Recently by Esther Boyd

The unusually warm new year means that new year resolutions to lose weight, get fitter and save the planet can begin at once.

Support for new cyclists, and those who have not cycled for many years, is widely available. In Birmingham you can get encouragement and support from the local campaigning group - contact Graham Hankins - secretary@pushbikes.org.uk - for details.

Don't fall into the trap of putting off using a bike for the short journeys that you usually make in the car, or heading out for a longer ride when the sun is shining, because you think
<> "it is too dangerous";
<> "there is no secure cycle parking there";
<> "there are no cycle tracks near my home".

If you wait until other people improve cycle conditions for you, then before this happens
<> global warming may cause irreversible problems;
<> the price of diminishing fossil fuels may make current prices seem unbelievably cheap;
<> you may become too frail to cycle.

Conditions for cycling are not likely to be perfect, but in most places you can find routes that are good enough
1 - to improve your fitness and general wellbeing;
2 - to save you a considerable amount of money;
3 - to help your area to reach the required CO₂ savings;
4 - to conserve the remaining reserves of fossil fuels.

OK your contribution from riding a bike instead of driving a car won't make a significant difference to the last two points, but your enthusiasm about the first two points may change the behaviour of people you know, and their enthusiasm may affect others and eventually a large group of people can make a significant difference in your area.

I have quoted Margaret Mead before: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."

In 2012 you can make a difference!

In Moseley this Saturday, in addition to:

> the wonderful produce at the Moseley Farmers' Market,

> the art and craft work at the Moseley Arts Market,

> "freetail" at the Moseley Swap Shop at the Prince of Wales,

there will be the chance to talk to SusMo members at

> the SusMo stall near the steps to St Mary's Church in St Mary's Row.

At the SusMo stall you may receive free "Heatkeeper" radiator panels, get your questions answered about living more sustainably and hear about new opportunities for reducing fuel bills in your home.

SusMo members work with local residents and organisations to reduce our CO₂ emissions in homes and community buildings in Moseley and by using low carbon transport options where possible.

Read Birmingham City Council's consultation document "Low Carbon Transport Strategy 2011+" and send your comments by Friday 18th November 2011.

If you have previously rejected the idea of cycling into the centre of Birmingham, you are invited to join a "Bike Train" on Thursday Sep. 22nd to find out the advantages, and pleasures, of cycling - compared to driving and to taking a bus.

See map of the routes starting in Cotteridge, Fox Hollies, Kings Heath (Cocks Moors Woods), Quinton and Sutton Coldfield.

If you are already aware of the advantages and pleasures, you are invited to join the "Train" to give support, both moral and physical, to less experienced cyclists. To date, fewer experienced cyclists have joined the Fox Hollies route than the other four routes - so please consider joining Graham Hankins and others at the Fox Hollies Leisure Centre on Shirley Road.

The rides start at 07:30 to give people time to have a sociable breakfast, in front of the Council House in Victoria Square (hosted by the Council) before going to work, to the shops, to the Library, or wherever you like.

Why should you join the ride? Some good reasons are listed here.

Register online here.

The event is organised by Birmingham Friends of the Earth, Sustrans and Push Bikes to celebrate In Town Without My Car Day on 22nd September. ITWMC is European Union campaign for an increased use of other vehicles than the car. It has spread beyond the EU and, in 2008, 102 municipalities in 39 countries took part - no figures available for more recent events.

Download Bike Birmingham, Birmingham's Cycling Strategy 2011-2015, read about Birmingham City Council's new commitment to encourage more people to cycle more often, and try cycling yourself!

If you need advice or more encouragement, get in touch with Joe Peacock at Friends of the Earth (joe @birminghamfoe.org.uk), Yvonne Gilligan at Sustrans (yvonne.gilligan @sustrans.org.uk) or Graham Hankins at Pushbikes (g8emx @tiscali.co.uk) or contact me - Esther Boyd - at SusMo (sustainablemoseley @gmail.com).

I'm looking forward to the ride and to meeting lots of people at in Victoria Square for (my second) breakfast!

At last I can report that St Mary's Church has received full planning approval, the PV panels have been installed and they are producing electricity for the Church plus the Feed In Tariff.

I visited the Church today and, in spite of a cloudy sky, the meter on the back wall of the nave recorded an input of 2.640 kw. SusMo will check the reading again on a sunny day.

The predicted output for a year is 7000 kWh - 19 kWh/day.

British Gas installers are now working on the roof of Hamza Mosque. The installation should be complete well before the start of Ramadan (Aug 1^st) so a significant saving in their electricity bill should be noticed straight away.

