Small Steps in the Big City

Cycling is the new black

2008-09-25T18:46:00.005+01:00

London recently had its second Freewheel event - a festival of cycling where the roads from the Palace to the City are shut down to anything but bicycles. It's a great event, but it got me thinking about how accessible cycling is in London.

A little while ago I was in Paris and saw their hugely successful Velib scheme in action. I was amazed by how many people were using it (this was Paris in August...when nobody's supposed to be there): everywhere you'd see the distinctive grey bikes whizz past. I'd read about how successful the scheme was, but statistics aren't really a match for seeing the reality of it. Vélib (Vélo-Liberté) has literally started a cycling revolution in Paris by making bikes extremely accessible and hassle-free.

London has OYBike. It's meant to be the cycling equivalent of a car club (those have caught on quite well in London), but, frankly, doesn't match up to Velib. The bikes may not be as clunky or plastic as the Velib bike, but neither are they as sophisticated or practical. The main problem is that there just aren't any in Central London. Velib has been successful because they are available all over the Paris - including (usefully) right in the middle of town. Until the Mayor's office sorts out whether it will support such schemes (previous mayor, Ken Livingstone had been considering bringing a Velib-style scheme here) I doubt it will gain more traction.

Interestingly, Velib is a strange kind of public/private partnership. The operator, JCDecaux is more commonly known for outdoor advertising, but did a deal with the city of Paris: they got to have 1628 billboards on city owned land and, in return, provided the Velib scheme to the city for 10 years. Since early 2007, the scheme reckons that cycle use in the city has increased 24% (and accidents have increased 7%). Not too bad.

City in a Spin

2008-09-01T15:58:00.002+01:00

The London Freewheel has been confirmed for 2008. It's going to be on the 21st of September and looks like it'll have the same route as last year. It's a 12km casual cycle route from the Palace to the Tower of London and back. You can go round once, or as many times as you want. Last year, there was a party atmosphere and a lot of good spirit. Oh, and good weather.

Time to get that bike out.

Festive Bins

2008-08-31T17:54:00.002+01:00

Here's what we need more of. The Royal Festival Hall (and presumably the rest of the Southbank Centre) have these great recycling bins - one for food waste, one for everything else that can be recycled. If more places did this (or were forced to do this) then we'd stop so much more of our waste from going to the landfill. Hats off to these guys.

Life's a beach

2008-08-13T10:18:00.002+01:00

Sometimes your city surprises you. Maybe not in a big way, but hopefully, in a delightful wonderful way. I was coming from a meeting in Soho last week when I stumbled on the perfect antidote to the unpredictable summer we've had in London. A beach scene in the heart of the Capital. Usually you have to wait for low tide....

There wasn't any water to go with the sand when I was there, but I presume it didn't take long...

A Thought about Energy Costs

2008-06-20T14:31:00.007+01:00

I've been reading lots of articles recently about the rising cost of oil making it more viable to drill hard to reach reserves. When previously this would have been too costly, now it looks more sensible for oil companies. This is obviously not the world's best news. However, the increase in energy costs is starting to make quite a few people think about going 'green'. This makes a lot of sense since people and companies generally care a lot about what's in their pocket. For many, 'going green' isn't so much about saving the environment, but saving money.

Last week, we went to the Green Car Guide show in Liverpool. The show was mainly geared towards businesses, but the message was clear: with rising fuel costs, businesses want more efficient cars, vans and trucks. It's a simple equation - greater efficiency means less fuel, meaning lower running costs. Of course, there are other potential benefits from greener cars (lower car tax, congestion charge exemptions, and even free parking). As costs rise, this will become increasingly important for businesses (and individuals).

The other thing I have been thinking about is the rising cost of home energy. A couple of days ago it was reported that energy bills could go up by 40% (an increase that could mean paying £400 more this winter for the average household). That's a huge increase. This is what got me thinking about the interconnectedness of the oil price rises. This could, and should, make people think about increasing their home energy efficiency. Yes, it does cost money - but as energy costs rise, so do the potential savings. The investment payback time is shrinking significantly now.

