Category: Money saving
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Creating an insulated breathing wall
As you may have noticed from my twitter feed I have been working on creating a breathing wall. This is for a wooden house built with cedar tiles on a timber frame. The house has cavity walls and then lath and plaster inside. I previously built a green roof on this house and we insulated…
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My modest grand design
You may have seen from my social media updates (twitter, facebook, linkedin and google plus) that I went to Grand designs live the other week. After my first visit to the Ideal Home Show I thought I should try this one too. Quite a strange selection of exhibitors. There were lots of the sort of stylish…
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Lime plastering course
I have spent the last couple of days on a lime plastering course in Bedford. I am learning this skill so I can deliver more retrofit services to the customers of www.ecoalex.com. One of the key ways to improve the energy performance of older houses is to add internal insulation to walls. There are lots…
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The Owl and the boiler part 2
So after much enjoyment of the new energy monitor and a new found fascination with how much energy the fridge uses I embarked on installing the new boiler control at the weekend. This little gadget replaces the standard wall thermostat with a new one that is supposed to be more efficient. As Ecoalex I really…
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Electricity monitor and heating controls
I am having all sorts of fun today with new gadgets. I went to Ecobuild recently and talked to the good people at Owl about their electricity monitors. I have been meaning to get an electricity monitor for ages , especially as I regularly recommend them to other people. Anyway, I thought it was high…
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Procrastination – the enemy of energy efficiency
I have a confession to make, my boiler is over 15 years old and spectacularly inefficient. Not a very good thing for Ecoalex. According to SEDBUK the database of boilers it operates at about 65% efficiency. A new condensing boiler could work at about 90% efficiency. I have known this anecdotally for about 3 years…
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What can I do to reduce my power bills? – top ten tips (and a small rant)
When I am out talking to people about their homes the biggest concern they have is not the environment but how much money they are spending on gas and electricity. The announcement of a 9% price hike by Scottish and Southern Electricity is probably just a precursor to more increases from the other energy suppliers…
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Thermal blinds
Catching up with a few things round the home today and finished installing my new thermal blinds in the bedrooms. These serve two purposes, they are blackout blinds to keep out the light from buildings behind and they also thermally regulate the rooms. I got the blinds from Blinds 2 Go, whilst the blinds…
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Green roofs of Verona
In Italy at the moment taking a short break. We went to the opera at the roman amphitheatre in Verona last night. In the cheap seats you have to arrive an hour or two early to get a good position so we had quite a while to look around before the opera started. When you…
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Simple ways to improve the efficiency of your home – Part 2
The second and possibly shorter post on improving your home. Water efficiency Start with your water companies website and see what you can get for free from them. My local company Thames offer a few here. I suspect that like the energy companies they don’t do this out of the kindness of their hearts but that…