Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Sustainable Suburbia


Sustainable Suburbia is an interesting blog written by Ken Boak from Redhill, Surrey (subhead - 'Getting along in the 21st Century with half the baggage you carried in the 20th'). Ken says he is slowly renovating his 100-year-old semi-detached house to make it more in keeping with sustainable energy practices. It's well worth a browse and naturally Shedworking is particularly interested in what Ken calls his Renewable Enegy Workshop (pictured above). As he explains:
"It replaces the old engine shed that I used for a couple of years, and it puts all my technical equipment under one roof - with the solar water heating panels on top. On Friday, with the Lister generator in place and plumbed up with cooling, batteries and inverter, all was ready to start up the generator on vegetable oil and make real heat and power for using in the house.

"The generator was started around 1pm and run for about 3.5 hours. During that time it heated a full tank of hot water, ran a 1700W electric storage heater to warm my office throughout Friday afternoon and evening, and powered the two PCs and other equipment in the office. During this time it used about 4 litres of waste vegetable oil. The office has been running all weekend from the battery powered inverter and already it has started to show a 25% reduction in the amount of electricity that I use from the grid daily."

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