So people should be thinking about reducing their heating and electricity bills this winter. There's loads of things people can do: improve the insulation, ensure their boiler and heating system is efficient, double glaze (or even more..), use low energy lighting. Aside from that there are all the easy things like turning off lights. Like many things in life, we'll change only when we're forced to. The pinch on your wallet is definitely something that will do that.

Wasting water

2008-06-03T16:14:00.008+01:00

Here's a concept - stop me if you've heard it before - how about you only pay for what you use? Those clever folks at the electricity and gas companies have been at it for years: install a meter and then charge your customers for what they actually use. Clever idea really. Much like the woman (or man) at the supermarket checkout that totals up your bill when you're paying.

Well, in recent years, those tardy folk at the water companies have decided to get in on this act. Water meters (!) - what a great idea. You can almost see the eureka moment when someone thought that they would charge for what people were using... So now, you can move from an estimated bill (the water 'rates' system) to an actual 'pay for what you use' bill. As you're going from a fixed rate to a variable rate, then (assuming your water use doesn't change) your water charges could go up or down. It would all depend on how much water you used compared to the rated estimate. Ofwat (the regulator) have a water usage calculator that allows you to compare your usage on a meter with their rated prices (but frankly I found the uswitch version to be more user friendly - and worked more reliably)

Anyway, we thought it would be a good idea to get a water meter. My reasoning is this: even if it means we pay more for our water, at least we're paying for what we're using. As such, it means we'll understand how much we use and waste - and help us reduce our water usage. Seems to make sense to me.

Apparently Ofwat and the Environment Agency agree. Apparently studies show that houses with meters use between 5 and 15% less water than those without meters. This seems to make sense - as soon as you realise you're paying for what you use, you'll probably use less. However, trawling through Ofwat reports and the internet, I haven't been able to confirm this - though the Environment Agency refer to this report by the UK Water Industry Research. Unfortunately, at £70, I wasn't buying a copy. Anyway, seems like a good idea to me - though so far, not that many people have jumped on the boat. Ofwat said that only 25% of Thames Water customers would be metered in 2007-8.

Anyway, so we had a meter installed (piccy above). This nice chap came along and told us how much money he makes installing meters. Only has to do a few a day (think it was 4) to meet his minimum target, then gets paid loads for any extra ones. He took all of about 15 minutes to do it, then was gone - though only after making my builders envious of his easy job and good money. Then a few hours later, we had a look at the meter, and yes, there was water dripping from it. Mr Overpaid not-a-real-Plumber managed to install a leaky meter. Well, actually, it's not the meter's fault - it's the way it was all installed. Builders were suitably annoyed that he's overpaid and can't do the job properly. Luckily, my builder is a plumber, and is going to fix the joints so it doesn't leak.

How about this for a commute?

2008-05-21T13:00:00.009+01:00

Let’s start by saying that I’m not a morning person. At all.

This morning, I got myself up at 5am to meet a friend that I’d not seen for a good few years (come to think of it, it may have been more than 10 years). We were at school together and I can say, without hesitation, that our main connection in the five years of boarding school was a shared love of athletics. That’s what I’ve come to call ‘Track and Field’ these days: Simon was a 110m hurdler and I was a sprinter that used to think a mile was a long way to run. We’ve been back in touch for a while, but meeting up hadn’t quite happened yet, so I think it was fitting that we actually got to meet up again over something sporting.

At 6am this morning, Simon and his friends, Tim and Matt, got on their bikes at Marble Arch to cycle to Edinburgh (450 miles) before running the Edinburgh Marathon (26.2 miles). Strictly speaking, they started their challenge last night with a swim in the Serpentine Lido, but the bike and run was the original idea. In these days of Ironmans and Ultramans, I suppose many wouldn’t think that this was such a hard challenge – but I was impressed for several reasons.

How often do people come up with an idea in the pub and then never do anything about it? These guys came up with the hair-brained plan and are actually doing it. Simon and his friends have a great adventure ahead of them and are doing it to benefit Cancer Research. You see, Simon's mum was diagnosed with brain cancer, and tragically passed recently. This has only steeled Simon to make sure they went ahead. I really admire them for having a good go at this. I tagged along to see them out of London (well, for the first few miles anyway) and wish them the best of luck on their journey.