If you are interested in detailed information about PV, check an online excerpt of a book by Hemmerle Weller and Unnewehr Jakubetz.

Regular readers of this blog may have noticed that blog posts have been less frequent recently, and that I have not posted a blog for eight weeks. I returned from holiday in mid-June - very fit from cycling in the Hebrides - but since then I have been focussing my time on family matters.

This blog will soon cease to be "Esther Boyd's Lighter Footprints and will become "SusMo's Lighter Footprints".

The SusMo core team: Phil Beardmore, Maggie Fennell, Kathy Hopkin, Sarah Napier, our Chair Claire Spencer and I will take turns in contributing blogs.

I look forward to reading their contributions.

The predicted sunshine this summer will significantly reduce CO₂ emissions in Moseley with the installation of 48 Photo Voltaic panels on St Mary's.

This is programmed to start on June 13^th and will provide an income from the Feed In Tariff for St Mary's Church and to the wider community. A funding application for the portion of the installation not covered by the British Gas Green Streets project has been submitted and, if this fails, the Church has underwritten the shortfall.

Planning applications have been submitted for the Green Streets installations on the Hamza Mosque, Moseley CofE School and on the pavilion at Moor Green Allotments.

Five houses in the Green Streets project have solar panels, one PV and four Solar Thermal.

My house has one Solar Thermal panel (installed without a grant a few years ago) and in sunny weather we do not use our gas boiler at all. I'm a member of the SusMo Carbon Club and record our fuel use each week on the "imeasure" website. This is a Home Energy Monitoring Calculator.

Our house is usually ranked 4^th or 5^th in the Carbon Club, but we are 1^st in the current ranking. I'm not usually a competitive person so I was surprised to feel really pleased by this achievement.

If any Moseley resident wishes to get some extra motivation to "save money and save the planet", I recommend joining our Carbon Club. Free energy saving items, provided by the British Gas Green Streets project, are available to Moseley residents who sign up to imeasure - ACT QUICKLY before the stock runs out! Contact sustainablemoseley@gmail.com for details.

Residents anywhere in the UK can join, monitor your readings and learn how to reduce your bills from encouragement and advice in the "imeasure" newsletters.

After excessively long negotiations, the plans to generate electricity using Photo Voltaic panels on the roofs of St Mary's Church in Moseley, the Hamza Mosque, St Mary's CofE School and the pavilion at Moor Green Allotments, funded by the British Gas Green Streets award, are progressing.

All installations have finally been agreed in principle by the owners of the buildings.

The negotiations about the installation on the church with the Birmingham Diocese began after winning the planning appeal against the planning refusal by the City Council Planning Committee. The negotiations lasted for six months and there was much rejoicing when permission was granted this month.

The negotiations for the two buildings owned by the City Council: St Mary's CofE School and the pavilion at the Allotments, had to be completed before planning permission was applied for. The deadline set by British Gas for agreement by the building owners was originally during the autumn of 2010. This was extended and extended and extended. Permission was finally granted for the last building, the pavilion at the Allotments, last week, 37 minutes after the very final deadline.

I'm glad to report that British Gas was flexible about this delay and Lee Barlow, the British Gas Project Manager, wrote to say "Fantastic News!!! I will set the ball rolling at our end."

Planning approval has still to be granted for these two buildings, and for the installation on the Hamza Mosque. The Mosque committee was the first building owner to confirm their wish for the installation, but the planning process could not begin until the Birmingham Diocese had confirmed their agreement for the installation at St Mary's. If they had refused the money allocated to the church would have been divided between the other community buildings.

I hope that only good news will follow about progress for the installation of PV panels on these buildings.

After excessively long negotiations, the plans to generate electricity using Photo Voltaic panels on the roofs of St Mary's Church in Moseley, the Hamza Mosque, St Mary's CofE School and the pavilion at Moor Green Allotments, funded by the British Gas Green Streets award, are progressing.

All installations have finally been agreed in principle by the owners of the buildings.

The negotiations about the installation on the church with the Birmingham Diocese began after winning the planning appeal against the planning refusal by the City Council Planning Committee. The negotiations lasted for six months and there was much rejoicing when permission was granted this month.

The negotiations for the two buildings owned by the City Council: St Mary's CofE School and the pavilion at the Allotments, had to be completed before planning permission was applied for. The deadline set by British Gas for agreement by the building owners was originally during the autumn of 2010. This was extended and extended and extended. Permission was finally granted for the last building, the pavilion at the Allotments, last week, 37 minutes after the very final deadline.

