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My report on reducing the carbon footprint of a 1920's home

 

 

My report on reducing the carbon footprint of a 1920's home

 

This report will set out to discuss the opportunities and challenges regarding the attempted reduction of the carbon footprint of my 1920's built home.

The proposed structure is;

  1. Introduction
  2. Background
  3. The Problem
  4. Impact Overview
  5. Options
  6. Actions
  7. Conclusions

 It will be an ongoing report with a life of its own, and will probably take a number of years to write.

Disclaimer:

This is only my opinion. It does not constitute a recommendation for any course of action or company. This report is, in part, a collection of articles some of which have been written over a decade ago. Such articles may each have their own footer, including a map and globe. Both articles and the report are not intended to be kept up to date. Prices, charges, cost, and values change over time, as do efficiencies and inefficiencies. Technology also changes over time. What was the bees knees may not still be so.


 

 


 

Section 1 -- Introduction

 

Picking up on recycling's Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, or 3Rs. Which has developed into Reduce, reuse, repair and recycle and then 5rs (Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Repurpose, Recycle).

What are known as the famous 5 when it comes to managing waste?

Usually we put recycling on top of everything, but today on the 5 R process, it comes in last. Five actions should respectively be taken if possible before recycling any products. These R’s include: refuse, reduce, reuse, repurpose and finally, recycle. This is an important methodology for businesses to follow to ensure they can reduce waste and boost their recycling efforts. This ultimately lessens the amount of waste that will end up in landfill and will optimise your recycling programs.

I like to add a G to the front of the Rs. That becomes Grrrrr, which is reasonably descriptive of the whole issue. By the way, the G is for Generate, or Generate your own. Whilst it is a steal from waste management it is not a bad fit for reducing ones carbon footprint.

As stated above, this report will set out to discuss the opportunities and challenges regarding the attempted reduction of the carbon footprint of my 1920's built home.

It is intended, in part to be a record of my progress towards a greener home, and my thinking behind it, an also provide food for thought for anyone who choses to read it.

 

 


 

Section 2 -- Background

 

In this section I will provide some background regarding my interest in the environment.

My career has been in Construction, initially primarily in Roads and Bridges and latterly Railways. My roles, as a Quantity Surveyor, were not specifically environmental but did stray into that area from time to time.

The interest in the environment is not career focused but has been there from a young age and persists today. Not as an activist or as a protestor, but how as an individual I can make small changes to my lifestyle to reduce my impact on the environment in which I live. That can be as little as taking public transport instead of the car where practical or keeping a car as long as possible, as there is a lot of embedded carbon in a car, and prematurely changing and swapping to an electric vehicle would be counter productive in terms of cost and carbon. Or as much as adding as many PV Solar Panels as will fit on my roof.

Little steps of action cumulate to make more change than just talking about the issues.

 

The start of my interest in the environment

The start of my interest in the environment

 Animal Geography

 

The start of my interest in the environment

 

At a relatively young age I began to have an interest in the environment in which we live. 

I am defiantly not an older Greta Thunberg in any way shape or form. Total respect to her.

I was something of a swot at secondary school. I remember a school Prize Giving Assembly where after my name was called and I bounded up the stairs, two at a time, onto the stage. I was later told off, (gently) as it lacked decorum and was not visually attractive. I was tall for my age and somewhat gangly, but in hindsight I don't think that was the lesson.

 IMG 6370Fortunately it was not like the Oscars where you have to go onto the stage separately for each prize to be awarded. The prizes were collated, if you were fortunate enough to receive multiple awards, by the person. There was a stack of eleven books for me, one of which was Animal Geography by Wilma George. It had a chapter on Continental Drift, which was the beginning of Tectonic Plates Theory.

IMG 6373

Tectonic Plates Theory has grown up a lot since then, and is probably generally accepted. At that time, less than thirty years after it was first expounded, it was all very new.

