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Creating the green dream
Posted by Cathy Debenham on 16th February 2009 at 9:28 am
Converting your house to low-carbon luxury doesn’t come without a lot of hard work, and vast quantities of attention to detail. Last week I wrote about what Sue Harley and Neil Tappenden achieved in turning their Devon farmhouse into a low-carbon dream home. This week I look at how they did it, an…
Posted in: Energy efficiency, Biomass, Solar heat & hot water
Living the green dream
Posted by Cathy Debenham on 10th February 2009 at 2:15 pm
Comfort and beauty don’t have to go out of the window in pursuit of energy efficiency and low carbon living. It is possible to live in beautiful luxury, with barely a fossil fuel involved. Banish all thoughts of The Good Life, I know it’s true, I’ve just seen the evidence. Recently I visit…
Posted in: General, Energy efficiency, Biomass, Solar heat & hot water
How much do you spend on heat and power?
Posted by Cathy Debenham on 26th January 2009 at 10:42 am
Gas and electricity bills gobble up a significant chunk of income for most of us, but do you know how much you're spending week to week? I didn't, until a few months ago, when I discovered imeasure. By just putting a weekly reading into the site, I can find out how much I spent last week on gas…
Posted in: Energy efficiency
Microgeneration high among Tory proposals
Posted by Cathy Debenham on 21st January 2009 at 9:07 am
Large scale use of renewables are part of the Conservative party's plans for a low carbon economy published last week. With a feed-in tariff, they hope homes, businesses, schools and hospitals will contribute the electricity they produce into the national grid, earning money in the process. To m…
Posted in: General, Energy efficiency
Solar panels are flexible and easy
Posted by Graham Eastwick on 9th January 2009 at 8:35 am
Solar PV (photovoltaic) is a great technology because it is so flexible and easy to manage. In most cases, once you have fitted it and connected to the grid you can forget about it, and watch your carbon emissions and energy costs fall and stay down for the next 25 years or so. One of the many p…
Posted in: Solar electricity
Low-carbon living = improved quality of life
Posted by Cathy Debenham on 2nd January 2009 at 4:21 pm
Part of the difficulty of encouraging people to invest in low-carbon living is the difficulty of imagining what it will be like. Too much of the media coverage paints a picture of deprivation and hair shirts, leaving us shivering at the thought, and tempted to stick our heads in the sand. Now a…
Posted in: General, Energy efficiency
Every home a low-carbon home
Posted by Cathy Debenham on 8th April 2009 at 1:55 pm
Friends of the Earth reacted to Gordon Brown's promise today that he would set out measures to make Britain a world leader in producing and exporting electric cars in this month's budget with calls for investment in renewable energy. "Gordon Brown's electric dream is commendable but essent…
Posted in: General, Energy efficiency
Old homes can be energy efficient: visit a superhome and be inspired
Posted by Cathy Debenham on 27th July 2009 at 9:08 am
Old homes tend to be the worst offenders when it comes to leaking hot air out into the atmosphere. This means higher than average energy bills, and correspondingly high carbon emissions. Often labelled 'hard to treat', older homes can be more complicated when it comes to installing energy eff…
Posted in: Energy efficiency, Heat pumps, Rainwater harvesting, Solar electricity, Solar heat & hot water
Low carbon UK is well down the pecking order
Posted by Cathy Debenham on 17th September 2009 at 11:35 am
How much does the government really care about shifting the UK to a low carbon economy? Not a lot is the only conclusion I can come to from its spending figures. Yesterday's Guardian published a wonderfully simple, easy to read, chart called the definitive atlas of UK government spending, created…
Posted in: General, Energy efficiency
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