I'm glad to report that British Gas was flexible about this delay and Lee Barlow, the British Gas Project Manager, wrote to say "Fantastic News!!! I will set the ball rolling at our end."

Planning approval has still to be granted for these two buildings, and for the installation on the Hamza Mosque. The Mosque committee was the first building owner to confirm their wish for the installation, but the planning process could not begin until the Birmingham Diocese had confirmed their agreement for the installation at St Mary's. If they had refused the money allocated to the church would have been divided between the other community buildings.

I hope that only good news will follow about progress for the installation of PV panels on these buildings.

The weather is warmer now, so your fuel bills may not be a real concern for you at present, but you could - should? - act now to get help for the future.

If you live in Moseley and have not received energy efficiency improvements through SusMo's British Gas Green Streets 2010 prize, there is still time to get some small energy saving items. This could lead to getting significant energy efficiency improvements for Moseley, including your home, in the future.

SusMo - Sustainable Moseley - is competing against the other 13 Green Streets 2010 winners for a £100,000 prize for more energy efficiency improvements for Moseley. Your interest and action to reduce your fuel bills will help SusMo's chances of winning this prize, and may mean that your household receives part of the award.

Birmingham City Council invited SusMo to a workshop about the "Birmingham Energy Savers" programme. BES Phase 3 aims to invest £100m in improving the energy efficiency of 10-20,000 homes, including the installation of solar panels. SusMo plans to play a part by helping BCC to find the households in Moseley which wish to benefit from this investment - does this include you?

Your best first step is to ask for some energy saving items which are available free to Moseley residents who sign up to imeasure and join the SusMo Carbon Club. Electricity energy monitors, radiator panels, standby savers, cylinder jackets, pipe lagging and EcoKettles are available - ACT QUICKLY before the stock runs out!

imeasure is a "Home Energy Monitoring Calculator" on the internet.

Go to www.imeasure.org.uk/
Register your details
Join the SusMo Carbon Club
Enter your meter readings every week (if possible - but if you miss a week sometimes that's OK).

You receive details of your carbon footprint, as well as handy hints on how to reduce your energy use.

You will be able to see how many other people in Moseley are monitoring their fuel consumption - data on the website is anonymous for those who don't wish to be identified, so you need to tell sustainablemoseley@gmail.com when you join.

If you have a Smart Meter it is much easier to check your energy use. By 2020 all homes in the UK should have smart meters - ask your energy company if you can have one now. Some energy companies charge extra for Smart Meters, others do not - tell SusMo what your energy company says.

Contact sustainablemoseley@gmail.com to find out more.

When we are sitting down we usually close doors close to us. This prevents draughts and helps to keep a room warm in cold weather - it reduces energy waste.

The scale of energy waste is greatly increased if external doors are left open. Research has proved that in the case of shops, 50% savings in fuel use is gained if doors are opened when customers enter the shop instead of being left open. The research found no conclusive evidence that footfall, or transactions, were affected by closing the shop door.

Keeping doors open and the heating on full is estimated to be costing the UK's retailers £1billion a year.

The close the door against energy waste campaign started in Cambridge and has now spread to seven other cities in England.

Closing shop doors is an easy, cost effective way of cutting CO₂ and contributing to the targets set for 2026.

Birmingham City Council's target is a 60% reduction. Birmingham Friends of the Earth has posted information about the campaign on their website and encourages us to Take Action: "The next time you're out for some retail therapy and see a shop door wide open, politely ask them to close the door. Simple! Or come along to our campaigns meetings."

Contact Robert Pass - birmingham@closethedoor.org.uk - for details of this campaign, or Joe Peacock - joe@birminghamfoe.org.uk - about FoE campaigns.

39 Hawthorne Rd
Bournville B30 1EQ

Open house with 50 minute tours:
Friday 1st April 2pm - 6pm
Saturday 2nd April 10am - 4pm
Sunday 3rd April 1pm - 5pm

Book to visit online at
www.sustainable-energyacademy.org.uk/superhomes/
or phone 0121 475-2088

Read on to see how Chris and Harriet reduced their energy use by 85% and saved 6,300 kg CO₂

Chris and Harriet Martin purchased their 3 bedroom, 1932 semi-detached house in 2009 and immediately set about ways in which they could improve its energy efficiency. They were motivated to do so by a "deepening concern for the effects of our profligate energy use on the environment".