The reason for selecting this particular book was not Continental Drift as I think this was the first place I read about it. It was because of my interest in animals and their classification.  How and why the family groups came about and what separated them.

Whilst the Double Helix DNA discovery was before this book, and 'although scientists have made some minor changes to the Watson and Crick model, or have elaborated upon it, since its inception in 1953, the model's four major features remain the same yet today.' However, DNA in Species Identification was not common until several decades later.

Even before secondary school I had started to collect information regarding animals and how they were classified with the intention of writing a book on the subject. I still have the box of information I collected, all paper in those days. I never wrote the book as there are other books which are much better than I could have done, from more knowledgeable people than a school kid. Also, it has become something of a movable feast as more becomes known about animal families, thanks in part to DNA and also Paleogenomics. For instance is a Hyrax still the closest living relative to an Elephant?

Fortunately, I had some good teachers who were able to expand what they taught based on interest as well the set curriculum. It may have been Mr Baldwin, the Physics teacher or Mr Angel - Geography (Last name from Facebook Group).

I recall being taught at the time that the world is a fragile place and that if the ambient temperature rose by as little as 4oC it would result in a Mass Extinction Event, not that they were called that at the time. Nor the more recent term, Extinction Level Event. (ELE). 

This was enough to set me off with both an interest in animals, the environments in which they live, and which we share, and the wider "how is the planet".

 

That figure of 4oC appears to have risen to 5.2oC or sometimes 6oC. I am not sure how much the latter figure is driven by the politics of providing hope for the future to avoid despair and anarchy, as we are sailing perilously close to exceeding the threshold.

 

Several decades after I was at school, David's school had a evening lecture about past Mass Extinction Events, and of course a discussion about the possibility of one in the not to distant future due to Global Warming.

 

To update that somewhat, below is a photo taken when I was at the top of Kilimanjaro in May 1979.

Top of snow capped Kilimanjaro1M

 Part of the permanent ice cap and glazier, taken from Gilman's Point. That was than, and this is now, and this. A stark difference!

In August 2014, my son David climbed Kilimanjaro, and here are some of his photos, as a comparison. Davids Kili 9618

 Davids Kili 9550

 There was a benefit. David got all the way to Uhuru Peak, whilst our group only got to Gilman's Point, also known as Gillman's Point. We were told that it would be dangerous to travel the additional mile on to Uhuru because of the conditions. On the return we would not be able to see properly as the cloud was already coming in. They were the guides, and local knowledge knows best. So, yes David climbed higher than I did. Ururu is 5895 / 19341 according to the photo. Gilman's is 5685m / 18652ft according to a similar photo on Google Maps. It was nothing to do with up in 3 days and down in one, just the weather on the day. I think the round trip is now seven or more days.Davids Kili 9663

 A smattering of snow and frost, and the warmer jackets have come out. Understandable, it was about 6 in the morning, and just shy of 20,000ft. The difference between May and August, the change of months between his and my trips can not explain the difference in the snow coverage. It is Global Warming melting very very old snow and ice. Permanent, no longer.

 Google Maps satellite view. Where has all the snow and ice gone? Admittedly there is some left, but not much.

There are some opinions that the current Global Warming, AKA Climate Change, is the only thing stopping us from entering the well overdue, next Ice Age, but I don't think that is a widely supported view. Why the move from Global Warming to Climate Change? My thought is that Global Warming is what is happening. On average the world is getting warmer. However, that does not mean that we can go down to Brighton and get the Mediterranean experience. The initial consequence of Global Warming is an impact on the climate with both general weather changes, both better and worse, and more severe weather events. Plants can't move easily to accommodate gentle weather changes let alone extreme ones. Animals are more mobile, but not all sufficiently so. Too much change will result in another Mass Extinction Event.



 

 

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Section 3 -- The Problem

 

The problem is complex and many fold. However, understanding a problem is key to resolving it, or mitigating against it. There are many techniques available and that I am failure with, including root cause annalist and risk management. However, this problem is easier to describe than it is to solve.

