Sustainable Ways to Make Old Homes Cosy for Winter

With the Met Office forecasting the UK’s coldest winter for five years, Mukti Mitchell - home energy saving expert and author of The Guide to Low Carbon Lifestyles - has top tips to share for making old homes warm and cosy for the months ahead.
Mukti is Director of CosyHome Company, a leading specialist in sustainable retrofitting solutions for period properties. CosyHome has just been shortlisted for two environmental awards for its work restoring the iconic heritage village of Clovelly, renowned worldwide as one of the UK’s most picturesque, historic villages.  The company was shortlisted for the “Home” category of last month’s P.E.A. Awards and for the "Environmental Champion" category of Devon's prestigious DEBI Awards (to be announced on Thursday 24th November).
CosyHome’s exemplary insulation of all 120 properties in Clovelly (having just completed Phase One) provides a timely model for how old buildings – and even whole villages - can be restored and insulated so they are warm for winter, preserve their beauty and character, save energy and protect the environment, while also reducing heating bills.  In addition, the sustainable insulation techniques employed meet the ‘e-rating’ energy performance standards soon to be legally required by landlords renting out properties.

Mukti’s ten top sustainable ways to insulate your old home are as follows:
1. Draught-proof your doors and windows, which lose 30% of household heat.  Old properties do need ventilation though, so only treat doors and windows with noticeable draughts.
 
2. Top up your loft insulation to 300mm (12 inch) thickness.  Rockwool is the cheapest, however Thermafleece sheep wool insulation is more efficient, lasts far longer and supports British farmers.  Typical lofts lose 10% of a home’s heat; this is reduced to just 3% after a top-up.

3. Double or secondary glazing can save 70% of heat lost through windows. Rotten windows can be replaced with double glazing, but for beautiful windows in good condition secondary glazing offers nearly the same efficiency, yet with better sound proofing, while also preserving their character.  ‘Advanced secondary glazing’ (developed by CosyHome), comprises of Plexiglas fitted to existing sashes which is more thermally efficient and virtually invisible.

4. Insulate sloping ceilings - if your bedroom ceilings have a sloping part this is usually because plasterboard has been fitted allowing cold external air to circulate above to ventilate the rafters, which can lose a phenomenal amount of heat.  To prevent this, insulation boards can be fitted on the inside and re-plastered.  Called “Room-In-Roof” insulation, this is more costly than the earlier measures but makes a big difference to warmth in the room.

5. Have Radiator Enhancers fitted behind your radiators.  These heat-reflective panels stop heat going into the walls and reflect it into the room where you want it.  Estimated to save 7% on heating.

6. Seal up the gaps in your floorboards and skirtings. CosyHome Company offers a long-term solution using marine deck caulking, which is completely unnoticeable.

7. Fit thermal lining to your curtains.  The speed of heatloss, called a “u-value”, is 5.5 for single glazing, 1.8 for double or secondary glazing and just 1.0 with lined curtains – so curtains save half the heatloss.

8. External wall insulation (EWI).  Ideal for rendered or slate hung walls, EWI consists of insulation boards such as Celotex (synthetic) or Diffutherm (wood fibre board) glued to the external walls, covered with wire mesh and re-rendered.  EWI has no risk of condensation being trapped behind it, protects the wall, and reduces its u-value from 2.0 to as low as 0.2, majorly effecting warmth.  Costs start from around £10,000 for one dwelling.

9. Internal Wall Insulation (IWI).  If you can’t fit external wall insulation because your home is listed, or have stone walls you don’t want to render, internal wall insulation can be highly effective.  The technique is similar to EWI, and insulation boards are glued to internal walls and covered with plasterboard.  IWI is sensitive because if done incorrectly condensation and dry rot can get behind it, so an architect’s specification is recommended.
 
10. The last measure is floor insulation.  If you have cellars you’re lucky because insulation can easily be fitted up between the ceiling joists and covered with netting or boarding.  Otherwise floorboards need to be taken up and insulation fitted below.  Solid floors can be excavated and insulation put below new floorboards.
 
