Limited number of Green Home Concierge Subscriptions up for Grabs

Lewisham has a limited number of Green Home Concierge subscriptions up for grabs. They are being offered on a first come, first serve basis to residents in the borough. It usually costs £199 for a year’s consultation. Included is an assessment of your home and a report tailored to your needs, whether you want to save money, reduce your carbon footprint or just make your home warm and cosy.

Green Homes Concierge is supposed to take the headache out of commissioning improvements by finding you competitive quotes and searching for available grants. They will be on hand with advice for the next 12 months.

Places are available on a first come first served basis until 15th April, to residents within the borough of Lewisham, who want to make their homes more energy efficient. Some properties may be more suitable than others – new builds may not benefit from the scheme. If you are not a homeowner, permission must be granted from your landlord. Assessments must be booked in and completed by 30th April.

To take advantage of this special offer or find out more please call Gareth Bates on 0800 089 0098. See Green Homes Concierge for more details.

Insulation Day 3

OSB (oriented structure board) has started to go down in the front room today. Just 8mm thick, but enough to give extra support to the boards that will go over the top, as well as add an extra air-tight layer over the insulation. Apparently OSB is better than using plywood or MDF as it contains less formaldehyde and wastes less wood. Slight hitch in that my phone line was accidentally cut today when the skirting boards were removed - apologies to anyone who tried to call and couldn't get through - it's back up and running now though, so do call again.

Operation Insulation has commenced!

Finally, after months of reading up and getting estimates, and just over a year after I joined the Green Homes scheme and got my home energy audit, my plan to insulate and 'green up' my flat took a step forward today, with the start of the work to insulate under my floor boards. Living in the ground floor flat of a converted Victorian house with stripped floorboards and single glazed sash windows has been more than a bit draughty over the past few weeks, but hopefully that's all set to change. The works are going to take a few weeks, and involve moving all the furniture out of one half of the flat while all the floorboards are taken up. Any inch of space that isn't taken up with furniture, is jam-packed with huge bales of insulation material.

Work started today in the front room. The floorboards have all been lifted and the skirting boards removed. 'Periscope vents' have been fitted onto the air bricks to channel the air down. It's important that air continues to circulate underneath the insulation to avoid damp problems. A fair amount of rubble has been removed to make sure the air holes are clear. A breathable membrane is going to be placed over and between the joists, to hold the insulation in place.

The insulation that I'm using is hemp based, and (I'm assured) both fire retardant and treated with smthg which makes it unappealing to mice. After discussion with the builders today, we decided to add an extra 6mm layer of board on top of the insulation and joists to add extra support to the floorboards (they've already been sanded once and after being sanded a second time might be slightly thinner than ideal).

All this insulation will just about bring my floor insulation up to modern day building regs standards, ie not by any stretch of the imagination zero carbon, but significantly better than it currently is. We're limited in what we can do by the fact that the gap under the floor boards and the depth of the joists is not that big, but the insulation should certainly be enough to block the draughts that currently blow through the place and help to make my home a bit cosier and more comfortable than it has been.

Blogging may be slightly intermittent while the works are underway . . .

Boris Watch

2 things in particular that the Mayor of London has done have annoyed me this week:

1) Motorbikes can now use red route bus lanes on TfL roads. (Borough bus lanes are at the discretion of local authorities and Lewisham has already confirmed that it does not plan to allow motorbikes to use its bus lanes). This measure is not going to encourage people to take up cycling on London's streets. Motorbikes may use less fuel than cars, but they're still dependent on fast-depleting fossil fuels and contributing to greenhouse gases. The Mayor of London should be focussing his efforts on promoting walking and cycling, not pandering to petrolheads while imposing above inflation increases on public transport fares.

2) It's also been revealed this week that he is scrapping the London Green Homes Concierge Service. Regular readers of this blog will know that I signed up to this scheme last January, and since then have been working on ways to improve the thermal efficiency of my home. The scheme was launched a year ago by the previous Mayor of London and the London Development Agency and was designed to help Londoners cut climate emissions and fuel costs by making their homes more energy efficient.