Climate Change

 

Climate Change

 

At the risk of repeating myself ad nauseum, whilst I was at school several decades ago, I recall being taught at the time that the world is a fragile place and that if the ambient temperature rose by as little as 4oC it would result in a Mass Extinction Event, not that they were called that at the time. Nor the more recent term, Extinction Level Event. (ELE). 

That figure of 4oC appears to have risen to 5.2oC or sometimes 6oC. I am not sure how much the latter figure is driven by the politics of providing hope for the future to avoid despair and anarchy, as we are sailing perilously close to exceeding the threshold. Better science or political will to not give all of the bad news at the first sitting, you can decide.

I will not however, try to explain Climate Change, the reasons for, or the problems caused here as there is plenty of better researched sources of information on the internet.

Suffice it to say that there will be more frequent extreme weather events, which have to be catered for in any decision making process regarding reducing the carbon footprint of a 1930's home. There will also be impacts on the financial implications of those decisions, including fuel cost, taxation, and product costs.

 

Climate Change also provides the main imperative for wanting to reduce the carbon footprint.

 


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Section 4 -- Impact Overview

 

The normal way of measuring the effectiveness of an expenditure or investment in a potential project is to look and what you get for your money. Traditionally, it was measured in hard cash, how much money will it cost and how much money will I get back, as savings or returns. Return on Investment, or ROI. Slowly the equation definition has expanded to include other benefits, not just hard cash. Soft benefits were also included. Those soft benefits, which could be anything from safety to additional jobs created,  are translated into monetary terms to allow the equation to function. A road job (Road Investment Strategy) with a ratio of 5.7 is more likely to get funding than one with a ratio of 2.0. 

Value for Money (VfM)
DfT classifies any investment as having very high VfM if the Benefit Cost Ratio (BCR) is greater than 4.0, high VfM if the BCR is between 2.0 and 4.0 and medium VfM if the BCR is between 1.5 and 2.0. Low VfM is represented by a BCR between 1.0 and 1.5 and poor VfM occurs if the BCR is less than 1.0. For projects with a very high and high VfM classification there is a very strong investment case.

In terms of the environment, the measurement tends to be referred to as the Environmental Impact of a Project or Activity. Again, as a narrow criteria, a lot of projects have a negative impact on the environment. Trees have to be felled, or newts moved. However, if you take in all the factors, the overall impact may be positive, justifying the smaller loss for the greater gain. HS2 is an example of this.

Accordingly, this section refers to impact as apposed to Cost Benefit or Value for Money, but it deals with the same issues. Is it worth spending my money on … to reduce my homes carbon footprint. 

 

Cost Benefit Analysis

 

Cost Benefit Analysis

 

Normally a project goes through some stages and at each stage there should be some form of Cost Benefit Analysis before going to the next stage.

You can either take that at face value and move on or click to expand a quick course on Project Management. I have been involved in Projects of one type or another for most of my career, so it could be a tedious off topic diatribe or quite informative, depending on your perspective.

 

Project Controls Overview

Cost Benefit is also known as Benefit Cost Ratio. The latter puts the words in the same order as the formula, but it is the same process. What will be the Benefits that I get out of spending the money, Cost.

Sometimes the straight cash only Cost Benefit Analysis gives a very poor return, but adding safety, deaths avoided, economic benefits, environmental benefits, social benefits, and reputational benefits, can change a poor investment into an essential investment.

For this exercise I will not be applying the strict investment rules, but a looser, perhaps set of guidelines.

Some projects will be done just because I want to, with no reference to Cost Benefit Analysis at all. Such as the Greywater Recycling and the Smart Home. 

Whilst other projects will be rejected because the potential payback period is excessive, otherwise said as the positive impact is to small to be worth the effort and expense, unless it contributes to a larger gain when used to facilitate another project.

The Cost Benefit Analysis can also help to provide the correct order of doing projects, with those with the greatest impact done first. However, that is not the only parameter for deciding the order.

