Transition Ashtead Home Energy group is having its first public event on 7 April - see the advert below.  Also in my blog on 13 February I mentioned that we had applied for a Surrey County Council grant to fund our planned programme for the rest of the year.  We've recently heard that our application was successful and so we're pretty pleased with that.  First thing to buy are some display boards I think.

Derek Smith

Secretary, Traansition Ashtead Home Energy group

You are invited to find out how to save energy & money in your own home

A presentation by Russell Smith of Parity Projects

8 pm Wednesday 7th April,

Ralli Room, Ashtead Peace Memorial Hall

No entry fee. Tea/coffee and cakes available

With 27% of all energy in the UK consumed in domestic housing and 85% of our existing housing stock set to still be with us in 2050, we all need to act now to reduce our carbon footprint, and reduce our energy bills.  Russell’s company Parity Projects offers the full range of services required to reduce the energy use and the environmental impact of existing buildings. He won the DIY category in the Observer Ethical Awards 2008. He also won Building Magazine’s 2007 Award for Sustainable Refurbishment. The Observer Award judges said: “Russell and his company Parity Projects stood out from all the other nominations for their new way of engaging with the public, giving them the tools to reduce their house’s carbon footprint in an innovative and inspiring way.”

In addition to the presentation there will be:

A display and demo of domestic power monitors

A display and demo of thermal draught detector

Displays of energy saving products

Advice on government grants and the new feed-in tariffs

Information about domestic combined heat and power units (soon to be introduced in UK)

Hope you can make it!

 

 

The freely downloadable book Sustainable Energy - without the hot air, by David JC MacKay, is a ‘straight-talking book about the numbers’ which seeks actions that really make a difference when it comes to sustainable energy. For more information, check out David’s website.

This is my second Transition Ashtead report, this time on the Home Energy group.  We have just applied for funding from Surrey County Council’s new climate change fund to carry out a programme of activities designed to reduce carbon emissions from Ashtead’s houses.  The following description of our plan is copied straight from our fund application. 

 

1.  We aim to carry out a programme of planned activities over one year to promote the importance of reducing domestic energy consumption and carbon emissions to Ashtead residents. The plan is to have three events – the first in early April to initiate interest (speaker + some home energy efficiency equipment demonstrations), the second in June as a main event to have speakers and workshop/exhibitions on relevant locally available technology.  The third is to have a speaker and equipment display on home renewable energy options.

 

2.  We aim to set up a library of locally available energy efficiency equipment – some to show and some to loan e.g. draught meters, LED and low energy light bulbs, power meters so people can see and try them out.

 

3.  Get a small number of people trained in (a) draught proofing methodologies so they can train others to create a pool of people who can do this and (b) advising people on the grants available for domestic carbon reduction work and if necessary helping people complete the grant application forms.   We plan to carry this out as part of the Ashtead churches Act10n initiative in 8-12 July, and so the main beneficiaries should be needy and vulnerable people.

 

4.  Research local suppliers of energy efficiency and renewable energy suppliers and identify those with real expertise and good reputations and create a preferred supplier list or get them added to the approved trade lists such as Checkatrade

 

If anyone is interested in learning more about any of these activities you can ring me on 01372-378914 or email info@ transitionashtead.org.uk

 

Derek Smith

When Cuba lost access to Soviet oil in the early 1990s, the country faced an immediate crisis — feeding the population, and an ongoing challenge: how to create a new, low-energy society. Cuba transitioned from large, fossil-fuel intensive farming to small, less energy intensive organic farms and urban gardens, and from a highly industrial society to a more sustainable one.

The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil tells the story of the Cuban people’s hardship, ingenuity and triumph over sudden adversity — through cooperation, conservation and community, told in their own words. As the world approaches Peak Oil, Cuba provides a valuable example of how to successfully address the challenge of reducing our energy use.

“Everyone who is concerned about Peak Oil needs to see this film. Cuba survived an energy famine during the 1990s, and how it did so constitutes one of the most important and hopeful stories of the past few decades. It is a story not just of individual achievement, but of the collective mobilization of an entire society to meet an enormous challenge.” – Richard Heinberg, author of The Party's Over and Powerdown

Transition Bookham is intending to screen this film as part of it's launch event. Date, time and venue to be announced soon.

Zap your leaks

We have been lending out energy monitors for some time, and now the Green Mole Forum can lend you a thermal leak detector.

This nifty gadget makes it easy to check your home's energy efficiency by finding places that let heat out or cold air in.

As you scan it around it shines a light on the surface your are measuring - green, blue, or red.

