What Next? Forum - Going Through the Roof - Report

About 50 people came to the Going Through the Roof event on Thursday, 14 April 2011, an excellent turnout, and lots of very positive feedback from the people who attended.

To get the evening going, the audience were asked to talk to the 2 or 3 people nearest them (that they didn't know), about how they dealt with the tricky issue of negotiating levels of warmth at home. After a few minutes of vigorous debate with lots of laughter we moved on to the main part of the evening - the speakers.

Martin Quinton from Energy Savings Trust gave a very entertaining and wide-ranging introduction to how to save energy. In an average household, 58% of the energy is used on space heating, 24% on hot water, 5% on cooking and 13% on lighting and appliances, so a new boiler is a priority, if you have an old inefficient one. His suggestions included: switching off standby - one less power station needed; monitoring your teenagers bedroom energy use as they might leave every appliance on; and installing a smart meter (available on loan from Chorlton Library). You can see his presentation here Martin Quinton – EST – presentation for Going Through the Roof [pdf]

The next presentation by Andrew Gill focussed on the nitty-gritty of how to prevent a house from losing energy, through insulation and preventing unnecessary leakage of warm air, on a tight budget. He stressed attention to detail, how important it was to make sure there were no gaps in insulation and covering all the insulation in an airtight membrane. Of course, it you make a house more airtight it might get stuffy or retain moisture so he also described the ventilation system he will be installing. See the rest of his presentation at Andrew Gill – presentation for Going Through the Roof [pdf].

And then the subject moved on to renewables with a presentation from David Hunt from Eco-Environments. He started with wind but stressed the need for clean, unturbulent wind and big turbines, so urban environments are no good. On the other hand Solar PhotoVoltaics panels, producing electricity, are fine, even in Manchester, as long as you have a roof facing East, South or West. For heat there are solar thermal panels which will provide most of the hot water you need and air source heat pumps (a refrigerator in reverse), but only if your house is well insulated. He gave an example of a large house, with its own land, where they had installed wind, solar thermal and solar PV and a heat pump which is virtually independent of the grid. Read more here – David Hunt – Eco Environments – presentation -Going through the Roof [pdf]

After a break for wine and cakes, the 3 speakers answered a host of questions from the audience – which uses more energy washing up by hand or a dishwasher? - how long are feed-in tariffs guaranteed for? - do heat pumps work when it's cold outside? - how do you install internal wall insulation and keep beautiful Victorian cornices? - will floor insulation cause dry rot? - and many many more. Many of the audience stayed afterwards to ask the speakers further questions.