August 2011 Archives

Chris and Harriet Martin live in Bournville, in a semi detached house built in 1932. It looks like any other house of its era from the outside, but hides a wealth of sustainable measures that keep the house cool in summer and cosy in winter, at a fraction of the cost. And on September 9th, 10th and 11th, they are opening their doors to others, to inspire them into making similar changes in their homes.

The house is very well insulated - the cavity walls, loft and floor have been done to the highest standards, and all windows are double glazed. Heat is provided by a condensing gas boiler, a smokeless wood-burning stove and solar hot water panels. Solar photovoltaic panels cover the remaining electricity consumption, which is lowered thanks to a combination of low energy lighting and low energy appliances.

Their iMeasure readings from the past year demonstrate how much of a difference these changes have made. The average person living in the UK will use around 7665kWh per year on energy in the home*. In the case of Harriet and Chris, the photovoltaic panels should cover the electricity used over the year. This just leaves their gas consumption - as such, Harriet and Chris' household emissions are just 7,485kWh between them, or 3742.5kWh each - over 50% less than average.

Ideally, everyone in the UK should have comparable household emissions - and open days like these help to demonstrate that this is within the reach of many, and hopefully many, many more once the Green Deal is launched next year. So if you would like to visit, the details are as follows:

39 Hawthorne Road
Bournville
Birmingham
B30 1EQ

harrietmartin@btinternet.com

Tours take place on:

Friday September 9th - 4pm; 5:30pm
Saturday September 10th - 10:30am; 5pm
Sunday September 11th - 2pm; 3:30pm; 5pm

If you have any questions, or would like to learn more about Chris and Harriet's 'superhome', please leave a comment below, or visit their website.

*based on national estimates of home energy consumption, taken from David Mackay's 'Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air'.

As SusMo members take over the Lighter Footprints, regular readers may spot that some posts are noticeably more plant and biodiversity related - those will be my topics, as I will generally leave matters of technical detail and energy efficiency advice to the superior expertise of my co-volunteers. I'm Maggie, if you missed my previous contribution to the blog my day job concerns the research and development of green roofs. I will try to relate some of the things I have learnt about sustainable technology in my field and ways I see that it can be translated to everyday life, and will always welcome comments from any readers who may be more experienced in the terrestrial garden!

I remember gardens from my childhood that invariably featured a patch of 'elephant grass' at the end, by an old swing, where the lawn mower couldn't quite reach and hedgehogs could slumber undisturbed. It was a constant source of guilt and procrastination for my parents, and I can see how the urge not to appear 'unkempt' may have disturbed many an ecological pocket of refuge in urban gardens. However I am keen to find ways of gardening that can maintain aesthetic pleasure and be beneficial to wildlife at the same time - I resent the connection of 'biodiverse' with 'scruffy' because it is a false simplification. It's an area where everyone must find their own balance according to personal preferences, but a few ideas spring to mind.

Rather than letting rampant elephant grass take over, you can choose pretty 'weeds' and have a small wildflower meadow area that will have a long flowering season and require minimal maintenance - just trim off the seed heads once a year after flowering if you are worried about infecting the rest of your garden. There are some great mixes available suitable for every soil type and colour scheme, usually best sown in the autumn to come up the following spring (try http://wildseed.co.uk/). Best of all this will provide a great food source for butterflies and bees, who can then attend to pollinating your vegetable patch.

Another option is to choose classic plants that also happen to be great for local wildlife - lavender for example. Or even help resuscitate communities of lovely and interesting plants that are declining but will fit in with the rest of your garden - I was surprised to find that the humble cornflower is critically endangered in the UK, with few naturally sustainable communities left in the wild. Some of these can be a beautiful addition to a garden, and at the same help the city develop sustainably by replacing some of the diverse plant life lost through urbanisation and agriculture.