Barry's ecohome

I spent the Open Homes weekend helping out at Barry's house. It was the most gorgeous weather and we sat at picnic tables in the garden drinking tea and chatting about all number of green issues.

Barry has been very pro-active about reducing his environmental impact for a number of years. He is very practical with technology and DIY so has implemented many of his own solutions, but at the same time he has embraced lifestyle changes to reduce his consumption further. I have been aiming for a 90% reduction compared to the average American, but Barry has in many areas already achieved this, if not surpassed it. Here is how he has done it.

Barry has sold his car and travels everywhere by bicycle, by bus or on foot. He couldn't manage this living in a rural location, but being close to the centre of a small town means that there are shops, the library, the market and bus stops all close by.

Barry doesn't pay any water rates because he is completely off the mains. He collects rainwater from the roof of his house and workshops, and uses various simple methods to filter it, including brush bristles in the guttering to trap the leaves. He also has his own well with a manual pump. Barry decided a manual pump would be safer than fitting an electric pump in case of a power shortage, so Saturday morning involves the light exercise of pumping water to fill a stainless steel drum, which is then enough drinking water for a week. He uses the traditional method of a silver spoon in the bottom of the well to kill bacteria as it slowly corrodes. Barry will drink the rainwater once boiled for tea and it is also diverted to the upstairs bathroom. The toilets are compost loos, so they don't waste water or create a waste stream.

Which nicely brings me on to other waste. Barry composts all his kitchen and garden waste and finds ingenious ways to re-use most things. There are 4 compost bins around the site and the resulting fertility is spread on the garden. One of the compost bins is made from the back end of an old car! (Sorry I forgot to take a photo!) I love this idea! It is stood on end so the car boot is at the top to load compost into. Old beer cans have been welded together to make an original downpipe. Old bike tyres make a surprisingly comfy toilet seat, for a compost toilet made of old washing machine parts, plastic bins and large plant pots.

Barry doesn't like seeing things go to waste and rather than buying things new, can pick up and salvage things that people may throw away in skips. We were sitting on folding picnic benches rescued from a supermarket skip. Barry regularly collects food from the local supermarket skip too. Often things like fruit is thrown away because it is past it's 'display until' date, even though it is still in perfect condition. He also grows fruit and vegetables in his garden.

Barry heats his home using a woodburning stove. His garden is large enough to have plenty of tall trees around the edges, which he trims for firewood, providing a free heating fuel. It also supplies the heat for cooking in winter too.

The main house was built in the 1800's and as such has hard to treat cavity walls. Look at the small gap between the bricks above, which makes it very difficult to add any insulation. The house is in a conservation area, (which means it is very difficult to get approval to change any of the external features of the building) so external wall insulation is not an option.

Barry has chosen to insulate the walls internally. These old terraced houses are pretty small inside by current standards, so internal insulation will reduce the space even more. Small homes are a lot cheaper to keep warm though.

It is a big project which is underway, and has involved moving out while the work is completed. The roof and floors are not being neglected either with insulation board due to be fitted between the rafters and a thick layer of insulation added to the floor. It will be down to the details of the joints to ensure good air tightness.

The windows have been upgraded for double glazing at the side and rear of the building, but the front windows need to retain their original wooden appearance. Barry will be installing secondary glazing internally and is looking into the best way to seal it. On the front door Barry has opted to have a deep reveal to act as a barrier to draughts too.

Barry has solar hot water provided by evacuated tubes, which he had removed for maintenance. You can just make out the unit below the window, with one tube still attached. He saved money by buying the parts and building the system himself. Electricity is also from solar energy. Barry has a large array of PV panels for his workshop roof, as they are not allowed on the South facing house roof, due to the conservation status. These panels feed into a series of batteries and are off grid. This means that when the sun shines they will charge the batteries, giving Barry a low voltage supply of electricity, even in the event of a power cut.

Barry does have a mains electricity supply which he can use if required, but generally he can manage with a low voltage supply. He would like to have a small wind turbine too on the main house, but again that is prohibited.

