On Thursday evening invited by Polly and Boo to go to an Oxford meeting on the Green House organised by COIN (Climate Outreach and Information Network). So many people turned up that they had to take over a second hall and rotate the speakers.
COIN have an interesting carbon calculator. It doesn’t do the maths […]
Dean from ICE Energy arrived this morning for the commissioning of the heat pump system. The sequence was:
Check all the plumbing and electrics and then add glycol to both the ground loops.
The mix has to be exactly right to avoid freezing without making the flow sluggish. Dean checks this constantly with his refractometer until he […]
A very helpful reality check on my original figures comes from a comment on the blog questioning the original figure of 20,700 kWhs per year. He couldn’t believe that we could be using four times the national average for domestic electricity use. This sounds right. The figure was based on electricity bills that were […]
Harry the plumber is just finishing off the pretty complicated plumbing in of the heat pump - hopefully in time for the commissioning (yes, that’s what they call it) of the whole system tomorrow.
Because these are quite rare systems, both Harry and Peter the electrician have to do the work by reference to a thick […]
A good symbolic moment as we throw out our oil boiler.
Our biggest single contribution to reducing our carbon emissions. So now we’re looking forward to a cold few days until the new heat pump is commissioned next Tuesday.
I was impressed to see the solar water heating system that Franny has put in.
The most impressive aspect was the cost: £2,700 total, or £800 net of the grants from Clear Skies and Camden Council. It was partly so reasonable because she’d already put in exactly the right model of boiler to work with the […]