Bad GCH pushing my GSH

When we first moved into our second Transition House (which I'm going to call TH2 from now on and TH1 for our previous house), the first thing I noticed was that none of the radiators had thermostatic valves. That didn't really bother me, because I didn't really use them in my previous house. A room was either being used with radiator on and the door was open, or it wasn't radiator off and door shut.

The second thing I noticed was that there is no wall thermostat to control the heating - this I thought very odd and further investigation showed that there is no control for the hot water temperature either! It's very old.

The central/water heating does have a timer and it can be on twice a day for the hours we choose. There is also a switch to decide whether it is off, heating the water only, or radiators and water.

Due to my panic last week, the radiator heating is off and the water heating is only when we need it. The result of course is that the house is very cold, but I am pleased with the graph :) - we are now only using the same amount of gas in TH2 with no heating, limited hot water and cooking as we were in TH1 when the lovely gas-condensing-combi boiler was keeping us lovely and warm with hot water on demand.

So I guess I need to go through a few of the major differences between TH1 and TH2.

Insulation
TH1 - Cavity wall insulation and 250mm loft insulatation
TH2 - None.

Windows
TH1 - Double glazed and no draughts between the glazing and the walls.
TH2 - Double glazed, but badly fitted, so draughts between the windows and walls.

Doors
TH1 - Came with the double glazing - insulated and double glazed, no draughts.
TH2 - Oh my, you can see light underneath the front door!

Heating and hot water
TH1 - Gas-combination-combi boiler, thermostatic valves for everything, totally controlable.
TH2 - Gas, timed, no thermostatic controls.

Cooking
TH1 - Electric
TH2 - Gas

Ability to make changes
TH1 - Limited only by money and time (we owned the place)
TH2 - We rent this house, so can't make major changes

So what next?
Well, there are plenty of things we can do within the scope of our tenancy agreement to help us save money on our bills (and of course reduce gas use and all the associated environmental effects).

The first thing we have done is shut the doors to the rooms that we are not using, so that we don't have heat escaping to those spaces.

The next thing I am going to do is sort out all of the draughts. That will be the next blog post.

I'll show you mine if you show me yours ...

electricity and gas meter readings that is ;)

Many thanks to the readyourmeter guys for adding the embed graph functionality to their site. I hadn't ever thought that a few graphs could be sooo much fun.

You can really see where we whacked up the heat during that snowy spell over Christmas - look at that gas use spike! And I was wearing lots of jumpers!! Now to be extra frugal to try and get those graph lines to go down again.

At least it has stopped snowing (actually I love the snow, it's snow much fun!! - pictured Ginger the snowman and me) so it should be easier to keep warm, I suppose not spending all afternoon building snowmen and getting freezing will help too.

10% in 2010

Lets face it the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference was a total COP out. It's time to ignore the politicians, get serious about climate change and do whatever we can with or without them. The 10:10 campaign is something that is tangible and totally do-able plus it will help reduce household bills too. Beat climate change and the recession all in one go - something every thrifty housewife should want to do!!

The 10:10 campaign is all about reducing your carbon emissions by 10% in the year 2010. The website gives all kinds of advice about how people can achieve that so go there now - no after you've read the rest of this because the 10:10 site doesn't say how as an individual you can baseline your carbon. There are a few carbon calculator sites the Transition House site reviewed last year.

If you really want to reduce your household carbon emissions you need to take notice of your electricity and gas consumption. www.readyourmeter.org is a site created by David Mackay (top geezer) and colleagues from Cambridge University. The site draws lots of nice graphs for you once you've added in your meter readings and it very kindly works out for you your CO2 emissions - very clever stuff.

By being interested in the charts it's almost impossible not to try and get those lines to go lower and lower (and horrible when it's winter and you have to turn the central heating and watch those lines rise (yes I am wearing several layers of jumpers)). Look out for electricity monitor free give aways too, the devices tell you which appliances are using the most electricity - some libraries have them to loan out to you like books ask your local library about them (and if they don't lend them out, suggest that they do!! :) ).

You can even compare your emissions against other houses, search for the "Transition House" stats. To check out how we are doing.

So join me and thousands of others and go for your 10% in 2010. Good luck and let me know if you sign up for the readyourmeter site so that we can compare charts.