As active Cotteridge Quakers, they had been involved in renovating their meeting house, reducing its energy use by 90%. This success, combined with a desire to downsize, gave the Martins the motivation, knowledge and skills to find a new project to work on, and so they took up the challenge of 39 Hawthorne Road. By acting as an exemplar house, they hope to "empower others by sharing the experiences and understanding gained in the process"

Insulation is the key to energy saving. The cavity walls are filled with polystyrene balls. Additionally they are lined internally with 55mm of Thermoline insulation board bonded to plasterboard. In consequence the walls' U value (and heat loss) dropped 89% from 1.7 to 0.2.

The loft contains an unheated storage room which has 160mm of thick foam blocks (U value 0.2) fitted beneath it. The remaining area has solid insulation blocks underneath the loft floor (U value 0.2), Where there is no flooring, the old insulation was topped up to 400mm with fibreglass (U value 0.1). Under the downstairs wooden floors foam blocks were inserted between the floor joists (reducing the floor U value 95% to 0.2). The central heating pipes were positioned just below the floor joists so that any excess heat comes up through the floor.

The pre-existing windows were wooden framed with single pane glass and were extremely draughty. By replacing them with A rated double glazed argon filled UPVC windows, the U value has dropped from 5 down to 1.2, reducing window heat loss by 75 %.

In addition, the unheated conservatory which replaced an old extension benefits from passive solar heating and collects any heat lost from the house. The floor's dark brown floor quarry tiles maximise absorption of solar heat. Over the winter temperatures inside vs. in conservatory vs. outside were in the ratio 6:3:1 (e.g., 18C inside, 9C in conservatory, 3C outside). Its A rated double glazed units considerably reduced heat loss.

Finally, the front door was replaced, reducing the U value (and thus heat loss) by 64% from 3.6 to 1.3.

Renewable energy systems are incorporated right through the Martin's house. Solar thermal panels (Worcester Bosch Greenskies) are in place on the back roof. The house is on the Bournville Village Trust which does not allow solar panels if visible from the road. In consequence the panels on the back roof face west, not south, reducing their efficiency by 5% (according to the Encraft SAP 2009 Solar Thermal Calculator).

On a sunny summer day the panels can heat the 180 litre water cylinder to 53°C. Our Wickes eco bath saves 40% and the Mira eco shower-head saves 64% on our hot water usage.

In order to make space for solar PV panels, the Martins constructed a south facing pergola at the bottom of the garden. 10 PV panels are fixed to its roof with an output of 1800kWh per year - an output that matches their annual use. What they don't use is fed back into the national grid. They receive a Feed-In Tariff of 41.3p for every kWh generated, whether they use it or not.

The pre-development boiler dated from the 1960s would have been at best 68% efficient. The back of the boiler protruded into the unheated utility room covered only with a sheet of asbestos, resulting in considerable heat from the house. The new boiler is a Worcester Bosch Greenskies boiler with over 90% efficiency. All the radiators are fitted with thermostatic radiator valves meaning each room can be controlled separately. The thermostat is set to 18C; the house is occupied all day. Bedrooms have radiators, but are set low and normally unheated in winter.

In addition, a smokeless wood burner has been installed in the living room. It is specifically designed from smokeless zones and burns at 80% efficiency. It is a vast improvement on its predecessor, an open fire burning at 30% efficiency which was legally only able to burn a smokeless fossil fuel. With a fire smouldering all day the wood burner seems to generate about 10 kWh a day (about 25% of gas usage on a cold day).

Further to insulation and renewable energy systems, the Martins have made use of several energy saving appliances.

The whole house makes use of energy saving lighting. A Megaman candle bulb greets visitors in the hallways, with 18W energy saving lamps in the study, low energy bulbs in the living room, 5W LED bulbs in the kitchen (using just 10% of the old halogen bulbs energy consumption). There are Megaman spot light in the dining room and a 20W LED spot light for the patio and garden.

Their white goods all have very high efficiency ratings, with an A+ rated washing machine, dishwasher and fridge, plus an A rated freezer. Low flush toilets and water butts in the garden (like the eco bath, toilets and shower mentioned earlier) have helped reduce our water use to c. 100 litres daily each (66% below UK average). Clothes are line dried, in wet weather in a drying area under the pergola. A key factor of becoming energy efficient is to cut wastage, and introducing such everyday measures as these makes a significant contribution.

Energy use from 1st July 2010, when the Martins moved in, up to mid February 2011 suggests they will save 85% of the energy used in a similar (but un-insulated) house with no solar panels. They are on course to pay for all their year's heating with their old age heating allowance.