cell liners ready for as many politicians as we can successfully lock up.

I know Richard, but if I'd said "the bus would roll anyway" you all have thought the bus was about to tip over!

[CliveH]

This is worth a look:-

 

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/02042007/325/winners-global-warming.html

 

That is!!! - supposing it is man that is "doing it" not the sun! and that all of the technology under research to reduce climate change whatever its cause is ineffective :->

 

 

 

 

[breakaleg]

we used the bus, to go from bowness on windemere to ambleside, two adults return £12.60, would have cost less than a fiver in the van including the parking.

pete

[Brian Kirby]

CliveH - 2007-04-02 10:38 AM This is worth a look:- http://uk.news.yahoo.com/02042007/325/winners-global-warming.html That is!!! - supposing it is man that is "doing it" not the sun! and that all of the technology under research to reduce climate change whatever its cause is ineffective :->

Your suppositions do seem a bit contradictory, Clive.  If man is not "doing it", which I assume means contributing, it will presumably happen anyway?  However, if the reverse were true and the technology did work, even partially, then less of it would happen.  I think that is what we've all been saying. ;-)