It wasn't perfect (a London-wide free insulation roll-out to every home would have been better), but it's better than nothing, which, as far as I can gather so far, is what it's being replaced with. The London Development Agency has axed the Green Homes Service from its plans for next year and beyond. This was confirmed early this week by LDA chief executive, Peter Rogers, under questioning by Darren Johnson at the Assembly's budget committee. It seems a huge waste of money to scrap something just one on, just as it was getting established.

Anyway, that's the end of my anti-Boris rant for now. You may have gathered that I'm not a fan, and couldn't quite believe that the people of London elected him as Mayor last year, but I guess that's democracy and we just have to make sure a progressive and green candidate gets more votes than him next time!

Confessions of a Green Councillor

This week (20th-26th October) is Energy Saving Week and this year's theme is 'Green/Life Balance'. According to a survey carried out by the Energy Saving Trust, half of us say we would be greener if we had more time, and a third of us say our job is the main reason we don't have time to be green.

I'm certainly guilty of falling into that category now and then, but I took a small green step forward today when I finally got my water butt connected to my drain pipe. I bought it about 8 years ago but it has been sitting idle at the bottom of the garden ever since as I lacked the DIY skills to remove the cast iron drain pipe and replace it with a plastic one that I could fit a butt to. Anyway, I poached my neighbour's plumber who came and did the job for me this morning. A good example of why free water butt schemes need to include installation!

Left, the finished item. I have another smaller one I'm thinking of putting in the front garden too (hopefully it won't take me 8 years to get round to it). I'm almost looking forward to the next time it rains . . .

To show you just how quick energy saving can be, the Energy Saving Trust have produced an Energy Saving Clock, with suggestions on things you can do, ranging from those that take just 1 minute to an hour to save energy (and money). They also have an interactive energy saving house you can explore and Britain Unplugged a new community site, which they hope will develop into a large scale resource for UK energy savers.

For those wondering what happened to my New Year's resolution post to green up my house and cut my carbon emissions, I hope to be able to post more on this soon. It's taken longer than I expected to get quotes for the work I need doing (the May elections got in the way somewhat too), but I'm close to making some decisions now.

I'm going to replace my draughty and rotting windows with wooden-framed double glazed ones, and hopefully also get insulation under my floor boards and on my walls (they are solid brick walls so this has to be done either inside the rooms or externally - I'm probably going for internal, as only a few of my walls need it, being a terraced house). I've had to submit a planning application for my windows even though it isn't in a conservation area, as it is a house split into 3 flats. Normally this kind of decision would be made by officers under delegated powers, but as I am a councillor it has to go to a full planning committee to make sure it is all above board, so it may take a while yet and be 2009 before I can actually get them fitted.

Eco-retrofitting Conservation Area Buildings

My intention of going on the London Freewheel bike ride today was thwarted by a puncture in my front tyre, but I did get the tube up to Camden to go and see 17 St Augustine's Rd – a low energy Victorian house refurbishment. A friend was involved in the project and I was keen to go and see it at first hand.
It was basically a derelict property that Camden Council decided to refurbish so it could be let for social housing, but also to use it as an experiment in retrofitting a period property within a conservation area, with the aim of reducing its carbon emissions by 80%. The house was open as part of the London Open House weekend. It will also be open for the next 3 Sundays, then from October it will be let to a family on the Council housing waiting list.
All the windows have been fitted with high-spec wooden-framed double glazing (argon-filled). There is roof and floor insulation and also internal wall insulation (the latter makes the rooms a bit smaller, but it was a fairly large house so it wasn't that noticeable). The pictures show the depth of the wall insulation and the materials used.
















The refurbishment wasn't cheap and Camden Council wouldn't be able to afford to do the same with all its Victorian housing stock without extra funding, but the house will be closely monitored to see how it performs and lessons learnt from the project will be used to inform future housing refurbishment projects. Arguably, the windows and the insulation are the priorities, to make homes warmer and bring down fuel bills, and the solar panels can be installed at a later date when costs come down.

I was keen to see the property at first hand both as someone who lives in a draughty Victorian flat and is close to investing in insulation and new windows to improve my own home, but also as a councillor in a ward with lots of Victorian property and midway through a council housing refurbishment scheme. There is considerable controversy over what will/won't be included in the Brockley PFI housing improvements, depending on whether you live in or outside of the conservation area (there has been a heated discussion recently about double glazing in the conservation area over on Brockley Central, something I have previously commented on).