Mukti Mitchell - who once sailed a micro eco yacht around Britain (launched from Clovelly) - is aiming to catalyse an insulation revolution across the UK.  “Insulating all Britain’s homes would reduce the national carbon footprint by 10%,” he says. “While CosyHome is ambitiously aiming for over 50% growth per year, one company could never insulate even 1% of Britain’s 27 million homes, so we hope other companies will copy our techniques. Meantime, with freezing temperatures predicted across the UK in the coming weeks, now is the time to insulate your period home and get it cosy for winter.  And you can do so safe in the knowledge that you’ll also be preserving its beauty, saving energy and money, and helping to avert climate change.”
          
More information
For more info about CosyHome Company and sustainable insulation solutions for period homes, visit: www.cosyhomecompany.co.uk  For more info about Mukti Mitchell and the Guide to Low Carbon Lifestyles visit: www.lowcarbonlifestyle.org.uk

Our Future on the Line

The last two weeks have been crazy. I’ve been here at the UN climate negotiations in Durban, South Africa, with 10 other delegates from the UK Youth Climate Coalition. We’ve been working with the international youth climate movement to try to get a good deal for young people; it’s our future on the line, and we were determined to remind negotiators of this.

In the early hours of Sunday morning – 36 hours late – the conference reached its dramatic conclusion. With impassioned speeches and frantic huddles, the outcomes that we’d been waiting all year for were literally hammered into reality. As I sat at the back of that plenary hall at 5 am, and the Chair rattled through the decisions, banging her gavel after each one, I reflected on my time in Durban.

The job of young people at these conferences is to inject positivity and hope into a process that is often painfully slow and dull. We’re here to outline the vision of the future we need, but when the process seems destined to obliterate that vision, it’s really hard to stay positive. So, in the last few days of the conference, we found our collective voice, and the conference sat up and took notice.

On Wednesday, six young Canadians turned their backs on their environment minister while he was making his speech. For this, they were loudly applauded by delegates, but were led out of the conference and stripped of their accreditation.

The next day, my friend Abigail from the US stood up and interrupted her lead negotiator’s speech with the voice of American youth, and told those gathered that he could not speak for her or the millions of others like her who want a safe future. She too received an ovation and was escorted from the conference centre.

On Friday, my friend Anjali delivered an impassioned intervention that again received loud applause, and later, hundreds of young people satdown in protest outside the plenary hall and demanded that their voices be heard.

So were our voices heard? Well, undoubtedly, we made an impact. Richard Blackfrom the BBC, wrote that “Outside the halls of government, it was a very good meeting for the youth. Unfailingly charming, youth delegates brought a freshness, a ‘Yes-we-can’-ness, to the often jaundiced proceedings”.

Are we pleased with the outcomes? It depends who you ask, and what their expectations for this conference were. For me (and I don’t speak for the rest of the delegation on this), it could have been a lot worse. A month ago, we were talking about the entire process unravelling here in Durban, and that didn’t happen. Instead, we saved the Kyoto Protocol, which was vital for continued international cooperation on emissions reductions. We also got a timetable for a new global deal, and the ‘Green Climate Fund’ was born, which will help get money flowing to poorer countries to help them deal with the impact of climate change.

However, the world is still very much on course for catastrophe. While we may be one year closer to that catastrophe, we’ve kept open the possibility of changing course to avoid it. The best way I can sum up my feelings right now is that we’re fighting a fight for my generation’s future. We could have completely lost that fight this weekend, but we didn’t. And for that, I’m glad.

Blogs at un.ukycc.org

Following us @ukyccdelegation http://twitter.com/ukyccdelegation or

Email your thoughts and hopes delegation.enquiries@ukycc.org

Matt Williams, UKYCC Youth Delegate to the UN climate talks.

A lifetime’s journey

Sharing a passion for tackling climate change

I’m in the middle of COY. For those not used to United Nations jargon, this is the International Conference of Youth, or to break it down even more, it’s an event for young people from all over the world to meet before the international climate change talks.