So, if you need an excuse to donate to Cancer Research, follow this link and make their efforts worthwhile:
http://www.justgiving.com/edinburghmadness

Big Crane, Heavy Steels

2008-05-14T11:15:00.007+01:00

That's what you'd have seen if you came down my road yesterday morning. (At least if you were walking - if you were driving, you'd have seen one which said 'Road Closed'). Yesterday, was 'Crane' day. We've been waiting a long long time for this to happen - we had to close off the street to get a big crane in to lift up all sorts of steel beams and propping equipment (to stop the flats falling down).

You might wonder what on earth we're doing (we've thought the same thing a few times). Basically, in the re-design of the flat, we decided to make 2 structural changes - both of which should make a large impact on the living space. One is opening up the kitchen so that more light comes into it - currently we have a really light front room and a surprisingly dark kitchen. The other change is removing a wall in the bathroom so we can have a shower there.

Are these changes 'eco'? Well not really, but also yes. The improvements we're making to the flat should see it through a long while - and the structural ones should reduce the need for changes in the future. We went through a lot of agony deciding how best to make use of the strange floorplan the flat had, and how to turn it into a long term home. Aside from that, bringing light into the kitchen should make a big difference!

What a difference a day makes

2008-05-07T14:40:00.003+01:00

I've been living in London again for a little over a week now. The flat may still be a building site, but I've scored a great rental off a friend's parents. This weekend was great - all of a sudden the weather has brightened up and it feels like summertime. This, of course, means that Londoners strip off and get sunburnt at the first possible opportunity. Just like the guys outside the Tube station with umbrellas on rainy days, we should have guys with sun cream at the entrance to any patch of public grass on sunny days.

Anyway, yesterday marked an important day back in London for me - just because it was the first warm sunny day and I went for a run when I got home. It was the first summer evening run in London. And it was great. Loads of runners were out to enjoy the evening. There's no real point to this blog post, other than - it's great to be in London. Running along the river on a sunny evening is just glorious.

But since you're bothering to read this post, I'll share a secret with you - I found a wonderful little park on the river overlooking Putney (not quite sure how I missed it before - especially as a friend of mine got married right next to it - I blame it on having grown up in North London). You can follow the Thames Path along the river or just stroll around the gardens. I love finding new places in the city.

View Larger Map

What a difference a day makes
Twenty-four little hours
Brought the sun and the flowers
Where there used to be rain

2 wheels good, 4 wheels bad

2008-04-25T10:44:00.005+01:00

After several months in the wilderness (Cambridge), I'm moving back into London. Unfortunately, it's not into the flat - that's still being worked on... But really, we can't take the commute from Cambridge any longer. 4 hours of our day was just way too much. So, I thought this would be a great time to get a new bike, to pootle around London on. Since it looks like summer's coming, this has got to be a great time to get back on a bike.

Now, I should say that I already have 2 other bikes. Unfortunately, neither is really appropriate for leaving on the street and going around town on. I don't think they would last very long. So I figured I'd get a cheap second hand bike from Cambridge. After all, there's nothing like re-using something good. I went to a small shop in Cambridge where they were insistent on me trying out loads and loads of bikes. I was there for almost 2 hours - riding up and down. It was a great way to shop, and I did finally get myself a bike. It's a beautiful 1980s gent's 3-speed made by Hercules.

It doesn't quite compare to my super light race bike, but it's got tons of character. Maybe a bit too much, judging by the rust on the wheels...but it's a joy to ride. So, as much as I can be, I'm off the bus and the tube now. There's nothing quite like traveling under your own steam.

Refurbishment - Part 2 (or My flat is a building site)

2008-04-17T14:05:00.001+01:00

Well, our builders have been busy. We now have a brand new hot water and central heating system, and a flat that's nowhere close to being lived in. In fact, most of everything has been ripped out.
And then they stopped working. So our flat's been a bit of a mess for a while. However, things are looking up and the builders are coming back in. Hopefully it'll be all hands on deck to turn this from a tip into a home.