If you're a tenant living outside the Brockley Conservation area, you will get double glazing (albeit UPVC, which goes against the Council's own guidelines), even if you live in a period property, roof insulation and wall insulation (if you have cavity rather than solid brick walls) to improve the thermal efficiency of your home. If you live inside the conservation area you will get roof insulation and unless your windows are so rotten/rusty that they are irreparable, your windows will just be overhauled and maybe a bit of draught-proofing added, but no double-glazing or wall insulation. So conservation area tenants will have less energy-efficient houses and higher fuel bills than those outside the area.

This is a wasted opportunity to make homes warmer, reduce fuel poverty and tackle climate change. Over 50% of London's housing stock is solid brick wall, like most of the Victorian housing stock round here and we urgently need to roll out a programme to insulate these homes properly. Yes, it costs more and is a bigger job than putting in cavity wall insulation, but we need to do this (assuming no ones wants to demolish all the housing stock in the Brockley Conservation Area and replace it with new low carbon housing).

The Brockley PFI housing scheme could have been a flagship project to pilot such large-scale insulation of solid brick walls and good quality wooden-framed double glazed windows (which if well-maintained will last over 100 years) but sadly it appears that the consortium's lawyers ran rings around the Council's legal team and we have ended up with little more than a paragraph on thermal efficiency improvements in a 1500-page contract, and little obligation on the part of the contractors to do more.

New Council Greener Homes Guide

The Sustainable Resources team within the Council have today published a Greener Homes guide for Lewisham residents. Just had a quick glance, and it looks very good - lots of useful information not just about what you can do, but also details of local schemes and advice numbers to help you. It doesn't mention the London Green Homes Concierge Service that I'm signed up to, but hopefully that will be added in future editions. On that note, I am still getting quotes on double-glazing and considering the options on underfloor insulation - will start getting the work done once the elections are out of the way - any suggestions welcome.

Greening my home dilemma 1

I posted at the beginning of the month about the London Green Homes Concierge Service doing an energy survey of my flat. Since then they have been finding out more info for me, arranging quotes etc. Today someone from a sash window company came to give me quotes for renovating/draught-proofing/replacing my windows. I was expecting the quote to be v high, and indeed it was. While my front bay windows, which are the original 1900 wooden sash windows are in surprisingly good nick, and could be either just draught-proofed or retrofitted with double glazing without replacing the whole thing, my bedroom and back room French windows and sash windows are rotting and need replacing. The guy who did the quote seemed pretty thorough and knowledgeable.

However, I hadn't quite expected his answer when I asked about where the wood was sourced from. I had expected/hoped him to say 'it's all FSC certified'. How wrong I was. Apparently they use a wood called utile, which is similar to mahoghany and he said it comes from South America (although when I looked it up in the Good Wood Guide it said it comes from West Africa). They said they go to 'extensive lengths' to ensure it is sustainably procured, but I would like a bit more proof.

He also said the reason they couldn't use UK-sourced wood was because China is buying up all the British oak for their construction projects so they buy from South America. He said they could get French Oak, but it would cost 8-10% more. I think the world economy has gone mad when it's cheaper for us to get tropical hardwood from South America/Africa than to get oak from within the UK. So now I have something of a dilemma - I want to do the green thing and a) improve the energy efficiency of my home and b) get wooden rather than UPVC windows, but I don't want to use wood that has been unsustainably sourced. I'll get at least one more quote before making a decision, but meanwhile does anyone know of a reputable company that does double-glazed wooden sash windows made of FSC-certified wood?!

It isn't as easy as it should be being green . . .

Putting my own house in order

As a Green councillor, clearly I talk green, and push for greener policies to be passed locally and nationally, but to what extent am I actually practising what I preach and living a green lifestyle? I do the easy things (use low energy light bulbs, recycle, compost, buy organic, local food as much as possible, walk, cycle, use public transport, don't own a car, avoid flying whenever possible etc etc), but today was the day I got to find out just how green my home is (or isn't as the case may be), as I had someone from the London Green Homes Concierge Service come and do a full audit of the energy efficiency of my flat and discuss ways of improving it.

