As you guys may know, one of the members of the Transition Harborough information list is Proffessor John Twidell who is a long term environmentalist.
His chosen career is in the arena of "Wind energy" and he is the editor of the "Wind engineer" journal so should be able to bring the group a great deal of knowledge on the subject of wind turbines.
On Thursday 25th of October I visited John's home to have a look around the various devices that John has employed to reduce his consumption of energy.
His home is fitted with a log burner in an outhouse which is a rather unusual feature and to feed this he has a large log store where he seasons his wood for up to two years before burning, I was interested to hear that there are a number of reasons for this A) Dry wood does not smoke anywhere near as much as fresh/green wood and B) The dry wood does not create the creosote when burnt that coats the chimney and causes fires.
He never has to buy the wood that he uses as he is more than amply supplied by winter fall and his neibours dropping stuff around.
He also has a wood pellet fire in one room which is a technical marvel in its self. A small hopper contains the wood pellets made from compressed saw dust and they are dropped in small numbers into the centre of the fire in a small recess via an arcamedes screw feeder. To ignite itself the first pellets super heated until they combust and then a fan distributes the heat around the room, all controlled by an interactive remote control handset. Very fancy.
In his quite expansive garden there is a large vegetable plot and a fenced off area for his chickens. a series of water butts of various shapes and sizes are collecting H20 for future use but also he has the use of a well. He had looked at rainwater harvesting for the house but having to replumb would prove too costly.
There is a summer house in the garden which is energised by a photovoltaic array and a small wind turbine. Back at the main building his roof bristles with a large array of Photovoltaic panels providing electricity in abundance on those hot summers days of ours.
In his kitchen there is a wood fueled "Stanley" stove and all the things you would normally expect to see in a kitchen. Here he has his consumer unit where he has attached a monitor to show how much draw his home has, the monitor is not clever enough to show when he is supplying the grid with electricity but he has purchased an intelligent meter to do this soon when he gets it installed.
Using an energy monitor that you can plug devices into he showed me that his washing machine draws 5 watts even when it is completely switched off and as a result I now switch mine off at the mains as well now along with all the devices that I do that to already.
I am sure that I have missed plenty but I would like to take this oppertunity to thank John for his hospitality for the morning and to once again state my admiration for what he has done. He has also stated that he would love to invite the group to a BBQ some time during the summer... if we have one in 2008.
Thank you John.