We come together to share our personal stories of what we’ve all been doing in our own countries, to discuss the future, and to have fun. In a word: awesome.

The Conference of Youth is entirely run by, and run for young people. It’s a place where activity is constantly happening; the vibe is electric as people share their passions for tackling climate change. And what’s best is that it’s all young people, with all the liveliness and energy they bring.

I’ve met a Durban footballer who plans to talk to people about climate change at all of his matches. I’ve met Americans and Canadians who fought, and won, the Tar Sands campaign. Most of all, I’ve met the amazing climate caravan of young people who have travelled 4,400 km, overland, all the way down from Nairobi in Kenya to here in Durban. On their journey they danced, sang and energised people to fight climate change. Here’s the moment <http://www.twitvid.com/63TPL> when the caravan arrived at the Conference of Youth. We’re in there somewhere, dancing badly as only the British can, we promise.

I’ve learnt so much here and made some amazing friends. The message I’ve taken away from it, is that this isn’t just a weekend, but the beginning of a lifetime’s journey!

You can follow our progress in South Africa by reading our blogs at un.ukycc.org, following us @ukyccdelegation http://twitter.com/ukyccdelegation or emailing us your thoughts and hopes delegation.enquiries@ukycc.org

Helen Markides, UKYCC Youth Delegate to the UN climate talks.

Securing our Future, Saving the Planet

Young people at the UN climate talks
A few evenings ago I watched “A Time to Kill”, a film set in the American Deep South starring my favourite two actors, Kevin Spacey and Morgan Freeman. In this film the rape of 10-year old black girl precipitates alarming scenes of racial hatred and the revival of the local Klu Klux Klan. It struck me that this film, set in 1996, implies that such events were to some small degree plausible at that time.

Little to my knowledge – I was 7 years old in 1996 – the concept of racial supremacy and gross injustices such as those depicted apparently persisted in the public consciousness, or at least that of American film directors. But today, Barack Obama is in the White House, Nelson Mandela is free and we have achieved racial freedom in South Africa – all things that might have seemed impossible a few decades ago. And if such huge and seemingly insurmountable challenges can be overcome, I hope that the next challenge to be overcome will be climate change.

This week, I’m travelling to Durban, South Africa to the climate negotiations, as part of the UK Youth Climate Coalition's delegation, to join with other young people from around the world to show leaders that we need a solution to climate change, that we won’t cease in our ambition and won’t stop asking for one. We will get to a solution no matter how hard the path, because young people aren’t the bystanders in this process; we’re the ones who’ll be dealing with the consequences of the decisions which can jeopardise our future, or secure it, can gamble with our planet, or save it.

Nor do we lack the tools to deal with this problem and to create the wide, grassroots movement asking for change that must be at the core of any transition to a better society. A few days ago, I came across this Facebook post by a friend:

“Just sorting through my old school exercise books and have found an I.T. exercise to explain the advantages and disadvantages of computers vs. filing cabinets. Computers apparently lose: they can get viruses; they use power; you need training to use them; they can crash; and they're more expensive. How things have changed?”

How things have changed – computers now feature daily in the lives of people throughout the world and are increasingly deployed in the fight against climate change. This is just one tool at our disposal and we arguably have all the other necessary tools to fight climate change: the technical knowledge and skills; the finances – all that is missing is the political will. In the coming weeks, I and the rest of the UK youth delegation will be putting everything into the United Nations process at the 17th round of the UN climate negotiations in Durban, lobbying, advocating and campaigning for a fair and ambitious solution.

Hopefully in South Africa (no stranger to change) we can demonstrate the urgency and strength of feeling that our generation holds, and motivate politicians to take up their tools and get to work on this grossest of injustices.

You can follow our progress in South Africa by reading our blogs at un.ukycc.org, following us @ukyccdelegation http://twitter.com/ukyccdelegation or emailing us your thoughts and hopes delegation.enquiries@ukycc.org

Cat Stace, Youth Delegation to the UN Climate Talks, UK Youth Climate Coalition.