The London Green Homes Concierge Service was launched with a flourish by Ken Livingstone and Brockley councillor and London Assembly member Darren Johnson at the beginning of December. It was one of the Green Group budget items that the Mayor agreed to in order to get the support of the Greens for his budget. You may remember that Lewisham was a pilot area for this scheme earlier on in the year. Since that pilot the scheme has evolved so that it isn't just a service providing an energy efficiency assessment of your home, but also a 'concierge' service that provides advice, arranges quotes and generally holds your hand for the next 12-months as you make the changes to improve your home and reduce your carbon emissions. I was going to sign up to the pilot scheme, but wasn't quite clear what I was getting for my money. The new scheme, now launched London-wide, seemed more comprehensive so I decided to give it a whirl. Being green shouldn't be difficult or a sacrifice, individuals need support to make changes, which is exactly what this particular scheme is about.

Anyway, two Green Homes officers turned up at my home, bang on time today and did a thorough assessment of the energy efficiency or otherwise of my home. Was easily impressed when one of them said he had done an energy audit of Ethical Man Justin Rowlatt's house (well they must be the experts, mustn't they?)! They did an assessment for an EPC (energy performance certificate, the thing that's part of the homesellers' packs), but also went much further than that, with thermal imaging, a blower thingy (technical term) to assess how draughty my flat was, using a smoke pen to show me how heat was escaping through my leaky sash windows etc. At one point the entrance to the flat looked like something from a crime scene/contamination zone as it was all covered over with this blower door thing to assess how airtight my home is.

After all that they sat down and went through their findings and suggestions with me. My flat scored slightly above national average on the EPC at 63/100, where the national average is about 55/100, but way below the 80/100 required by current building regs for a new-build house. This was mostly because as a ground floor terraced flat I don't lose any heat through a roof or through the walls shared with my neighbours. Also, the EPC doesn't take into account draughts, and as I was all too aware following the cold spell in December, my flat is very draughty.

Frighteningly, they assessed the carbon footprint of my 2-bed flat at 3.7 tonnes a year, way above what we need to get our total individual carbon footprints down to in this country to avoid runaway climate change (in my defence, this didn't take into account the fact that I have a green electricity supplier and assumed levels of gas use that may well be above what I actually use!). Then they suggested measures I could take to get this down to 2.2 tonnes and save 1.5 tonnes of carbon a year.

Interestingly, the number one thing I could do to improve my home insulation is to add wall insulation to my solid brick walls, either internally or externally. Jean was right! This apparently would reduce my carbon emissions by 20%. The nub of course is cost and the trade-off is between having internal wall insulation, which takes about 2 inches from the width of your room on each side it is installed, plus entails redecorating onto the insulated plasterboard, or external insulation, which would involve adding insulation and rendering to the outside of a Victorian property and may look unsightly, but apparently is slightly more effective. Something to ponder, and I will certainly do it as and when I redecorate areas, but not sure whether I am willing to get the whole lot done just yet, with all the upheaval that entails. They're getting me quotes anyway.

After that, the next big energy efficiency gains, but again at a big financial cost, were replacing the windows and getting underfloor insulation and sealing the gaps between the floorboards. The efficiency savings they proposed were based on triple-glazing, rather than double-glazing and I've agreed for them to get me some quotes as my windows are at the very least in need of renovation, if not replacement. I suspect that triple-glazed sash windows will be horrendously expensive, but it may be a sensible once in a lifetime investment. I'll see. I'm quite keen to get the underfloor insulation and to get the floorboards sealed, as my lovely stripped floors are very draughty, but I'm not keen for the insulation to become nesting material for all the local mice that occasionally venture into my flat, so will need a bit of reassurance on that front.

Replacing my boiler with a gas-condensing one would knock about 10% off my home's carbon emissions, but as my current boiler is only about 7 years old, I won't be forking out on that just yet. They also suggested replacing the radiator temperature controls with something a bit flashier involving zoning and room thermostats and again are getting me quotes on that. The other measure they sometimes suggest, such as solar hot-water, aren't options for a ground floor flat with no roof and a garden shaded by a huge London plane tree.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to getting the full report and finding out more and getting some quotes for some of the work, though if I have everything they suggested done it will be very expensive. In the meantime I have been filling in draughts in my windows with rolled up bits of old council meeting papers and am going to make a big sausage draught excluder to go in front of my cellar door. Greening my flat up and improving its energy efficiency is my big resolution for this year, watch this space for updates.

