Green energy provider asks: How green are you?

We all understand the importance of being environmentally friendly, but many avoid self-evaluating their efforts to go green, assuming change could be costly. Small amendments to our daily habits will have a positive impact on the environment and needn’t take up a lot of time or money. Leading sustainable energy supplier green energy uk is encouraging people to be honest and ask themselves: “How green am I?”

An environmentally friendly lifestyle is easy to adopt as the smallest changes around the home can make a substantial difference. Evaluating our level of eco-friendliness can help us identify simple areas for improvement and can highlight things we may overlook such as energy saving bulbs and double glazing.

“Many people don’t realise just how easily they can incorporate more environmentally friendly measures,” explains green energy uk’s CEO, Doug Stewart. “With the government still offering free cavity wall and loft insulation until October, homeowners should look to utilise the grants that are available which will help them save energy in the colder months when we will put our heating back on.”

“There’s nothing more satisfying than being self-sufficient and at home you can physically see the results as you reap the benefits from the circle of recycling. Disposing of waste food and converting it to compost in garden bins can be a great way to produce soil full of nutrients, which is great for vegetable patches and allotments. Growing your own food also has the added benefits of cutting transportation costs and supermarket packaging.”

Those wanting to be more eco-savvy, they can look to green energy providers for competitive electricity prices and install solar panels or geothermal water heating systems.

Doug continues: “Green energy is at a really exciting time with the technology now enabling us to be much more self-sufficient. We should all be asking what more we can do to live greener lifestyles from the slightest of changes to the grandest gestures of eco-change, every step can make a difference. Even one positive change has an encouraging impact for the world that we live in.”

For further information about becoming green, to find out more about sustainable energy or to get a competitive electricity quote visit www.greenenergyuk.com.

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Building adaptation achieves 80% reduction in running costs

Dr Jerry Harrall

Dr Jerry Harrall of SEArch architects describes how simple, low invasive design techniques such as using extruded polystyrene as external insulation transformed the cost of living and quality of life for residents of a 200 year old house in High Wycombe.

“For some, the clock is ticking towards zero carbon goals. For others, it’s already become a reality. The good news is that it doesn’t require complex building methods or even high tech equipment to achieve significant improvements in the energy performance of existing building stock.

Greening-The-Box™ offers a suite of building techniques developed by SEArch (Sustainable Ecological Architecture Ltd) applying straightforward, low invasive design methods to enable existing buildings to operate without reliance on fossil fuels.

Greening-The-Box™ High Wycombe is the first private dwelling to benefit from such adaptation techniques, resulting not only in remarkable cost and energy savings but, according to the homeowners, an improvement in their quality of life too. When a client uses words such as “uplifting” and describes their new environment as providing “serenity and tranquillity”, you know you are on to something!

I believe the environmental and cost benefits are just as impressive, including:
•100% reduction in CO2 emissions of 18 tonnes/year (17,878kg CO2/year)
•80% reduction in running costs (a very considerable £2,000 reduction in the first year)
•100% reduction of fossil fuels use.

Providing further credence to the building’s enhanced performance, the Standard Assessment Procedure (SAP) produced a rating of 89A, a highly notable performance when most housebuilders are working to ratings of lower than 80 for new dwellings. The pre-design SAP rating was 49.

So how was this achieved? Let’s go back to the beginning. The High Wycombe project is a 200 year old detached house. The owners were looking to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels, cut energy bills and at the same time have less of an impact on the environment. Their ambitions were to design out the need for an oil fired central heating system, and put in its place a naturally heated environment as well as a natural ventilation regime.

Perhaps surprisingly, just five key changes were needed to make the existing building fit for a low carbon future:

•enveloping the house externally with STYROFOAM™-A extruded polystyrene insulation
•increasing internal thermal mass of walls and floors
•increasing the southerly glazed areas
•decreasing the northerly glazed areas
•modifying the layout to encourage natural ventilation.

Insulating the envelope
In its pre-adapted condition, the absence of any external insulation to the solid external walls and below the ground floor slab meant that both building elements offered little resistance to heat transfer; it was a difficult building to keep warm. The average rate of heat loss, or U-Value, was calculated at 2.17W/m2K.

STYROFOAM™–A insulation from Dow Building Solutions was specified for the project for both environmental and performance reasons. The material is not only UK-manufactured, but is blown with carbon dioxide giving it a Global Warming Potential (GWP) of less than five. The material also has an Ozone Depletion Potential (ODP) of zero and is ideal for external use where moisture resistance, rigidity and strength are key requirements.

Post adaptation, the introduction of 200mm of STYROFOAM™-A insulation to the external fabric and below the floor slab reduced the rate of heat loss by a very considerable 620% to just 0.35W/m2K. Thermographic images show minor surface temperature variations over the STYROFOAM™-A clad external fabric and junctions with minimal heat loss detected. In comparison, thermographic images of the adjacent, twenty year old property indicate significantly higher levels of fabric heat loss with noticeable variations across different building elements.

Increasing thermal mass
Adding such high levels of insulation also contributed to the effectiveness of thermal mass within the structure. The pre-adapted, un-insulated thermal mass of the building was calculated as 0.68MJ/K/m2. Post adaptation, the property’s thermal mass marginally increased by 9% to 0.72MJ/K/m2, a small incremental increase.

