Entries by admin

Bikes to Go

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To the new Prius we’ve added excellent bike racks at only £65 each. They hold the bikes really well, so now we’ve been able to get beyond the impossible local hills to find some really nice cycle tracks. Feeling much better and a little fitter after this week’s eco holiday.

Battling with the Stove

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We’ve been keen for a long time to install a wood-burning stove to replace the old aga. The problem was always going to be the solid concrete chimney breast built in the 1930s. In the event it took two very persistent workmen from the Czech Republic most of a day the hammer through a big […]

Almost Electric

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It’s a long story but at last we have gone for a Prius. Ideally we would have liked an electric car and my researches at the motor show turned up a few possibilities.   But then I went to a really interesting lunch at the World Economic Forum in Davos, where the leading manufacturers were […]

Dumping Ecotricity

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It seems that this issue has come out because companies have only recently been required to publish the fuel mix. And it’s going to shock a lot of people. I had an authoritative response from someone in the business (who had better not be named): “I am not surprised at this. Ecotricity is run by […]

A new calculator and a surprise

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I’ve just got round to signing up to Torchbox’s carbon calculator – The Carbon Account. It’s quite the best I’ve used for a number of reasons. It logs detailed information about your particular vehicles and your energy supplier, looks up the latest information on them and presents your progress to reducing your carbon footprint in […]

glorious trees

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An interesting factoid from Green Futures.                   I was amazed when I first read it and did some quick calculations. We are lucky enough to have around 350 mature trees (mostly beech as it happens) in our plot here at Hedgerley. Some are growing quite close together, […]

More solar stats

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I’ve been trying to get away from theoretical figures to see what impact PV on our roof could actually have. I measured our electricity use for the last 24 hours. With seven of us here, the washing machine used a lot and a certain amount of heating as the day was colder, I expected the […]

Time for Mr MacGregor

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Last year our attempts to grow more of our food were neatly nipped in the bud by Peter Rabbit. So now I’ve decided the only way is to put up anti-rabbit and anti-deer fencing. Hopefully it will be effective is protecting the seedlings I’ve just put in. Plus the marigolds – the result of half-remembered […]

Eco Exhibition

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We went for the day with Devi, Matthew and Rosa to the Green Homes Show in Builth Wells. They were interested in wood-chip boilers, but were not altogether convinced. I focused on the wind turbine stand by nextgenerationturbines.com. The one they were displaying looked pretty big to me. In fact it was only 1.8 kW, […]

Testing for PV

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After the disappointments about finding a place for a turbine with enough wind, I’ve starting thinking about solar again. One way or another I am determined to start making our own electricity to balance out the amount used by the heat pump and all our media work. I had thought that the roof was too […]

Stove Progress

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There were lots of comments on the blog when we first considered replacing our solid fuel aga with a Clearview stove and got the story from Walkers shop in Burford. Since then we’ve sold the Aga and put in a ground heat pump. This does a great job at heating the water and providing background […]

Ex Presidential Overview

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At the Sheldonian theatre in Oxford last Thursday 21st June 2007 former US President Jimmy Carter spoke movingly and candidly about his new book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid and his 30- year involvement with the issue from the inside. He was particularly good in response to questions from the audience. The lecture is introduced by […]