January Newsletter
Hello and welcome to the first big blog / monthly newsletter leading up to our next open homes event - Bristol Green Doors 2012 on March 17-18th.
A huge amount has gone on recently which we think will be of interest to you so read on for short stories on the following:
- The homes for the March event
- Volunteers needed
- Our new sponsors (incl Feed in Tariff story)
- Supporting and mentoring other event organisers
- Improved case studies for the homes
- January sponsor focus - Footprint Building
- Project managing films for Energy Saving Trust
- Other Activity
- Our economic impact – to be revealed!
- Courses in Bristol
- Social networking – Help us spread the word
40 GREAT HOMES FOR BRISTOL GREEN DOORS 2012
We have 40 homes for Bristol Green Doors 2012 and are thrilled with the range participating and the measures that will be on show. At the event visitors will see: a range of low cost improvements; whole house retrofits to near Passivhaus standard; city council retrofits; the latest technologies in action; zero carbon homes; superb solid wall insulation examples; and more!
Bristol people won’t have to travel far - there are homes across the city including: Bedminster and Bishopston; Clifton and Keynsham; Lawrence Weston and Long Ashton; Sneyd Park; and Emersons Green and Easton.
There are nearly 20 new homes involved, some were visitors to our September 2010 event and we are looking forward to February 8th’s Householder Welcome evening and getting to know them and previous events’ participants a bit more. But for now welcome David, Bob, Jon, Paul, Louisa, Alex, Chris, Charles, John, Gavin, Patrick, Trevor, Michael, Richard, Emma and their partners and families to Bristol Green Doors
More details will be on the website soon and we want the map booklets available for distribution in mid February. Can you distribute some for us? Let us know. info@bristolgreendoors.org
VOLUNTEERS NEEDED FOR BRISTOL GREEN DOORS 2012
Gail is our Volunteer Coordinator this year. She has made a great start preparing the ground and is now recruiting Event Stewards to help the householders in their homes on weekend. If you are interested in this or by helping with promoting the event us go to www.bristolgreendoors.org/volunteers.
OUR NEW SPONSORS
We secured two new sponsors at the end of 2011: Southern Solar (who will be watching the government’s appeal this month against the High Court’s overturning of the decision to cut the Feed in Tariff ) and The Joyner Group. With solid wall insulation a major part of the retrofitting solution, it is great to have Joyners involved - they have developed their work across a number of social housing projects and are keen to get into the domestic market. Both will join most of our other sponsors in Bristol Green Doors 2012 by being present in a home in which they have worked.
SUPPORTING AND MENTORING OTHER EVENT ORGANISERS
Bristol Green Doors director Kate has helped Bath set up its first open homes event on the same weekend as ours (see “Bath Homes Fit for the Future" and this Thursday is running a workshop for Transition groups from Solihull and Moseley in the west Midlands mentoring them towards their first event in September.
IMPROVED CASE STUDIES FOR HOMES
The homes’ case studies for Bristol Green Doors 2012 will be full of useful information, broadly accessible and of course inspiring. They are being made up from householders’ data via an online form, information gathered from visiting the homes by ourselves and Hamish from the Positive Choice who is doing the EPCs. We will be using this information to present the homes occupant's energy consumption on a cost and carbon basis in respect of the building's energy efficency rating.
Thanks also to Piers Sadler for his help on these, Make Your Home Eco’s Martin Fodor and our new team member Stuart Gray who will be collating case studies for us.
JANUARY SPONSOR FOCUS
will have an impressive double whole house retrofit for visitors to view at our March event. They are retrofitting the 6 bedroom Victorian townhouses in a Clifton conservation area to produce extremely energy efficient airtight buildings, to near Passivhaus standard.
The houses feature: careful installation of an airtight membrane; 180mm of internal solid wall insulation; their own joinery workshop’s high spec double glazed sustainable timber sash windows; mechanical ventilation and heat recovery; solar thermal hot water; solar photovoltaics; and will require only a 15kw boiler typically specified for a one bedroom flat!
Working closely with White Design and Piers Sadler consultancy they have designed out the risk of water and air penetration and are aiming for a borderline A-B Energy Efficiency /SAP Rating.
Aware of the importance of addressing the skills shortage amongst tradespeople, Footprint have been keen to extend the knowledge and experience of their team and have carried out their own tutorial sessions and brought in external advisors to ensure systems less familiar to their staff are effectively installed. Dan went to visit (see below) and the results of this were obvious.
Work is currently still in progress and with the two adjoining houses set to be complete in April and June, it will be a superb opportunity to observe works at different stages and to appreciate the high quality workmanship necessary to achieve the buildings’ desired thermal performance.
At Bristol Green Doors 2012 they will be running hourly tours which are a must for architects, those interested in conservation or Passivhaus, heating engineers and builders looking to install solid wall insulation.
PROJECT MANAGING FILMS FOR ENERGY SAVING TRUST
Dan has been working with Calling the Shots on a number of films for the Energy Saving Trust. The Householders’ stories will be used to support the work of their advice centres, while another three films have been made to help prospective Open energy Saving Home event organisers. These are really close to being launched. We’ll have links to them on our website soon.
OTHER ACTIVITY
We took part in a Green Deal consultation event hosted by Charlotte Leslie Bristol North MP and the Green Alliance in November;
Dan and householder Chris Preist did a talk at the Architecture Centre as part of the Warm Homes exhibition put on by Bristol City Council's City Design Team
FUNDRAISING
Grania Pickard has worked extremely hard preparing fundraising bids for us for this year. Our sustainability is paramount to keep running events and we look forward to her efforts bearing fruit over the coming months.
OUR ECONOMIC IMPACT
From Bristol University’s study on the Economic impact assessment of our September 2010 event we know it raised:
–intentions to undertake low cost improvements
–aspirations to undertake high cost improvements
–awareness and concern and empowered respondents to act
We are now looking forward to the final findings of the study due this February following superb response from participants over the festive season. Thanks to you all who took part. Part 1 is available here.
COURSES
CSE are running some useful courses on Energy efficiency training for adult and community learners
Green Register are running two one day courses on sustainable building in Bristol just before our March event! :
- 15 March - A Masterclass for Dwellings: Compliance, Sustainability and Part L
- 16 March - Healthy Buildings - good for people, planet and the economy
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