Barry uses his mains electricity wisely. For instance he will boil the kettle when he wakes in the morning, whilst the electricity is still on the night rate. He heats enough for 4 cups of tea and pours it into a thermos flask to last him the whole day. He also manages without a fridge by storing chilled goods in a container of cold water in the coolest north west corner of the house. Small regular shopping or 'skip-diving' trips also help to reduce the need for chilled food storage. By using the computers and internet access at the library he also avoids many of the standby devices that drain electricity.

The Open Homes visitors had plenty of questions for Barry and he was in his element talking about his ideas and green issues. It is very interesting to see how with a lot of ingenuity and a change of attitudes, it is possible to become more self-sufficient and live a sustainable and ecologically friendly lifestyle.

Up to my neck in it

I have been having fun on my allotment!

I had a tractor trailer full of manure delivered at 7:30am on Monday morning. It was an enormous pile and I just couldn't stop grinning all day as I spread it! The timing was crucial, so that I had a couple of hours to try to make it look smaller before the other plot holders showed up. My plot is plot number 1, everyone passes me as they come in the gate. There is nowhere to hide!

Is it looking smaller yet? This patch of my allotment had not been dug or weeded. I just laid a layer of cardboard over the weeds and spread a good 6 inches of muck over the top. I still had too much left, so then I spread it further over the area that I had already dug. Now one half of my plot is almost all covered with manure and the other side has been traditionally dug.

 

The other allotmenteers must think I'm crazy. There have been murmurings of "That will never work", "You won't be able to grow anything for 6 months" and "You won't get away with it". There is a notion that the manure will 'burn' the plants, but as I have seen this method in action on the Transition Community Allotment and with my good friend Carol at My Journey Into Food Production I am not so worried. I am following the No Dig method of Charles Dowding. I have watched a couple of his videos and put my trust in him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HATC3rG6NbQ

Actually for me it just feels right. My plot had sunk a good 6 inches from the plot next door, possibly from the nutrients being taken out with every harvest and not replenished. Also when I dug a row of the soil for potatoes I only saw 2 worms! In my garden at home I find worms in every spadefull! It really did feel like a Birthday present for my plot and the party was a soft, sticky, squidgy and exhausting one! I hope the worms enjoy it ;-)

 

I kept a small pile of manure to spread round the fruit bushes. I even exchanged 2 barrowful's for 2 freshly picked little gem lettuce, so it was an easy salad to make for dinner. The next day I stomped it all down, which neatened it up. Then I planted some sweetcorn right in the middle. That will shock the pants off some of my neighbours ;-)

The other allotmenteers are a friendly and generous bunch. I have been given sweetcorn, cabbage, cauliflower and broccoli seedlings, unusual roots to plant like Oca and Yakon, posts for my bean frame, herbs and fresh Tatsoi and Chinese greens to eat, with further offers of garlic, spinach and a jostaberry bush. They are happy to give you a tour of their plots and show you the delicacies they are growing. It is amazing the full extent of varieties that can be grown, not just the basic fruit and veg you would find in the supermarket.

Every veg grown counts at reducing my impact. It is grown with virtually no fossil fuel use, no chemical fertilisers, only transported a mile to my home, there is no packaging made to hold it, it hasn't been rinsed in bleach or left on a shelf for weeks while the nutrients degrade, and there is no exchange of money to any corporations in order for me to eat it. Jason Heppenstall at 22 Billion Energy Slaves seems to have been thinking similar thoughts this week too. Growing your own veggies goes a long way towards living a 90% lifestyle.

Open Homes event

This weekend Transition Loughborough are holding a free Open Homes event. This is an opportunity to visit some local homes that have a variety of energy efficiency measures installed, meet the homeowners and ask questions. So if you are thinking of improving your home, and are worried about the mess, cost or reliability you can find out first-hand from people who have already done it. For full details of the event check out the website. I will be helping out at Barry's house, so if you are local then please drop in and say hello.

There are also several Open Homes events going on all over the country. To find out if there is an event near you have a look here.

