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One Weekend That Could Change Your Home Forever

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  One Weekend That Could Change Your Home Forever Going greener at home does not always require a heat pump, a roof covered in solar panels or a new electric car. Sometimes it just requires a weekend. Two days. A ladder, a screwdriver, a few replacement light bulbs, some sealant, perhaps a bag of wildflower seeds — and a willingness to look at your home slightly differently. Most homes waste surprisingly large amounts of energy and water through dozens of small inefficiencies. A draught under a door here. A dripping tap there. A heating system running when nobody needs it. Lights that consume far more electricity than necessary. A garden that could support far more wildlife with remarkably little intervention. None of these things appears revolutionary on its own. Put them all together, though, and you can make a surprisingly significant difference. So here is a challenge. Give your home one weekend. Not to rebuild it. Not to spend thousands of pounds. Just to find out where energy...
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The Hidden Cost of Wasting Water

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  The Hidden Cost of Wasting Water When people talk about saving water, the conversation often turns immediately to hosepipe bans. Don't wash the car. Don't water the lawn. Don't fill the paddling pool. Those things matter, particularly during droughts, but they can also distract us from a much bigger issue. A great deal of the water we waste is not outside in the garden. It is inside the house. It is the hot water running while we wait for the shower to warm up. It is the dripping tap we have become used to hearing. It is the dishwasher running half empty. It is the shower that lasts a few minutes longer than it needs to. And unlike cold water from an outside tap, much of this water has another hidden cost attached to it. We have paid to heat it. So wasting water can also mean wasting electricity or gas, wasting money, and creating unnecessary carbon emissions. That makes water efficiency much more than a drought issue. It is an energy issue, a household budget issue and a...
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Why Walking More Improves Both You and the Planet

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  Why Walking More Improves Both You and the Planet Walking is one of the simplest things we can do, yet it is surprisingly easy to overlook. We search for complicated fitness programmes, expensive exercise equipment, new wellbeing apps and dramatic environmental solutions. Meanwhile, one of the most accessible ways of improving our physical health, supporting our mental wellbeing and reducing our environmental impact is waiting just outside the front door. Walking requires no subscription, no special building and, beyond suitable footwear, very little equipment. It can be fitted into ten minutes or expanded into an afternoon. It can be purposeful, social, creative, reflective or simply enjoyable. More importantly, walking does not have to be treated as a punishment for eating too much or failing to exercise. It can become part of a better and more interesting way of living. Walking Is More Than Exercise Walking is often described as a form of gentle exercise, but that description ...
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What Would I Build Into My Dream Eco Home?

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  What Would I Build Into My Dream Eco Home? When people hear the words “dream eco home”, they may imagine a futuristic glass building covered in experimental technology, with automated walls, robotic furniture and a price tag that only a millionaire could contemplate. That is not the house I would build. My dream eco home would not be designed to impress visitors with how clever it looked. It would be designed to work. It would be warm in winter, cool enough in summer, inexpensive to run and comfortable during power cuts, droughts and periods of extreme weather. It would generate much of its own energy, store enough electricity to get through the night and make sensible use of rainwater. Most importantly, it would be built around technologies that already exist. Having lived with solar panels, battery storage, a heat pump, solar hot water and an increasingly electrified household, I have learnt that the best green technology is not necessarily the newest or most complicated. It is...
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