Double glazing

We're almost there with making a decision about double glazing!

We have had four quotes now, all from small, local firms rather than large corporations.

I feel a bit uneasy about the whole UPVC idea; I know it has its issues with the environment, but also, heating your home, only to have that heat leak outside is not a good move either.

We cannot afford hard wood frames, which would be my preference, so this is a time when we will have to compromise.

The one company I feel best about has a recycling policy at least - the glass is all recycled, but not the wooden frames as they have to be careful of lead paint.
Our house was build in 1936, so underneath all the modern paint will be some lead somewhere. Normally, I would burn the wood, at least to get something back from it; but I won't be burning it with the lead paint on it. So sadly, it will end up in a skip and eventually in landfill where it will contaminate the earth :(

I also learned that the manufacturer of PVC windows uses lead to stop discolouration! This will be phased out in 2012 and two of the companies we have had quotes from already use lead-free PVC.

There is so much to learn about making ethical decisions and it still seems to be a case of compromise no matter which way you look!

Grants for wood burner

I asked about grants to install a more fuel efficient wood burner. Here is the answer from Carbon Watchers. It's interesting; I never knew that pellet stoves were funded under renewable energy, but log burners aren't. I need to look into this and decide on our best move:

"In terms of grant help, you could get something towards a pellet stove, but not a replacement log burner.

I know this presents difficulties with the cost of fuel (and availability, to a certain extent) but for some reason they don’t fund log burners as a renewable energy thing (harder to calculate the carbon savings, maybe?).

If you went for a pellet stove you could get £1000 from Gloucestershire County Council (administered by SWEA, if you want further info please see our SWEA website.

You could also get £600 for a standalone pellet stove, or £1500 if connected to radiators/back boiler from the Low Carbon Buildings Programme.

For general info on this option please see our factsheet on wood burners and pellet stoves.

As a recipient of DLA you also qualify for the central government grant “Warm Front”, regardless of your age or income.
They only fund a limited range of measures, and only do heating works when what you’ve got is broken, so unfortunately I doubt they would replace your log burner for something that’s more efficient.

However, if you find you need a replacement hot water cylinder they may well fund this so it could be worth calling them now, explaining the situation and letting them decide whether to send an assessor out. Contact Warm Front for further details or call 0800 316 2805."

Electricity usage review

Here's a funky table that my Carbon Watcher person made for me, along with some information and a graph of my electricity usage since December 2008.

I have to admit, my mind has been on other things lately, but with the 1st of a new month upon us, I'm going to take another reading today and see where we can cut back further:

Date	Elec read	kWh	kWh/day	tCO2
09/12/2008	96207	640	20	0.344
01/01/2009	96661	806	26	0.433
01/02/2009	97467	472	17	0.253
01/03/2009	97939	525	17	0.282
01/04/2009	98464	463	15	0.249
01/05/2009	98927	503	16	0.270
01/06/2009	99430	646	18	0.347
06/07/2009	77
Total		4055		2.177

The kWh for December are pro rata as there was nearly a third of a month “missing” but the kWh per day is real. I’ve put this in to help you see whether your consumption is really increasing, as feared. 1 kWh difference per day is the equivalent of having a 1 bar electric fire running for an hour, or a 60W light bulb on for 16 hours every day - so quite a lot of energy really! If you’re already pretty on top of your electricity use (and I think you are) I think you’re right to query the immersion heater.

Don’t be disheartened about the increase in electricity usage – it’s only a 5% variance and as your footprint was tiny to start with it was always going to be harder to see any savings made.

Since the beginning of Carbon Watchers in December 2009 you’ve been sending us
monthly readings from your electricity meter. From this we have calculated
your carbon emissions over the last seven months as follows:
•
You’ve used 4,055 kWh of electricity, which equates to 2.2 tonnes of carbon
emissions. That’s enough to fill 12 double-decker buses! To offset this amount of carbon you’d
need to plant 9 trees and maintain this number to keep the carbon locked away.
The graph below shows the pattern of your carbon emissions from electricity:

Update half way through

This morning I received a 'half way through' letter from the Gloucestershire Carbon Watchers team.

It reminded me of the things I said I could do, so now it's time to review! We were also asked to redo our Act On Co2 carbon footprint calculator to see how we are doing.

Unfortunately, my carbon footprint is going UP! I don't understand it really.

In January, when I started the plan; we used 4.72 tonnes, split up as follows:

Home 0.44
Appliances 2.53
Travel 1.75

This morning I had 5.01 split up as follows:

Home 0.51
Appliances 2.75
Travel 1.75

The things I said I would look into at the beginning of the year were:

• purchase another water butt - DONE; we now have 4 altogether
• Look into cost of dimmable low energy bulbs - DONE; we've decided to use LED and have a small solar panel to run them
• Get another quote for double glazing - Will get DH to do that today and hopefully we'll be able to make a decision on whether to go ahead with it
• Consider selling one car - We don't use it anyway, so although it should be sold it's not contributing to our carbon footprint
• Draught proofing back door - Glos Carbon Watchers have just offered us some free draft proofing, so we'll take them up on the offer
• Consider changing wood burner for more efficient model - we need to get some quotes on this and look into a Warm Front Grant
• Look into costs for installing Eco Dan air source heat pump - need to get on with this
• Read electricity meter once a month - I need to get back into DAILY readings as I'm shocked at our usage. I've just gone through the last 5 months and found the following:

FEB 472
MAR 525
APR 463
MAY 503
JUNE 647

I know I've got slack with taking readings and DH has been leaving the printer and router on all night. In addition I think the thermostat has gone in the hot water tank as the water is scalding. My challenge is that DH LIKES the really hot water so never does anything about it or perceives this as anything 'wrong' **sigh**

What I'm going to do is drag out the OWL meter and the Kill-o-watt and start using it again to see if I can find any other culprits. I'm annoyed because we are now using solar energy for some of our lighting and was kind of hoping to see some changes. I knew they wouldn't be huge, but just a little would have been nice.

Here's my todo list then

• power down router and printer at night
• take daily meter readings
• use OWL and kill-a-watt
• consider bikes for short journeys
• Reconsider tankless water heater for kitchen sink
• Get service done on the car
  
• Check tyre pressure on car fortnightly
• Complete LED lighting around the home