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

Theme for June - reducing waste at source

I haven't got time to write much today, so I'm copying some information from the latest I received from Gloucestershire carbon watchers on the theme for June:

This month we’re completing our look at the “three Rs” of reduce, re-use, recycle with the hardest – but also the most effective – reducing waste at source.

Ideas include:

• Borrowing instead of buying through local libraries

• Borrow, hire, buy second hand or make your own (if you can) instead of buying new stuff

• Buy the most durable items you can afford. Items that last may become family heirlooms or priceless antiques!
  

• Regular cleaning, care and maintenance can extend the life of many products.

• Buy things with simple mechanisms that may be easily repaired, for example mechanical rather than electronic
  

• As well as avoiding disposable products, check that items you buy do not rely on disposable parts, for example can the cartridges for a new printer be refilled?
  

• Shop for food with a meal plan in mind: over a third of the food bought in the UK ends up in the bin. Visit www.lovefoodhatewaste.com for tips.

Lots to think about then and plenty of ideas to get us started. I'll look forward to this month's challenge!

No idea what has happened to the text - I'm not very good with blogger!

Water conservation and solar charger

Back in April, we focused on reducing water usage. You might remember that there was little I felt I could do for that as well. We are not on a meter, so I had no way of knowing if we used less or not. Hubby has a penchant for leaving the water running when brushing his teeth and flushing the toilet every time he has a pee.

Anyway, we have repaired two water butts AND bought our fourth! I'm really pleased and this week, they all filled well from the rain we had. So now I have four full rain barrels and I feel very abundant!

While we were buying our barrel (a 200 litre recycled barbecue sauce container no less!) we priced up some large water tanks. We are toying with the idea of making our own 'grey water' system for the downstairs toilet.

We have a flat roof, which would be ideal for strengthening (it needs repairing anyway, so we could combine jobs). Then we could put a big tank on the roof and gravity feed the cistern. Hubby used to be a water treatment engineer, so I'm in good hands and trust him to figure it out.

I was horrified to realise, that unless I have a bath or use the washing machine, my biggest use of water is flushing the toilet. That just seems wrong when people in the world do not have access to safe drinking water.

In addition, we had a really dry time here during April and the beginning of May. All the barrels were empty and we had planted all our seeds. So we made use of our local stream! It was a great exercise for our daughter; having to go out first thing to gather a big bucket of water. She enjoyed it, and it was a great way to introduce her to the idea that not all people are as fortunate as us.

My other piece of news is that I WON the reuse competition! My idea of using an old coffee pot, piercing a hole in the lid and using it to store string without it getting tangled won me a Freeloader Solar charger for the car. We can use it for the mobile phone and Tom Tom, which is great and means I don't have to charge these items up from mains electricity in the house. Invariably the chargers get left on once the item is charged up and apparently this can waste quite a lot of electricity.

I'm just familiarising myself with the Freeloader, so I'll write a full review when I've had chance to test everything out.

May - Reduce carbon emissions by car sharing

Goodness, I'm late! It's nearly the end of the month already, so it's time to report on May's focus for Carbon Watchers.

This month it was entitled "Don't drive one in five" with the reminder that if everyone found another way to travel to work or school just one day a week, there would be 20% less traffic on the roads.

Makes perfect sense to me.

Unfortunately, there was little I could do for this challenge.

First, we don't do a school or work run. When we did a school run, it was impossible to get anyone to car share with us and it was very frustrating. Four families from our village drove to a school in the next village - we all HAD to drive, it was a main road and notorious for speeding lorries. All the parents wanted to take their own kids to school every day. Sometimes we would even be on the road in a convoy and it used to infuriate me!

Second, we try and give our neighbours a lift if we are going anywhere. We have a family across the road without a car and with lots of children, so we help out if we can. Our neighbour on the other side is an elderly lady who never learned to drive, so we take her to the shops too, if she wants us to.

Third, I am unable to use public transport, use a bike or walk far because I have anxiety attacks. Basically, having my car provides a 'quick getaway' if I feel threatened.

I have to accept that this is the way things are for us right now.

However, our yearly mileage is below average. We do between 6 and 7,000 miles per year. I think the average is 12,000.

I would like to walk or cycle more and it's something I'm building up to, but it's very difficult right now. So we do what we can - only go out when necessary, combine errands, take our neighbours with us, and have traded our thirsty 4x4 for a car which gives us between 45 and 60 miles to the gallon.

There are various car share schemes which links drivers and passengers to share regular or occasional journey. These are great for those who can take advantage of them and ideal in an office situation where everyone starts and ends their day at the same time.

In Gloucestershire, we have Car Share Gloucestershire Across the UK there are various schemes, such as Car Share , National car share and Lift Share.

Theme for the month - April showers!

I'm really pleased that I have the April challenge through already for Gloucestershire Carbon watchers. Before the challenge to the month has come half way through the month which doesn't leave me long to focus on things and look at where I could make some changes.

This month, we're looking at water and are encouraged to make the most of the upcoming April showers. Apparently, we could all fill around 450 water butts per year in the UK with the average amount of rainfall which falls in our gardens!

Well, we have three water butts already, and I'm going to go out and check them later on today. I know one is sound, as I used it the other day, but I need to check the integrity of the others. I'd like a couple more water butts, but I'm not sure if I have anywhere to put them - so I need to take a walk around the garden and do some planning.

We're also asked to check any leaks in the house (we don't have any as drips and leaks drive me insane!) but I am without a kitchen tap - it has a spanner on it! I would love to get that fixed this month, although, to be honest, it's only a cosmetic thing.

One thing DH is really bad at is running the tap while he brushes his teeth. I've chatted to him about this, but he refuses to budge, so I'll just have to put up with it. Unfortunately, he doesn't have the incentive to cut back because we are not on a meter. I'm sure it would be a different story if he were paying for every drop! Still, he is amazing with most of my hippy ideas, so I won't complain.

One project we have for a long term goal is to gather rainwater from our bathroom roof (its flat) and use it to flush the toilet. another thing I could do is capture my bath water and use it to water the plants. If I do this, I could make up for DH's tooth brushing antics :D

We have 3 baths a week, which isn't excessive for a family of 3, but I have plans to put a shower over the bath to make showering an option too.

I only use the washing machine when full to capacity and it's an economy machine. I know it still uses loads, but it uses less than some.

I think there are many ways in which we could reduce our water usage and I'll see what I can implement this month. of course, I won't actually be able to tell from a water meter or anything, but at least I know i'll be doing my bit.