Simply set the detector's temperature tolerances to one, five, or 10 degrees farenheit (or 0.5, 3, or 5.5 celsius) and scan the light across the area you want to inspect. As well as displaying the temperature of the surface you aim it at, the light will change to red for warmer spots and blue for cooler spots to detect air leaks in both warm and cool weather.

 

Cut Energy Bills and Improve Your Home's Efficiency

Sealing the leaks and improving insulation in your home can help you save as much as 20 percent on your heating and cooling bills. An efficient, greener home will stay cooler in summer and warmer in winter. Use the Thermal Leak Detector to check your refrigerator and freezer temperatures and efficiency.

If you would like to borrow it for a week or two contact us or send an email to ask to be added to the waiting list. Happy hunting!

 

It's much more fun trying to reduce your carbon footprint in company with others and having some sort of target to aim for.  So to help encourage Mole Valley residents to cut their carbon we are inviting Mole Valley residents and their Councillors to take part in a 2010 footprint challenge, to see who can achieve the lowest carbon footprint - a resident or a councillor!

The contest is based on your individual household energy use, car use and airmiles during 2010 and your footprint is very easily calculated using www.thecarbonaccount.com.  The Green Mole Forum will present a small award to the winner.  If you saw the article  in the local press about the green granny with a zero footprint - don't think its not worth you entering as the green granny won't be so green in 2010 - she's flying to California to visit her son!

If you want to take part in this challenge contact us here or telephone 01372 456421.

One easy way to make your lifestyle more planet-friendly is to reduce your electricity consumption. The Green Mole Forum can help make this simple – just borrow a monitor pack and you can find out how to cut your electricity bill, with very little effort on your part. The monitors are also available through local libraries but, as they have long waiting lists, we're offering this alternative, along with some technical help, if you need it.

Each pack contains a pair of ingenious monitors – one that allows you to see how much electricity your whole house is using (and what this is costing) and another to see how much energy an individual appliance consumes at any given moment (useful to check out standby current) or over a period of time.

The monitors encourage getting into the habit of switching things off, especially last thing at night or when going out, the challenge being to get consumption to as near zero as possible. They also show which appliances are greedy guzzlers of electricity (freezers, tumble driers, irons, kettles, electric heaters) and which are relatively innocent (like a portable radio). And interesting things like, how much you save by boiling just enough water for a cup of tea, instead of a kettle full!

For a £20 refundable deposit you can borrow them for a fortnight. Call Anne Brewer (Bookham) on 01372 456421 or Derek Smith (Leatherhead) on 01372 378914 for more details or contact us to ask to be added to the waiting list.

If you're doing some refurbishment on a property there are a variety of government grants available, from loft insulation to renewable energy, to households who qualify. There are also a variety of FREE products on offer, such as low energy lightbulbs.

On the 15th July 2009 the Government published its energy white paper... the previous day TV presenter Kevin McCloud, spokesperson for the Grand Designs Great British Refurb Campaign, had built his own model home, outside the Houses of Parliament, to show MPs what can be done to insulate existing properties. It's estimated that by retrofitting our current housing stock, over 26 million homes (accounting for around 27% of the country's man-made CO2), nine million tonnes of CO2 could be cut, equivalent to the average output of over 1.5 million homes a year.

On the 16th the campaign handed in an 8,000 signature petition to 10 Downing Street, calling on the Government to help householders to play their part. Energy efficiency is the best way to minimise the costs of a low carbon future and it needs to act now if it wants us to reduce our carbon output by 34% by 2020 and 80% by 2050. Given that the majority of these homes will still be standing, it's a hopelessly unrealistic target, unless we can improve their eco-credentials.

For more information on the campaign and how you can help check out their website.

The Green Mole Forum has now started a loan scheme of Energy Meters across Mole Valley in conjunction with Mole Valley Disctrict Council.

Meters are available for a two week loan from Anne Brewer in Dorking, Derek Smith in Leatherhead and Esther Phillips-Constans in Bookham.

We have so far a waiting list of 22 people and the first meters have now gone out on loan. Richard M. from the Green Mole Forum probably holds the record for having signed up most people at our stall on Bookham village day. Well done!

The first device measures power demand of individual appliances (Dear I hope I get this right as my physics were never brilliant). The second one (much more fun) is a whole house meter.  Once plugged in it measures and displays the consumption of the whole house and also displays the running costs. We tried it for two weeks and it is great fun and gives you quite an incentive to chase around in the evening to switch off everything but the fridge.

Should you wish to be added to the waiting list or know somebody who lives in Mole Valley and could do with a carbon diet, please contact us via the Forum.