Beetler's diary New diary entry

I think I am now taking things too far. I am not eco-crusty but currently I am living in the house without heating, hot water and a fine layer of dust over everything. It should also be said that I also have no glass in my front and back doors and am missing two windows…

But today is a red letter day as we move back in. No more house sitting and living out of suitcases. Not that the children care, it is all fun to them and they are even looking forward to coming home. This is probably because they like watching the builders and all the construction work.

However in my efforts to green the world I think I am breaking through to the builders who seem keen to know about the green features but are still very sceptical. They are now starting to say how nice the CFL downlighters are and they do like the look of the FSC wooden floor. Will it make a jot of difference? Who knows but all I can do is highlight the features and tell them of the benefits.

They offered to cut the grass and hedges before we moved back into the house and true to their word they managed the lawn and hedge at the front. I was up for larging them up – not many builders who will go that extra mile for you. That was until I noticed that the front hedge was obscuring their advertising sign.

I had to laugh at my last entry that talked about retaining heat in the house. I came back off our Cornish holiday to find the back wall of my house missing. There has been an unforeseen problem that has added work onto the project. So no heat retention there… and we are not back in the house.

The good bits of news were the roof is waterproof. I know that it is Wimbledon and therefore we should expect the traditional showers but what rain! On the north coast of Cornwall I have to say we probably had the best of the weather and I managed to body board everyday.

The other good news is that the underfloor insulation is being retrofitted and the windows are being replaced in the coming week. But I have talked about these before.

The main changed that was planned (i.e. not the back wall) is the addition of a sun pipe to our roof (http://shopping.guardian.co.uk/electrical/story/0,,1434827,00.html). Exciting stuff I think you’ll agree, probably. I can’t vouch for them yet as it is casting its natural light on a wreck of a house. I’ll let you know what’s what in the coming months.

I’m off now for two weeks with out a computer so apologies for the hole left by my lack of entries.

The last word now goes to retaining heat in the house. I am glad to say that the replacement windows and doors will be wood. I have been on a guilt trip that I want to cut the CO2 but not at the expense of toxics in the environment. This means that I want working double glazing (all our windows have condensation in the sealed units so they are not efficient) but not PVC frames. From what I can gather, in general terms, PVC does not break down in the environment so will be around for centuries if not longer.

When we get back from SW England we will be back in our house – living in the rubble and that could sorely test our resolve.

Following on from the tips I have completed an Energy Savings Trust free survey (done online) and they are now pointing me in the direction of grants available for the work I need to do to reduce my footprint.

In some ways I think great this will potentially save even more money however it is now delaying my installation of insualtion and creating extra hastle for me after work when I want to relax.

It isn’t quick ‘n easy going green.

Things are moving on apace now.

The local insulation company have visited and will install my cavity wall insulation for £250. I hope that this is the first step in a long marriage – my wife likes the house hot and I like the boiler on minimum…

The better news is I budgeted slightly more for it, so I am still on track and will put the money saved towards some better lighting.

This is the next step in a long marriage to an environmetnalist.

The problem is dimming down lighters – the lights inbuilt into the ceiling. At the moment I have challenged my Sparky to come up with dimmable ones but it is not looking good.

In the last entry I probably didn’t explain myself about the need for spending cash on my house to make it better in the long-run. Basically I can live the greenest life that my house will permit but as it is not properly insulated and has an old boiler etc I will not be living a green life because there is a certain amount of wastage built into my house.

Hence the need to spend on insulation and a condensing boiler.

I am lucky in that we have recently moved into this house knowing that we needed to upgrade the 1960s décor (including wall paper on the ceilings…) so it is causing less of a disruption to us to have them all done at once while we have some building work done on the house. Also we have been saving to enable us to carry out the work so I have a limited pot of cash available.

The next challenge I face is to have these environmental elements in the house and make it a place I, and more importantly my family, want to live. The two main challenges I face are heat and light.

I’ll only talk about heat in this entry as time is limited. For heat we need to retain the heat (insulate) and be efficient in providing heat (central heating etc). So we are insulating to the max. The cavity wall insulators come in two weeks and the under-floor insulation and double glazed windows will be installed by the end of July. That only leaves loft insulation which is down to me in the late summer time. It is not a job I am looking forward to because it is hassle.

As for the heat sources we are installing a wood burning stove in addition to the central heating. I hope that this will be the main source of warmth for most of the year when we need heating. The central heating will only be used in deep midwinter. However in the past my family have had conflicts over the temperature in the house. Hopefully with the insulation and efficient heating all this will be a distant memory.

So I am 2.31 planets of consumption. In many ways that depresses me as I do the recycling (everything) we have a wormery and compost. I am very energy aware and hate using more than I have to.

So I did the calculator full of hope and belief that it would show me to be a consuming minimal resources. I was shocked.

And that got me thinking about it more and more. And I have come to realise that to reduce my footprint further I’ll have to make a financial commitment to help me to reduce the amount of resources I use in the long-run.

So now we are having some building work done on our house we are having the loft insulated properly, the cavity walls insulated, new double glazed windows (the old ones are foggy and apparently beyond thier best), and finally we are having a condensing boiler installed.

I would have loved to go beyond these basics but I can’t afford any panel on my roof etc so that will have to do for now.