London Climate Change Action Plan

Yesterday saw the publication of the Mayor of London's Climate Change Action Plan. 'Action Today to Protect Tomorrow' is a detailed plan to slash London's carbon emissions by 60% within 20 years and place the city at the forefront of the battle against climate change. It focuses on 4 areas:

· A Green Homes Programme
· A Green Organisations Programme
· A Green Energy Programme
· A Green Transport Programme

Lewisham is to be the Green Homes Service pilot, which sounds like good news for us. I definitely need to improve the insulation and energy efficiency in my flat - I've done the easy energy-saving things like using low energy light bulbs and not leaving things on stand-by, but think I now need to look at better insulation - under the floorboards maybe as I have wooden floors rather than carpets, draught-proofing, double-glazing, maybe some wall insulation - could do with some more specific advice.

Lots of press coverage on the launch of the plan, including a BBC London article, the Guardian, Ken Livingstone's blog and Jenny Jones' blog on comment is free. Green Party Principal Speaker Sian Berry, who wrote the foreword to the plan, spoke at yesterday's launch and said: "This action plan cannot be implemented too soon. Greens in London will be working hard to make sure that the ideas in the plan are actually brought in, not left on the shelf marked 'fine words'.

"We are one of the most vulnerable cities to the effects of climate change. In the past six years, the Thames Barrier, built to defend London from flooding, has been raised a staggering 56 times, compared with just three times in first six years after in was built in the 1980s."

Sian also cited the need for action from central government to tackle climate change:

"We can lead the way with our actions in London, but curbing aviation growth and bringing in radical policies like personal carbon allowances are down to central government. We need to see a real change at the top."

Darren Johnson, Green Party member of the London Assembly and Brockley councillor added:

"With the Government allowing climate change emissions to rise since 1997, it is right that London should make the break with national complacency and declare that we will cut our emissions by 60% in the next 18 years, rather than the national target of 43 years. The recent package of actions outlined in the Mayor’s budget agreement letter to myself and Jenny Jones produced the capital’s first climate change budget. As a direct result, the way we spend money on transport, police and economic development is being transformed in London and I hope that where we lead, others will follow.”

London’s Green MEP, Jean Lambert also welcomed the plan but warned that with emissions from London’s domestic sector accounting for 37%, higher than levels from transport, we must not lose sight of the impact individual changes to our homes can make. Jean commented;

“In London alone there are nearly one million homes with un-insulated cavity walls, severely increasing levels of damaging emissions from the domestic sector. By insulating our homes, turning the heating down a notch or two and simply taking greater care to turn off lights and electrical equipment when not in use, we can make a real difference.”

1) Synopsis of proposals:

· Green Homes Programme - Homes are responsible for 38 per cent of emissions. The plan sets out how annual domestic carbon dioxide emissions can be reduced by 7.7 million tonnes by 2025. By making homes more energy efficient, the average London household could save £300 per year off their fuel bills, as well as cutting emissions. The Mayor announced an offer of cut-price loft and cavity wall insulation, available across the whole of London to every home that can benefit from it. The offer will be totally free for people on benefits and we will particularly look to ensure that older Londoners can take advantage.

· Green Organisations Programme - London's employers, both commercial and public sector, are responsible for 33 per cent of the capital’s emissions. If all of London’s employers introduced simple changes like turning off lights and IT equipment at night, emissions would be cut by over three million tonnes a year. Modest improvements to the energy efficiency of London’s commercial and public buildings would cut emissions by a further two million tonnes. If all of the actions in this Plan were implemented they would save employers up to 40 per cent on their energy bills.

· Green Energy Programme - decentralised energy. It will not be possible for London to achieve its carbon reduction targets without a fundamental change in how energy is generated and supplied. The Action Plan sets a target to move a quarter of London’s energy supply off the National Grid and on to more efficient, local energy systems by 2025.

· Green Transport Programme – Transport is responsible for 22 per cent of London’s emissions. The plan sets out how annual transport emissions can be cut by 4.3 million tonnes. CO2 emissions from road transport would fall by as much as 30 per cent if people simply bought the most fuel-efficient version of the car they want.