Carbonated Water

2008-04-02T16:51:00.003+01:00

April comes and goes with the usual stories of spaghetti trees, flying penguins and Google Romance (dating is a search problem), but this year there had to be something related to the environment (you'd have thought). This one tickled my tastbuds

Another city

2008-03-26T15:28:00.004Z

This blog is normally just about London, but this post is about Guangzhou in China (sometimes known as Canton). I've just got back from a trip there and I was astounded. I've never been to such a polluted city before. We actually walked around with hospital masks on to try to reduce block some of the pollution from getting at our delicate London lungs. This might sound like overkill (and believe me, we felt incredibly stupid), but the impact of the air quality on our breathing was immediate and obvious. Just before we went out there, there was the big story about Haile Gebrselassie pulling out of the Beijing Olympic Marathon because of his fears of the air quality. I don't know about Beijing, but after visiting Guangzhou, there's certainly no chance of finding me running outside there.

Guangzhou is in Southern China in the province of Guangdong, which, for various reasons, including its proximity to Hong Kong, is heavily industrialised. Guangdong churns out huge amounts of world's 'stuff'. I guess we should remember that when we call upon China to reduce their pollution problem - essentially they're responding to the world's desire to consume more and more. Sure China has to clean up, but there must be a responsibility for us to consume less as well - although I'm sure not many people see it that way. It's easy to criticise a developing country (as China is, in many ways) when they have all the factories for the products you use, and they end up taking the rubbish and recycling you throw away.

However, what really made me want to blog was this bus (or rather, the many many buses all over Guangzhou just like it). Look at the little badge on the side - yup, that's an LPG sticker. In the midst of all of the manic GZ traffic, and feeling like we were on a set for Bladerunner, here was a bus which was running off LPG (liquified petroleum gas). I'm not sure whether it was irony, but it was certainly amusing.

While LPG is by no means a wonderful sustainable fuel, it is certainly a good alternative to petrol - and has a major benefit of being a byproduct of the oil and gas industry. Which means that it's 'recycling' of a sort. In Hong Kong, all the cabs run on LPG. In London, a bunch of cabs use it these days. You can also convert most petrol cars to use it. Anyway, it was a small glimmer of hope in an overwhelming mega-city.

Who will save us from Plastic Bag Man?

2008-02-21T05:52:00.002Z

Where is Batman when you need him, anyway? I saw this video on a podcast I subscribe to (usually I don't find it that interesting, but occasionally there's something really good). This video was pretty amusing, but mainly rammed home my appalling practices with plastic bags.

I have canvas bags, and always re-use any plastic bags I take - but I only ever seem to remember to take them to the store about half the time. I've taken to shoving all sorts of stuff in my messenger bag or rucksack, but sometimes there's just nothing for it but to take a dreaded plastic bag. I've started putting bags inside my messenger bag, inside my girlfriend's car, and left them just about everywhere to help me remember them when I go to the supermarket - and yet, I still manage to forget them! Anyway, this video was a good reminder...remember your bags..

Exciting toilets

2008-01-30T14:17:00.000Z

I've never been quite so excited about a toilet before. Well, maybe that time my running team was coming back from Hastings with a case of beer and the toilet on the train wasn't working. This is something completely different though. Today, I took delivery of 2 wonderful low water toilets. These days we see dual flush toilets everywhere, so it might seem surprising that I'd be so excited by a toilet - but really, not all low flush toilets are the same!

We bought 2 Ifo Cera ES4 toilets from the Green Building Store. 1 is a wall hung version, the other is a back to wall, and both have a Thomas Dudley concealed cistern with a dual-flush ready siphon. The toilet has a full flush at 4.5 litres, and a short flush of 2. Aside from the incredibly low water usage (compared to normal valve toilets operating on 6/3 litres), the toilet is based on a siphon flush. So? (I can hear you saying).

If you go to the Green Building Store page on the ES4, there's a short video at the bottom of the page extolling the virtues of the siphon over the valve (http://www.greenbuildingstore.co.uk/es4-advantages.php). Most older toilets are likely to be siphons, whilst modern toilets are almost all valves. Where we're staying (during our house refurb) is a new-build house, and the dual flush toilet has exactly one of the problems described - the valve doesn't shut off correctly, so the tank keeps filling up and leaking into the pan. So if we don't pay attention, there's a huge amount of water that could be wasted. Siphons just don't do that - you have to 'pump' the water into the pan, so if it doesn't work properly, you just have to push a bit harder. The guys who developed the ES4 (combining the Swedish pan with the UK cistern) are called Solution Elements, and you can find out more about valves and siphons on their page (interesting discussion here).

