Cavity wall insulation effectiveness

Last year we had cavity wall insulation installed. This is the third house we have done this with, and for the third time it has been extremely effective at reducing the heating bill.

January 2008 had an average morning temperature (my measurement taken at whatever time in the early morning that I happen to have looked) of around 5 C. This winter has been the coldest for over a decade and the average temperature taken in the same way in January this year was -0.5 C. Despite this, the gas used was 281 cubic metres this January vs. 274 last January.

I didn't write down the temperatures for December 2007, but remember that the lowest temperature I cycled in was -6 C vs. -11 C this winter. However, our gas consumption was 396 m^2 in December 2007 vs. 298 m^2 in December 2008.

Overall this seems to have been a very effective measure once again. It looks like even though it cost us around 700 Euros to have the insulation installed, it will pay us back in about three years. It's much cheaper to have cavity insulation installed in the UK, so the payback period is even shorter there.

We still have more to do here to get the heating bill as low as we'd like, though.

On the right, another photo of the frozen canal taken yesterday. It snowed a little. The snow was quickly cleared from the cycle path, but rested on top of the frozen canal. I wonder how much insulation the house boats have.

Further updates
Since this blog post we've installed far more insulation and our use of energy for heating is much reduced as a result, along with the cost of energy.

Read more about the many things we've done to improve the energy efficiency of our home.

Carbon Neutral

The clip is from our local paper. Assen has planned for some time to become carbon neutral, and progress towards this aim continues. The first paragraph reads "Assen most remain an attractive city for future generations. By 2020 the government will be carbon neutral. CO2 output will be taken care of by a forest in the city and in Indonesia."

Now I have to say I've always been somewhat skeptical of the benefits of planting trees to absorb carbon dioxide. The problem is that there is only so much that one can do. Whatever way you look at it, we can never return to the state that we used to be in, when there were more trees on the earth and the fossil fuels were still locked up underground.

However, there are some very good policies which form some of the rules which the goverment will be adhering to:

1. Stimulation of more use of bicycles (already used for nearly 40% of all journeys) and public transport, not only by the government but also by city residents.
   
2. Five hectares (twelve acres) of woods are being planted this year in the city and the city will also support the Borneo Orangutan Survival organisation in providing woods which double up to absorb CO2.
3. Vehicles are being converted for natural gas and biofuel (I'm also less sure of the benefits of these)
   
4. The government uses electricity 100% from renewable sources, and is looking into "green" gas supply.

Many traffic lights in the city are already LED devices. What isn't mentioned in this article is an attempt to reduce energy consumption by converting street lights to use LEDs. I covered this before on my other blog.

If you are interested in this subject you may also be interested in the considerable effort put into recycling.

Photos of the cold weather

Yesterday it was -6 C ( 21 F) and the canal was just about completely solid.
This morning it was -10 C ( 14 F ) and completely solid. So much so that people have been able to skate on it.

It's much the same for all the lakes around this area. No snow as yet, but a very heavy frost.

All the bike paths are kept clear of ice, though.
Icicles on our windows have grown to about 40 cm long.

This hasn't stopped people going out, of course. In fact, it's given them new things to go out for:

Flemish Liberation Army Against Freedom

Another excellent firework safety campaign this year. This is just one of the videos. The website for "FLAAF" can be found here:

http://flaaf.be/

The whole lot of the videos can be seen here:
http://nl.youtube.com/user/laaf21

The Dutch go completely bananas with fireworks at New Year. There were more fireworks being let off here than I've ever seen in my entire life before now. I couldn't see the road from our house for smoke. Perhaps unsurprisingly, there are quite a few injuries resulting from this, and more so when people import extra powerful and sometimes illegal fireworks.

The campaign this year is "Flemish" because one of the biggest problems at the moment is that you can legally buy more powerful fireworks in Belgium than in the Netherlands. Some of them are shoddily made with much shorter fuses than they should have.

2000 year old computer

A chap in London has recreated a 2000 year old Greek "computer".

It's not exactly a general purpose machine. However it is very neat.

The second biggest potato in the world

In a story which sounds just like something out of Father Ted, the Isle of Man has for a few years had the world record for the world's largest potato at 3.5 kg. However, a Lebanese farmer has now grown a 11.3 kg potato.

The owner of the 3.5 kg potato says there is still a lot of local interest in the potato and that "we're still a world champion - we'll call it the second biggest potato in the world.

My question is... How far would you travel to catch a glimpse of the world's second largest potato ?

Frozen canal

These two photos were taken on this morning's dog walk along the canal which on the western edge of Assen.

The sun is out today which makes it feel a lot warmer than yesterday. However it's actually only 1 degree above freezing, so there is still ice for the birds to stand on next to the house boats.