by Ray George
I expect like me you had a leaflet through your door about three meetings in the Highfield Church Centre. The first on 28 September entitled “Insulation, Insulation, Insulation” was given by Adrian Pickering who since his retirement has put a lot of effort into making his house more energy efficient.
Early on, I took advantage of an offer by Southern Electricity to fill my wall cavity with blown mineral fibre. This made a very noticeable difference by reducing the drop in temperature of my house on a cold night. Sorry to say, this is about as far as I have gone over all these years.
Adrian said that a starting point could be to get an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) – check on the web whether you have one. He uses an expensive infrared camera, but a good infrared non-contact thermometer can be purchased from £36. The work he has done is described on the SuperHomes.org.uk website.
The second, on 5 October by Roger Munford, was “Draughts, Damp and Wellbeing”. He lives in a Collins house in Highfield. While draughts are unwanted, uncontrolled ventilation, ventilation is essential to avoid condensation and damp. I came away with a lot of practical ideas, including: a chimney balloon to stop draughts up an unused chimney, secondary glazing comprising sheets of perspex attached to the window frames with magnetic self-adhesive tape. This is removed in the summer. Roger has plastic strips for draft-proofing doors and windows, free for the asking.
The third talk on 12 October by Graham Hendra was “Heat pump and be merry”. This will affect us all, as a ban on the sale of new gas boilers was initially set to take effect in 2035.
Graham Hendra been involved with installing heat pumps since 2010. His book “50 things you need to know about heat pumps” looks like a good place to start. £5000 can be got off the price of installation by the Government’s boiler upgrade scheme (BUS) from 2022-2025. Don’t think that it is just a matter of replacing your gas boiler with an air-sourced heat pump in the garden. The water temperature is lower, so some radiators may need to be bigger. I learnt that a condensing boiler does not work in efficient “condensing mode” unless the water returns to the boiler below 54 deg C (generally a boiler temperature below 70 deg C) .
These 3 talks were organised by Transition Southampton. See transitionsouthampton.org