 

 


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Section 5 -- Options

 

E1


 

Section 6 -- Actions

 

These are that actions we have taken, in chronological order for the most part. Some have more impact than others, and some may raise questions as to the relevance to environmental concerns.

The order of the actions does not always appear logical. Some are low hanging fruit. Others have greater logistical or disruption obstacles. Whilst Return on Investment in terms of both Carbon and Money are considered that is not the only criteria which lead to choices and actions.

The actions are individual separate projects undertaken over a number of years. They are not part of an integrated master plan of home improvement and carbon reduction together with the associated cost savings and environmental impact improvements. With a do-over, it would be planned that way, but they were separate initiatives which have coincidently coalesced into a common environmental theme. 

 

Water Harvesting

Water Harvesting and Reed Bed

My homemade reedbed for Greywater and Rainwater harvesting

 

How does a reedbed help reduce the carbon used by my home? Not at all within the property. It just collects and processes bathwater and rain water. In fact it increases the carbon footprint and cost as electric pumps are involved in moving the resultant processed water. However, the significant gain is at the Water Companies' plants. Less water goes into the sewer system and therefore less energy is used to process it. We use the collected, processed, and stored, water instead of running the tap and using processed drinking water from the water mains, again thereby reducing the energy used to provide mains water.

The main reason at the time was to avoid a brown garden with significant loss of vegetation due to the impending drought, and the possibility off a similar situation in future years.

 

Water harvesting reed beds

 

My homemade reedbed water harvesting project

 

Project overview
Project: Grey water reclamation at home
Client: Me / Planet Earth
Cost / Value: “Undisclosed”
Programme: Spring 2006 – Spring 2007
Client’s Requirements: How to beat the hosepipe ban and save the planet
The inspiration and research: Article on Monday, 13 March 2006

 

 Article on Monday, 13 March 2006, extracted from BBC News.

Hosepipes banned by Thames Water

 

Hosepipe ban
Britain's biggest water company will ban hosepipes and sprinklers from next month, the firm has announced. Thames Water, whose eight million customers will be affected by the ban, says two unusually dry winters have caused "serious" water shortages. The South East has experienced its driest period for more than 80 years

 Rainfall graph

  I used the water usage calculator on the BBC website and estimated that my family uses approximately 400lts of water per day. That equates to 133lts per person which compares favourably to the national average of 155lts per day. Of this about 60% is for showers and baths. However, the above calculation did not include the irrigation system that I have in the garden. I recalculated the water usage including use of a hosepipe to water the garden, but for a reduced time to account for the difference between a hose pipe and irrigation system rate of flow. This added 90 lts per day. Coincidently the water used for showers and baths equates to 80 lts per day.

We already did some water conservation by collecting rain water using a single water butt and leaving the grass to grow a little longer, and not watering it. So it seemed a simple solution to use the bath waste water to water the garden. At this point I should have just decided to have showers with the plug in and siphon out the water with a hose after it had cooled. As sane people eventually did. You can even now buy special products specifically designed to make it easier.

 However, I decided to research the possibility of creating a grey water reclamation system using reed beds. The local library proved, yet again, to be a good source of information, as did the internet. I learnt,

  • that different reeds deal with different pollutants and pathogens,
  • about aerobic and anaerobic digestion
  • micro-organisms, bacteria, fungi, and protozoa
  • surface or subsurface, horizontal or vertical flow configuration
  • rainfall patterns throughout the year
  • rate of flow through reed beds
  • and area of reed bed required per person
  • Pollutants and pathogens are removed from the waste water flowing through a reed bed by a complex variety of physical, chemical and biological processes, including aerobic and anaerobic microbial activity, nitrification, plant uptake, sedimentation, precipitation and filtration.
  • Reed beds are successfully and economically used in full scale black water sewage treatment and industrial effluent treatment.