It has been a busy few weeks, but I will catch up with some posts soon :-)

Frugal purchases

Last year I started looking at how much 'stuff' we buy and set myself a goal to reduce it. I was following Sharon Astyk's Riot for Austerity to some extent, so my rules for what I was buying were somewhat different to those used by Judith Levine in Not Buying It, who was just trying not to buy anything for a year. For instance buying secondhand is good for me, as it is re-using items that other people no longer need and stopping them being thrown away. It also doesn't have the carbon footprint of buying a new item (though there are sometimes some transport emissions involved).

The Riot for Austerity uses the measure of how much you spend each year, with a target of reducing that to 90% of the average American spend. So buying expensive designer goods would work out bad, but then so could buying higher priced fair trade items or locally produced products. Buying secondhand is cheaper (unless you are buying antiques) so it is a very good way to reduce your annual spend. Even better is not buying anything. The ideal for me would be to focus on just buying the raw materials rather than finished goods where possible. So seeds, manure and wood are raw materials, whereas a new oven would be a finished goods. To replace my broken oven I would need to look for a second hand replacement as an alternative to buying new (As I certainly can't make one from raw materials ;-) ). Can you see how this should work?

I would love to have the skills and time to make all my own clothes, so just buying material, thread and wool, but for now buying secondhand is my aim. With this in mind I have been off to my local carboot sale again!

My darling husband always asks why I go to the carboot sale to buy things, when I would be better off selling some of our unwanted 'stuff'. I do occasionally do a stall to sell things, but I find it is much easier to give outgrown kids clothes to friends or family, or to put it in a charity bag. I save far more money buying things than I would make in a day of selling. Let me show you some examples......

This glass measuring jug is as good as new and cost me 30p, whereas to buy it new would have cost £3.75 (price from Tesco direct). It replaces the last of my very old plastic jugs and should last years, so I can justify this as not useless 'stuff'.

Jeans from Next that look like they have only been worn a few times cost me £1. These are exactly the jeans I would usually buy, so I know that a basic new pair would cost £20 from the shop. I also got another pair of M&S jeans for £2, though they aren't such a good fit. Jeans that fit are an essential to replace worn out jeans, but ones that aren't a good fit will just clutter up my wardrobe, so will go straight into a charity bag.

A plain t-shirt in very good condition from M&S cost me 67p, because I bought 3 t-shirts for £2. To buy it new would be around £6. (Two of the t-shirts didn't fit so really it cost me £2 for one t-shirt, which is still a saving.)

I also bought a T-shirt for my daughter for 50p as we had seen a similar one in New Look for £6.99. Essentials again for growing kids.

A thick warm jumper from Roxy cost me £1, although it was a bit grubby. New ones start at £50 on their website. Warm jumpers are another essential for winter.

A set of baskets (they look like a set but I bought them from 2 separate stalls) cost £2. How much would they be new? Maybe £15? I am just guessing here. Again these are replacing plastic tubs, and are not only more aesthetically pleasing, but made of natural materials.

Oh and a campervan mug cost 50p, but they cost £7 new. Hmmm......there is always an impulse buy! This kind of 'stuff' shouldn't be creeping in my home, even if it is secondhand.

Oh and how could I forget! I spent £1.50 on a cast iron hand mincer. Just the weight of the metal would be worth more than that. Although I can't really claim to have saved any money because I never would have bought it new. I'm sure I will get round to using it eventually. Plus it is made in England, so its a local product.

Not bad for a mornings shopping. I spent £15 in total if you include a few more items that didn't fit properly when I got home, 3 DVD's and the 50p admission fee. To buy just the items mentioned above new would have cost me £108 a saving of over £93. The most I have ever taken on a day selling my unwanted goods at the carboot is £80, though £50 to £60 is more normal. If it rains you risk taking a lot less money and coming home with a boot full of soggy items.