Anyway, I'm excited. The Green Building Store were fantastic help, and the service was brilliant (I even got my builder to confirm a bunch of stuff with them). All I need to do is install them and test them out - I hope they live up to the hype.

Floorplans for dummies

2008-01-22T20:22:00.000Z

Just when you thought Google had an application for just about anything you wanted (you've already explored the Earth, then you went to the stars), you find out that they have something to help you re-design your whole flat. I don't really know how to say this, other than - it's AMAZING. We've been struggling to work out how to plan our bathrooms for months - and we've had architects and bathroom shops 'helping', but all I really wanted to do is have a look to see how different things would look and fit together (like whether our shower door would be too close to the sink). So I went online to find a simple drawing program that allowed me to measure things easily so everything would be to scale - and found Google's SketchUp. This is the perfect partner for Google Earth, since it allows you to create 3D models which can be used within the Google Earth universe...but it's also one of the most helpful tools I've found to plan out our new home. And best of all it's free.

Basically, SketchUp is a CAD program that let's you build 3D models really quickly. You can then walk round your designs and try out different designs, layouts and finishes. It's meant I could try out different tiling options in seconds (and I even used real pictures of the tiles and finishes from the web). You can even find models/components that have been uploaded to Google for use in your own (like the toilet you see in the pic below - it would have taken me hours to make one that well). It's one of the easiest programs I've ever used.

My virtual shower room

So there you have it. I've now designed 2 incredibly eco-friendly bathrooms (they use no water, have no waste, but do consume some electricity - and required a bit of human fuel to create). Unfortunately, I'm going to use them to make real ones - but hopefully I now have a good idea what they're going to look like.

Recharge for 2008

2008-01-09T16:48:00.000Z

Someone asked me about recycling of batteries and lightbulbs, since we all seem to go through them. I don't have an answer on the lightbulbs just yet, but long life energy saving bulbs should help (although the person who asked also mentioned the issue of mercury in CFLs). CFLs are recyclable - I just don't know how to do it. I'm sure it won't take long to find out how though. In the meantime, there's an article from 2006 which covers the topic (and says that the extra mercury emissions produced by a power plant for a incandescent bulb is 3 times that of using a CFL).

Back to batteries... I found this on the internet last year. It's a device that lets you re-use regular alkaline batteries once they're 'dead'. My girlfriend tried to get me one for Christmas but couldn't find it anywhere, so I've not tried it yet. It sounds pretty good though. Just think of all those batteries you've thrown away. Of course, if you're not using rechargeable batteries already, I'm not entirely hopeful that this product will work for you. I think that people are much more open to rechargeable batteries these days anyway - we all have mobile phones which we charge regularly (and often forget to turn the charger off at the wall when they're done - no, they don't all go off automatically).

A quick search today found that there are at least 2 companies producing devices that re-charge or recondition alkaline batteries: the Souvenir Cranwell one above and one from EverCharge. If anyone has experience of these, please let me know.

Getting into hot water

2008-01-07T09:58:00.000Z

You might wonder why we overhauled the heating system in the first place. After all, you've got to figure that leaving things as they are has less of an environmental impact that refurbishing something. Well, this flat had a bit of a bizarre heating system, especially given its size. It had a combi boiler feeding the sinks and the heating system, but a large hot water cylinder with 2 electric immersion heaters that fed the showers. You find houses that have cylinders fed by the boiler (and often have back-up immersion heaters), but this was a little strange - and not that efficient. Couple this with a boiler that was going to need replacing at some stage in the not too distant future, we thought it was an appropriate time to put in a new system. Little did I know that it involved re-piping most of the flat to get it all working and to meet current standards.

So the plumbers descended en masse and managed to do everything in a matter of days. I missed the yellow gunk that came out of the hot water cylinder, which fed the showers (my builders thought it was disgusting), but I did catch the radiators being emptied:I'm told that our new system shouldn't ever end up black like that...