Importantly reed beds require little maintenance, no additional chemicals, little or no energy dependent upon the site geography / topography and are of course, completely natural. 

 


The Design

 

The Design

 

I wanted the system to be low maintenance and durable. It also had to be aesthetically pleasing, sustainable and capable of providing adequate clean water supplies during the increased period of drought that may be experienced due to global warming. The site is relatively flat with only a slight fall towards the top of Figure 1 ‘The Site before start’ below. To minimise the energy requirement of the system as much as possible, it had to be gravity fed. However, it ultimately had to be landscaped into the garden so some pumping was going to be necessary.

The previous research indicated the there were two basic configurations, surface and sub-surface flow, with the later being further divided into, horizontal flow and vertical flow. The sub-surface configuration is thought to be better for temperate climates, especially during winter, as the water flows through the substrate, thereby staying warmer and more efficient. To have a sub-surface vertical flow configuration would involve having outlets at the bottom of the tubs, which would necessarily involve burying pipe work, access chambers and making holes in the bottom of an otherwise water tight vessel. It would also require a relatively complex distribution system for the grey water. A sub-surface horizontal system has similar difficulties with respect to the outlet but without the inlet difficulties. I considered that the sub-surface configuration imported too much risk of failure overtime and the buried pipe work and access chambers unnecessarily complicated for the relatively small gains offered by sub-surface flow configuration compared to surface flow. The surface flow configuration has the water flow above the substrate, through the reeds, and is more similar to natural wetlands. The reduced efficiency during winter can be countered by having a larger area, together with the ability to switch to normal direct discharge into the sewers if required. Therefore the surface flow configuration was adopted.

I also considered having all of the main tubs at exactly the same level so as to provide the infinity pool type look, but decided that this was impracticable, and less attractive than gently flowing water from one tub to the next, until quietly disappearing underground.

Another significant design criteria was that the system had to be operational, at least in part, in the shortest possible time and preferably before the hose pipe ban came into force. The project was therefore done in distinct phases.

The photograph Figure 1 ‘The Site before start’ below, shows the hose pipe being put to good use, marking out the edge of the development. Several shapes and locations within the garden were considered using this technique. This is the final location but not the ultimate layout. This also represents the ‘before’ photo.

 

Fig 1 The Site before startFigure 1 ‘The Site before start’
The location needed to be relatively close to the house for piping the waste water from the bathroom to the surge tank. It is necessary to have a surge tank to capture a bath full of waste water, and then to allow it to flow at a regulated speed through the system so as to allow the natural processing to take place. Consideration also had to be given for the wellbeing of the plants, such that they would not always be in the shadow of the house.

The bird feeder would have to be relocated. There would be a significant loss of grass and the washing line capacity would be reduced.

Another consideration was what to do with the excavated material. I did not want the normal hole and hill, nor did I want to have to cart the material off site. Adjacent to the site, also near the house, there is an old brick built shed.

The solution adopted was to increase the thermal mass and insulation of the shed by creating a turf wall near the shed and back filling the intervening space with the sub-soil excavated. The topsoil was stockpiled for use elsewhere in the garden. The shed wall was protected with two layers of waterproof membrane to avoid damp penetration. In turn the waterproof membrane was protected by reused expanded cardboard to reduce the risk of puncture by broken flints, primarily during construction and settlement. This additional wall also incorporated an old fashioned cistern arrangement which captures all of the rain water from the shed into open water. This overflows into the reed bed system.

It is planned that eventually the shed will also be re-roofed with a living roof. Combined this will provide a much reduced visual impact to the shed together with the benefits of a larger planted area.

