Welcome to phase 1 of the new blog! Actually, though I've written about all sorts of adventures from all sorts of places this is the first time there will be a stream of thought about what I'm thinking! A bit different!
I've never been a wasteful person, and as a result I'm on a bit of a personal mission to find out more about living in a more sustainable way. We're all part of the problem, I drive, I fly and I consume, but I feel pretty determined to try to find some answers as to how it is possible to make a difference. Over the past few months I have been researching into ways of reducing the impact I have on the planet, both from a personal and a business perspective. I've been to several conferences including one on microgeneration (which is incredibly interesting from a boat's energy perspective!) and also the One Planet Living conference organised by the WWF. I’m really excited to be working with E.ON to look at ways to make my business more energy efficient.
The past week or so has been pretty busy really. We went to see a sustainable housing development in South London last week called BedZed, and spent the weekend trying out a few new ideas on the energy front. Bedzed was really interesting; amazingly it was designed 10 years ago as a zero energy development – with solar gain for space heating (using the windows), there are office blocks with windows to the north and houses with windows to the south, there is no other space heating whatsoever, and there are roof gardens and grey water treatment. There are other developments I am very keen to have a look at – there is so much learning to do!!
At home in Cowes I have fitted a sun pipe in my flat. It’s designed to let light into the flat through any loft space, creating a skylight effect where you can’t fit a skylight. It’s a small flat glass window on the outside, and a silver foil tunnel bringing light through the roof space or loft to the ceiling of the lower room. In a relatively dark and dingy flat, the feeling has completely changed. The sun pipe brings in floods of light – and for the first time in the day I was able to work at my computer without the lights on! Fitting it was pretty easy – I’ve filmed it – so I’ll get the video online soon. Just a few tiles off the roof, a bit of insulation moved out of the way, a hole in the plasterboard ceiling, then the bottom clipped in!
Awesome.
I’ve also been doing some tests to see what power consumption of a kettle, or a fridge is like… … It certainly depends on the type of kettle you have, but mine costs 0.5p for a pint, which is about right for 2 nice big mugs of tea… Funnily enough I thought that it would cost more than this. I guess if you live alone and have 4 cups of tea a day that’s roughly 1p a day, which works out at £3.65 per year on day time tariff. However if you multiply the kettle by 55 people at work, and 4 cups a day – then you get into the £200 per year area… which if using too much water – that could easily escalate to £400 or £500… that’s quite a lot in a business for teas and coffees!
Have also been looking into the logistics of getting a solar panel for water heating in the flat so that I can try rigging it up with a boiler on the back of my little wood burning stove for the winter… I was hoping that between them they could create a fairly green method of heating the place. I bought the flat seven years ago with night storage heaters, and fitted a wood burner in there straight away. In the winter it’s pretty much all you need and it’s very rare that the storage heaters are even switched on, but I’m looking at sticking a couple of radiators in the two bedrooms to save the storage heaters… I would rather make the use of the heat pumping out of the wood burner…
I have my head full of questions. Which computer charger uses the least power? How much will the induction hob I’ve just ordered save in electricity? How easy will it be to plumb the solar panel into the heating system? Is it better to keep an old car going or buy a new one? ….
And these questions are just my own questions at home… There is the office to be dealt with next!
I’m on the case