Why boilers are sexy

2008-01-06T09:51:00.000Z

OK, so you know you're obsessed with your refurb when you talk to people about the boilers they're putting in and get all excited about flow rates and energy ratings. Well, in our place, the choice of boilers came down to this: Volkswagen or Mercedes. I had spent a fair while researching the very best boilers - going to everyone from the Energy Saving Trust to the Sedbuk database (Seasonal Efficiency of Domestic Boilers in the UK) - and basically I'd not moved massively forward. I was stuck with Vaillant, Viessmann and Worcester Bosch. All very efficient and seemingly all pretty good. So I put the question to our builder (aspiring to be a Corgi engineer) and our plumber. The response I got back was something like this: "they're all good boilers, but you've got imagine them like cars. A Worcester Bosch is like a Volkswagen, but a Viessmann is like a Mercedes." Err...ok, but I just want hot water.

In the end, we chose the Worcester Bosch. I'd asked the plumber which he prefers to install and deal with and he was unequivocal. It was also nice that the Green Homes people later suggested the same one. As did a friend of mine (graphic artist turned plumber turned interior decorator) enthusiastically agreed with the boiler assessment. So we are now the proud owners of fully operational hot water and central heating system. Gone is the old combi boiler and immersion heater (I'll mention that in another post) - in its place, a Worcester Bosch Greenstar 42CDi combi boiler.

So here are the beautiful 'before' and 'after' shots:

Bike theft

2007-12-11T19:14:00.000Z

Since my last post mentioned that we had a bike stolen, I thought I'd put up one of my favorite clips from YouTube. Considering that our Mayor is trying to get us to use bikes more often, you would have thought it was worth doing a bit more to protect cyclists from theft. Right now, if your bike gets stolen, the police aren't really interested at all (after all - there's not much they can do after the fact). Anyway, here's a clip that might help people be a bit more questioning when they see someone with a hacksaw...

Low Energy Doll's House in Trafalgar Sq

2007-12-10T19:22:00.000Z

Last Tuesday was a little strange. I woke up to a text message from a friend, telling me that he saw me on TV. We had been interviewed for the BBC yesterday, but weren't expecting it to be on this quickly. Turned out there was a mini clip of us on the BBC London news all through the day. That's definitely our 15 minutes of fame up.

Anyway, that night, the LDA and Ten UK launched their Green Homes Concierge service in Trafalgar Square. Actually, it was launched in a little house known as No. 1 Lower Carbon Drive, on the South East Corner of the square. It's a green house show case exhibition with examples of various things you can do to improve the energy performance of your home. Apparently they need to sign up 30 customers and have them implement energy saving measures to offset the cost of building the exhibition I'm sure it's informative for a lot of people and it's certainly pretty at night (!). The LDA's climate change website has info on visiting the house - but it's only there until 16th December, if you want to check it out.

So after I left the launch party to go 'home' to the short-let studio we're renting, I walked past the 'secure' bike park where one of our bikes has been locked up (with 2 different sturdy locks to an immovable bike D-stand)...only to find that the bike had been stolen. All that remained were the feeble looking remnants of the heavy chain lock. So much for our green transport. We figured that now we're celebs, we probably have stalkers looking for our memorabilia.

TV clips...ugh

2007-12-05T11:47:00.000Z

So I mentioned that we were doing some filming for the Green Homes Concierge Service. It was originally some promotional stuff and then an interview with the BBC yesterday. We get to look daft and ramble on and on

Here are the links to the clips - let me know what you think:

BBC News (web link to the streaming clip on the BBC - NB, the comments at the end of the piece are about the British Gas project, not this one)

Green Homes/London Climate Change (go to the second tab "The Review")

What I've got rid of so far

2007-12-04T16:12:00.000Z

So far I've managed to save a bunch of re-usable stuff from being sent to the tip, although we have also caved and allowed our builders to send 1 load off so they had space to work (more on that later).