Despite the small increase, the thermal mass acts as a highly effective heat-sink and helps to moderate internal ambient air temperatures throughout the year for both heating and cooling; introducing STYROFOAM™-A externally means the thermal mass becomes that much more effective.

Residents now enjoy a relatively stable ambient internal air temperature of around 21⁰C without the aid of a central heating system. Instead, supplementary heat contributions are achieved with a low grade, self-regulating electric under-floor heating system, a wood burner and secondary heat from household appliances. The 35KW rated under-floor heating contributed 1200KWhr of heating load over the first twelve months; this is anticipated to reduce over the second year due to drying out.

Adapting fenestration
To the south of the building, the potential for solar heat gains through the fenestration was increased by creating a larger area of direct south facing glazing which now measures 9.3m2 in total, an increase from 3.9m2. This represents a 72% increase in south facing glazing areas with a net solar heat gain contributing to the overall heating load.

In contrast, the north elevation glazed area was reduced from 11.3m2 to 6.1m2. This 50% reduction in glazing combined with the higher specification replacement glass (24mm low–E double glazing), reduced the heat transmittance through the north windows collectively from 34 W/m2K to 11W/m2K. This resulted in a 68% reduction in the rate of heat loss from the north windows alone.

A change in the view!
As an additional touch, who would have thought that simple changes to layout could result in dramatic changes? Simply by putting bedrooms on the ground floor and principal occupation rooms on upper floors, solar receipts could be increased and elevated daylight levels enjoyed where they are needed most.

Finally, as well as relatively simple changes to the building structure, 5.5KWp of roof mounted photovoltaics (PVs) were added, generating 4,200KWhrs in the first year and displacing 3,106kg of CO2.

Blueprint for the future
What has been created at Greening-the-Box™ High Wycombe is a pragmatic, affordable and replicable solution which will no doubt be of great interest to those working hard to get the Green Deal out of the policy papers and into our homes.

A highly inefficient 200 year old building has been transformed into a genuinely low carbon, low impact household which offers a perpetual environmental legacy. It’s been achieved by employing simple design techniques and by using materials which are already widely available in the UK, and as such offers a potential blueprint for the benefit of generations to come.”

For more information on Greening-the-Box™ visit www.searcharchitects.co.uk. For STYROFOAM™-A product details visit Dow Building Solutions at www.styrofoam.co.uk.

Urban Jungle, recycled rug made from 99 plastic bottles

Urban Jungle is the latest genius idea from Plantation Rug Company, bringing style to your home and a smile to your conscience. The first recycled rug in their collection!

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Available in three tangy colourways and two sizes (rectangle) 120 x 170 cm £100 and 150 x 240 cm £175

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Businesses can adopt sustainable energy to boost CSR credentials, says green energy provider

As the environment is an increasingly prominent issue to both individuals and businesses, choosing sustainable energy for the good of the planet offers a double-whammy in terms of benefit to businesses, says green energy uk. As well as the environmental aspects, choosing to go green can really boost credentials when it comes to a company’s CSR policy. In the current business climate, this is a key consideration.

Corporate social responsibility has definitely become more of a ‘business-must’ as oppose to a ‘business could-have’. From charity donations to community events, there are many ways to approach and interpret it.

Doug Stewart, chief executive of green energy, says: “Many people may roll their eyes skywards at the mere mention of corporate social responsibility – thinking it may involve endless charity donations. However, it is a wider issue; the crux of CSR is, in short, understanding how your business impacts on the wider world and using consideration as to how you can use this impact in a positive way. But don’t fall asleep just yet! Although I understand that CSR may not be seen as a sexy subject or a topic that has people on the edge of their seats, some fun can be had with it and it is an important issue. Initiatives such as Fairtrade have proved that, with product sales increasing by 40 per cent last year, proving that being ethical is an issue close to the hearts of many.

“When it comes to CSR, if you’re creative enough, there’s no reason why it has to be boring. Getting involved in or contributing towards a community project, for instance, could fulfill it. Some companies might want to immerse themselves in a local cause. There are endless opportunities. And who would have thought what comes out of the back of a pig might help with CSR? As a source of green energy that can be adopted to help reduce a company’s carbon footprint, pig poo can play a part! Tangible green efforts such as alternative energy sources are a great way to fulfil the CSR quota of a business.

“Let’s face it, energy is something every business, regardless of size, uses and can’t function without. Choosing business electricity from a renewable source is a relatively easy way to fulfil CSR. As well as pig manure, our energy is sourced from tomato plants and used cooking oil. These sources fulfil criteria in two ways: re-using waste that would otherwise have to be disposed of and could harm the environment, and using waste to generate energy to reduce carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels. Add all of that to the impact of continued and growing demand on depleting fossil fuels, and it quickly adds up that a small change can make a big difference.”

As well as pig waste, green energy uk’s sources include wind and hydro power from free falling water. Customers are both domestic and business users throughout the UK.

For further information about green energy uk and its energy sources visit www.greenenergy.uk.com.