I live in The Grove, Burnham on Sea, with my partner. It's five
minutes walk to the beach and seven miles of sand dunes. We
look over the sea and watch the sunset. But if we miss that we can
still see the glow of Cardiff. Grrrr - we moved west from London in
order to lose the light pollution and to be able to see the
stars...
When we arrived here, nearly three years ago, there was no heating
and the roof had holes like constellations. It meant we had a
blank slate to start from so we could make decisions about the
right way to fix up the house.
We fixed and insulated the roof and walls first, and wrapped the
doors with draught-busting tape. We found a local company to
install solar thermal panels, so we had hot water even before we
had a boiler. That kept us warm until December, when we
thought we should ask our brilliant plumber to put in an efficient
condensing system boiler. We actually only need to for a
third of the year - oh the irony.I did lots of research about the
most efficient choices - I went to Ecobuild show in London and
chatted to loads of manufacturers of boilers, insulation, solar
panels, wind mills, rainwater harvesting tanks etc. We spoke
to energy industry experts about which green energy generation
methods were cost-effective, and which were actually
carbon-efficient. Some methods for small-scale generation
have a higher carbon load from manufacturing and transporting parts
than they will ever save in their lifetime.
My partner and I try to be as self-sufficient as possible,
which starts with reducing our energy usage. Of course we
turn off appliances at the wall but we try to live an outdoor life
as much as possible. We grew up with "Why don't you?" -
remember that? - so six years ago we gave away the TV and have been
doing more interesting things instead. We grow our own fruit
and veg, and have created a really small-holding in the
middle of our street. We keep rabbits and quail, which the
cats guard very well. We had an allotment near our last
house, but now we have space in our garden to grow our own. We have
herbs for all purposes and fruit trees to be getting on with, and
plans for more. Did you know it only takes 5 fruit trees to
be classed as an orchard? It all takes a bit of work to
maintain, but it beats paying for a gym membership! And it is fun
to be in the garden and be aware of how we interact with nature.
So the shed has a green roof which we made and which helps
keep it warm and save the rainwater. And on the south-facing
window is our trusty solar radio - we're shameless
singers-alongers.