So here's what I've managed to pass on:

hotpoint electric oven and gas hob
hotpoint fridge
1 set of wood floors
3 mirrored sliding doors
1 wooden cabinets
8 old radiators
2 radiator covers

In case you're wondering, most of those have gone by way of the wonderful Gumtree. OK, so for most people, it would probably not be worth the time and effort to post and get rid of all these things. In order to make sure they moved, I set the prices pretty low, so I don't think the money has been worth it - but despite this, I'm really really pleased with finding new homes for all that stuff so far.

The main thing for me is that people are going to re-use the stuff. We often talk about recycling these days, but that's not always the same as re-using. I'd rather have someone re-use the flooring that was in the flat, than send it to a wood chipper to be recycled - it's pretty obviously a better option. It's been great for the people buying the stuff (I hope) and it's great for me, as it reduces stuff that gets taken away as waste.

Speaking of waste...Our builder had originally set the challenge of trying to do the whole flat without sending anything to the tip. Unfortunately, that hope went out the window pretty quickly as things weren't selling quickly enough and the builders needed the space. So we did relent and send some waste off with a company called AnyJunk. Green Homes helped us find these guys - they recycle a bunch of what they pick up and are part of the London Community Recycling Network. They filled a truck (labour included) of our building waste for £280. So we didn't quite get away with everything being re-used, but at least any of the waste that can be recycled is going to be.

Our little flat on TV

2007-12-03T10:54:00.001Z

This morning we were interviewed by BBC London about the refurb we're doing. We got a free home energy audit a month or so ago from Green Homes in return for letting them do some promotional filming with us (read - many many hours of filming us talking about the same things over and over again). Green Homes is now launching a full London-wide service with the LDA - with a big event in Trafalgar Sq - so the BBC came round to have a chat with us about how we're trying to minimise the impact of our refurbishment and make the flat as energy efficient as possible.

Green Homes is providing a 'concierge' type service to Londoners - so you get a home energy audit and then a year's worth of support on trying to implement the measures they recommend. So, they advise on the obvious stuff - boilers, insulation and lighting - but also things like where to find environmentally friendly carpet underlay. Basically, they're helping us research lots of bits and pieces to make our flat as nice as possible whilst being as low impact as possible. Useful for busy people trying to do a refurb or for people that just don't know where to start with choosing an new boiler.

As soon as the (no doubt, awful) clips from the BBC appear on the net, I'll put a link here.

added on 4 December
Here are the links to the clips:
BBC News
Green Homes/London Climate Change (in the second tab - The Review)

How do I get rid of all this stuff?

2007-11-26T14:59:00.000Z

We're embarking on a complete refurbishment of the flat we bought. First of all, you might think that a refurbishment is not the right thing to do in the first place - one of the lowest impact things to do would be to simply leave the flat as it is. After all, the last people lived there perfectly happily. Well, to be honest, I can't say we thought about that one for too long. It's only really in retrospect that I've considered this. However, I don't think we're doing the wrong thing. You see, homes need to be upgraded periodically - hopefully not too frequently, but often enough to make sure that the places we live in are in good shape. Also, as we've learnt more about energy efficiency, it makes sense to upgrade our homes - realising though, that some of the benefits may take a while to pay off. In other words, we all need to maintain our homes, for ourselves and for those that may live there in the future.

With that in mind, we set out to get a few things right from the start - we wanted to replace the old (and slightly strangely but very ineffciently arranged) heating and hot water system with something more efficient; we wanted to use low impact materials for our floors and walls; and we wanted to put in as much energy efficient lighting as possible. All that was a great plan to begin with, but we soon found ourselves with another problem. Even though the flat seemed completely empty, as soon as we started taking the flat apart, we realised we were sitting on top of a huge amount of really useful stuff.

OK - what I mean by stuff is:

an oven
a fridge
a gas hob
2 different sets of wood floors
a carpet that was under the wood floor
underlay that was under the carpet
massive mirrored sliding doors
2 wooden cabinets
2 bathroom suites
a bunch of old radiators
5 radiator covers
a mirror
2 shower doors

So my goal became - How do I get rid of all this stuff?

At least, how do I get rid of it all without sending it to a landfill - or in our case, to our eco-friendly waste company that recycles as much as 80% of the waste they collect. Keep tuned in to find out what happens.