For me the Riot for Austerity target of a 90% reduction of 'stuff' based on money spent, is looking much more achievable than to not buy anything like Judith Levine did for a year. And if bargain hunting is something you enjoy, then find your nearest carboot sale for a frugal and eco-friendly shopping experience :-)

Need or Want?

I have been reading Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping by  Judith Levine, which was a recommendation from Jo at All the Blue Day. I will confess that I am not really enjoying it, but I am putting that down to a lack of personal connection with the author. There are areas I find fascinating, where Judith makes some astute observations, but then other discussions that are not relevant to me, living such a different lifestyle.

Judith had a bad Christmas shopping experience and decided to give up buying anything but essentials for a whole year. It is an anti-consumerist statement rather than a green statement, so Judith and her partner are pretty strict about not buying charity theatre tickets (which don't involve accumulating 'stuff') or second hand goods (which involves re-using existing 'stuff'). The book tracks her progress and thoughts throughout the year.

It is interesting reading about all the 'stuff' they have to start with, for instance 3 motor vehicles for a household with only 2 people. There are also magazine subscriptions, eating out, new books, wine, fashionable clothes, gifts and many other things that are non-essential, but painful to give up at first. I can definitely think of some luxuries that I wouldn't want to lose.

I did like how Judith looks at our 'needs' and our 'wants', and how we make the things that we want out to be a 'need' that we can't live without. One example was extending their home. They convinced themselves that they needed more space, how she couldn't get her work done without a separate room and how he needed more storage space for all his 'stuff'. Whilst the disruptive building work for the large and expensive extension was underway, they had to move their bedroom and workspace into the living room and Judith observed how cosy it was and how well everything fitted in. Did they really 'need' the extra space?

This is a valuable but difficult distinction to recognise. We are surrounded by advertisements telling us that we 'need' their product to make us slim, or look cool, or be popular, or be better at cooking, or run faster.....but we are also good at convincing ourselves that we need them. For instance some of my seedlings are dying on my living room windowsill. The ones in the kitchen are fine, but there is just not enough space for them all before it is warm enough to put them outside. I really need a greenhouse, so that I have plenty of warm sunny space for raising my plants. Plus it is more work trying to keep them watered and turned so they grow evenly, and the radiators below the windows provide too much warmth so they become leggy. I really need a greenhouse to do this properly otherwise I'm making more work for myself. Right?

But do I really 'need' one or just 'want' one? My thoughts regarding a greenhouse are really biased and selective. I mean there are plenty of places where I can buy seedlings cheaply, that are ready to be planted out. I don't have to grow them from seed myself. Or I could concentrate on plants more suited to our climate, or plant the seeds outside under cloches or just later in the year and get a later crop. Plus a greenhouse would entail more work, cleaning the glass, opening windows when it gets too hot, closing them at night and watering the plants regularly, not to mention the time and cost of buying and installing one. But all this can be overlooked, ignored or played down, in my mind which has decided that I do really 'need' a greenhouse ;-)

The same can happen when clothes shopping, and you really 'need' to find some shoes to match that outfit, or 'need' that new dress because people have seen you in all the other ones, or a new coat because last year's one looks dated. These are wants not really needs. I mean you do need to be clothed to keep you warm, but you can achieve that with very few outfits. Is this something you can relate to? It is much easier to spot in others than when you are doing it yourself!

It is easy for my brain to tell me that I 'need' something, but it takes a conscious effort to stop myself and ask do I really 'need' it. I have made a conscious decision not to buy any more electrical appliances, but it is hard. Every recipe that says ' ...and blitz it in your food processor.' makes me feel that I can't live without a food processor, but I can. It just involves a bit more chopping, grating, mixing, beating, whisking or sieving by hand.

Reducing the amount of 'stuff' manufactured, bought and then dumped is a true need. Vast amounts of energy and resources go into all the tantalising products lining shop windows and featured in glossy mags. We need to reduce carbon emissions if we want earth to remain habitable, and we need to stop squandering resources that will be needed by future generations. Every product we buy has a hidden environmental cost, so now's a good time to stop buying it, if it is not essential to your survival. Are you with me?