The pumps necessary for irrigation circulation and to lift the reclaimed water from the sump pump chamber, the lowest part of the system, to the water storage are electric. In addition to this there is a small 12v fountain in the lowest tub, which now contains fish, and a pump to power the waterfall. Both the waterfall and the fountain are primarily for aesthetics, visual and sound, but they also provide additional aeration and agitation as a by-product. The electricity for the pumps is generally provided by two 18w photoelectric panels feeding a 12v 110Ah deep cycle leisure battery. The 12v supply from the battery is converted to the required 240v by a Sterling 600W inverter. The sump pump has to be connected to the mains to avoid the continuous use of electricity required by the standing current of the inverter if it was left on all of the time. The sump pump operates automatically by float switch which activates as soon as the sump pump chamber nears capacity and therefore requires a constant supply. The electrical requirement for the sump pump is however offset by the reduction in both the water requirement and the sewerage processing, which are intensive power consumers. Hence, despite not being fully power self sufficient, it is better than carbon neutral, it has reduced our overall carbon footprint.

The rate of flow required through the system has to be slow enough to process the water but not so slow for the water to become stagnant. It also has to be fast enough to deal with the input of grey water on a daily basis and ultimately to provide sufficient surplus to provide adequate stored water for later use. The research revealed that 1-2 square metres of reed beds are required per person to process black water but not the rate of flow through the system for grey water.

The solution was to experiment within phase one of the project.

As previously stated, pollutants and pathogens are removed from the waste water flowing through a reed bed by a complex variety of physical, chemical and biological processes, including aerobic and anaerobic microbial activity, nitrification, plant uptake, sedimentation, precipitation and filtration

The waste water treatment is outlined below;

  • suspended solids settle to the bottom in still water or are filtered by the substrates and plants
  • organic material is broken down by microbes that live on the roots and rhizomes
  • nitrates can be taken up by the plants, or they can be transformed by denitrifying bacteria to nitrogen gas
  • ammonia is transformed by bacteria to nitrates
  • phosphorus precipitates with calcium, iron and aluminium compounds and is subsequently removed by sedimentation and absorption to the soil and by plant uptake
  • metals and toxic chemicals are removed by oxidation, precipitation and plant uptake
  • pathogens die off in inhospitable environment and are ingested by other organisms, or are killed off by antibacterial compounds.

The desktop research indicated which plants would be suitable in terms of their ability to deal with different pollutants and pathogens and to process the grey / black waste water. The environment required to carry out the water treatment outlined above could be achieved within a small site with careful design, construction and selection of plants.
Additional requirements that I wanted included, that the mixed varieties should be aesthetically pleasing, readily available, manageable, some flowering, indigenous, generally of UK origin and hardy. Such a mix of plants would inevitably have different size, spread and rates of growth. One of the listed plants is bulrushes. If they were not constrained they would quickly overrun most of the other plants. The use of separate tubs, and careful selection of which plants share tubs should eradicate this problem.

 


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Conclusion

In conclusion this has been a very rewarding project involving a number of different ‘green’ techniques to provide a solution to a specific problem. Albeit that this problem has yet to occur this year, the system is still working very well, producing crystal clear water day after day, whatever the weather. I have not had the water tested to be able to categorically state its quality, but suspect that it is actually potable. I believe that it has significantly reduced the family’s carbon footprint and provided interest and ongoing enjoyment.

I have added two narrow water butts at the front of the house to capture rainfall from those elevations. The water butts are small and relatively unobtrusive. It is however sufficient to be a surge tank and to accommodate the build-up during downpours which is free to flow via a garden hosepipe to the reed beds in the back garden, after keeping back enough in the second tub to water the pots in the front garden. The rain water flush provide by the front water butt and the brick shed cistern also reduce the systems maintenance requirement.

Another development to be considered is the adaptation of the WC supply to be both mains and reclaimed water. This would further reduce our mains water consumption.

Finally my thanks to the books and internet articles that provided the invaluable reference material that made this project possible.


 

 

Updates

 

June 2010

August 2020

  • Transfer from old site to this one
  • Photos re-mastered
  • Some additional photos, Figure numbers with sufix.
  • Minor text corrections

 December 2021

  • Added tabs to aid reading
  • Incorporated this article inside another

 



 

 

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Section 7 -- Conclusions

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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