You will often hear me say ‘Fabric First’ when I discuss the design of low-energy new builds or refurbishments. That is to say you should minimise the heat losses from construction itself before using fancy heating systems, high-tech glazings and complex control strategies. There is a role for all these in ‘hard-to-heat’ homes but, if…
How much would you pay to have electricity all the time? My niece is in Guiana doing a gap year working for an educational charity. They only have electricity on occassion and so it is much more appreciated when it is connected. There is a rush to charge mobile phones, laptops and e-readers (well, the…
The Big Green Home Show at NSBRC in Swindon went well this weekend. Despite the threats of storms and floods there was a good turnout at the show and great interest in the talk I gave (ECO Options – do your research) and the panel discussion about the Green Deal. It seems there is still…
This post was sent in by a client of Charlie Laing Ltd for use in this blog! Can I turn the heating on yet? The big debate we all have once the weather starts to turn. Woman says yes, man says “No, put a jumper on!” Are you recognising any of this? Listening to the…
Energy bills are a hot topic at the Labour party conference. I can’t see how capping prices would work. If the energy companies can’t make profit in the UK they will simple go elsewhere – electricity prices in Germany are over 50% higher than in the UK. But why have an energy bill? Why not…
The secret in obtaining the best possible air test rating is paying attention to detail as early as possible in the project. By the time one comes to air testing, a good way through the project, it is already too late and the ability to rectify defects becomes much more difficult and expensive in construction…
Talking about insulation of central heating pipes… You’ve specified a band A condensing boiler, you know how to set it up, the radiators are the right size and you think you can now relax and let the plumber install it all, right? Actually no! There is one more area you must pay attention to or…
How will you store your captured energy to keep your Christmas lights this year? We’re all getting into using renewable energy in our homes and it certainly helps reduce the bills which is helpful at Christmas with all the extra lights! The question is, how do you store that captured energy to keep those cheerful…
Another technology getting a bit of a move on is anaerobic digestion of putrescible wastes to give biogas. No, please don’t yawn and click away! If nothing else there’s a few high-scoring words for a scrabble game. As a country, we produce around 15 million tonnes of food wastes which can be turned to good…
As I travel around to the various energy saving shows and read up on technology advancement I see a lot of new products so I thought I’d tell you about a few I’ve seen recently. They are worth considering. Here are a few interesting general developments in emerging technologies or performance enhancements for existing ones:…