For the last couple of days I have been running a blog challenge, writing blog posts about any topic my Twitter/ Facebook and blog pals came up with. There are several on display at emmacooper.org, mainly about gardening but also about blogging. For this one a new FB friend, Sml Footprints, suggested “How about the best ways to reduce energy use in the cooler months. :-)”.

The above photo of the ever-stunning Pete was taken at the Ice Bar in Copenhagen. There the key to staying warm is wearing a big furry cape and not touching anything with your bare hands (because you’ll stick to it). The vodka doesn’t hurt, either.

But closer to home there are plenty of ways to stay warm this winter without running up a huge heating bill. If you want to investigate insulation (cavity wall, or loft) then there are grants available and special offers – the Energy Saving Trust and your energy company are good places to start.

Smaller, quick fixes include putting draft strips around any badly fitting doors, or making your own draft excluder. Traditional draft excluders are made in the shape of snakes, for obvious reasons, but my nan wouldn’t have one of those in the house due to a morbid fear of snakes. Pete wants one in the shape of a lobster so he can call it ‘Lobster Formedoor’, and she would have been OK with that :)

You could also fit window films if you have single-glazed or drafty windows, and you can get reflective panels to go behind radiators (or use aluminium foil). A nice idea I found was to use fridge magnets to cover over key holes to stop the wind whistling through them!

Close curtains at dusk, to keep the heat in. Close doors behind you and only heat the rooms you live in. There’s no need to send a lot of heat into bedrooms if they’re upstairs, as they will benefit from rising heat and it’s easier to sleep in cooler surroundings anyway. Use a hot water bottle if you don’t like getting into a cold bed. Our old kitchen had no heating at all, which was fine because everything you do in a kitchen creates heat, and the fridge was really efficient in the winter :)

Turn the heating down in the winter and snuggle up on the sofa under a blanket or old duvet if all you’re doing is watching the telly. During the day, wear more layers or move around more. If you’re feeling chilly indoors, try going out for a walk – not only does it help you feel warmer, but you’ll notice the heat when you come back home!

Use your thermostat and the timer on your heating system so that you’re not over-heating your home or heating it when heat is not required. Radiators with thermostatic controls allow you to tailor heating in each room.

And even as it becomes impossible to dry your laundry outside, don’t hang it on the radiators inside – get a clothes horse!

What are your top tips for saving energy in the winter?

I have no idea whether the weather this winter will be better or worse than last year, but I do know that energy prices are going up and we’re all skint, so I thought I would let you know something that I discovered rather by accident the other day.

If you are a British Gas customer (whether that’s for gas, electric, both or one of their HomeCare plans), you may be entitled to free loft or cavity wall insulation.

You’ll need to phone (don’t use the website ‘Request a callback’ button, as it doesn’t seem to be connected to anything!) and hand over a few details (have a bill handy, if you can find one) and they’ll set you up with an appointment for a surveyor to come round and assess whether your property is suitable. If it is then they will then make arrangements to come and insulate your loft, and/or your cavity walls, free of charge.

The only proviso is that you have to apply before 31st October 2011 to be eligible. The guy I spoke to when I phoned was lovely, so don’t put it off – get it done and save some pennies this winter :)

If you listen to the show then you’ll know that Pete and I have made the trip to Grand Designs Live at the NEC a couple of times over the years. I haven’t seen any free ticket offers yet this year, but they currently have a ticket deal that saves you 45% if you book by 19th August 2011 (the show itself is early in October).

Book via the Grand Designs Live website, or phone 0844 854 1348, and use the discount code NEWS12 to claim your saving. Kids 15 and under go free, as well :D

The following discount codes are valid online at the Green Shopping Catalogue, and for telephone orders, from now until the end of September 2011.

Buy Dave Hamilton’s Grow Your Own Food for Free for £12.95 (saving £2.00), when you use the discount code GYF/PM69.

John Kruse’s Common Land is just £10.99, a saving of £2.00, when you use the promo code CLA/PM69.

Carol Deppe’s The Resilient Gardener is available with a discount of £2.00 with the offer code RGF/PM69.

Buy Small Green Roofs for £14.99 (saving £2.00), when you use the code SGR/PM69 when you place your order.

Preserve your garden’s bounty with a hanging herb drying rack for £13.95 (use code BBLHDR/PM69 or use HERBD/PM69 to buy a herb and seed drying rack for £27.50.

And collect fallen leaves for leaf mould in jute leaf sacks. The current offer is £19.95 for 10 sacks, a saving of £9.97, when you quote the code LEL15/PM69.

Cook outdoors this summer with a Western style Dutch oven cook set and save £5.00 with the coupon code DOBS/PM69.

It’s been a long time coming, but it’s nearly here: we’re moving our telephone line away from BT.

I don’t have any particular strong feelings for or against BT as a company. The incident where they took away my broadband by disconnecting my primary line without any prior warning (they thought we were moving house, but we weren’t) was verging on criminal, but I’ve mellowed out since then. In recent times, BT seem to have adopted the mobile carrier mentality of having contracts. I say ‘in recent times’, I’ve only been aware of it over the last few years or so.

I’m sure we’re in the same boat as many other people of having a landline for broadband but not making many telephone calls on it. To that end, BT get about 11GBP a month from us for line rental, and practically no call charges. Most calls we make are either from mobile phones or Skype. That works for us: we’re pre-paying for a stack of minutes from our mobile carrier, so we may as well use the, and if long distance or super-long calls are required, there’s the VoIP option of Skype.

Recently, we’ve been bombarded with calls from a company offering us free evening and weekend calls in exchange for signing up for a 12 month contract. The conversion normally goes something like this:

Them: “Hello, can I speak to Mr Cooper, please?”
Me: “Hello, that’s me.”
Them: “Hi, I’m calling on behalf of BT. We’d like to offer you free evening and weekend calls and it won’t cost you anything extra. All we need you to do is agree to another 12 months on your contract with BT and we can set this up now.”
Me: “Thanks, but I don’t make any landline calls.”
Them: “But it won’t cost you anything, all you would need to do is extend your contract for another year.”
Me: “…but I don’t make any calls, so I’m not interested, thanks.”
Them: “So, you saying you don’t want these calls, even if they’re free?”
Me: “Yes. And please don’t call again.

Each time they call I ask them not to call again as we’re not interested. This message doesn’t get across as we invariably hear from them about 24-48 hours later. Same drill, same offer, same message.

The important part of the conversation is:

Them: “Hi, I’m calling on behalf of BT. We’d like to offer you […]”

They’re not calling from BT, they’re a third-party company called CCA Direct Dialog. They’ve purchased a list of numbers and personal details from BT who have effectively outsourced their renewals team. I’ve tried being nice and polite, I’ve tried ignoring the phone when it rings, and I’ve tried to get our number added to the ‘do not call’ list, but nothing’s working. I’ve tried not saying anything when they call, I’ve tried speaking French, no good. So, that’s yer lot, BT. You’ve lost a customer. I’m under no illusion that anyone from BT will read this, but this is part of me getting closure.

It’s time to change from BT line rental to Be* line rental. Same (old) copper wires, same phone number, I’m just going to be paying Be* more and BT less. Which I’m OK with.

I’m the proud owner of some domestic electricity use meters, the sort that tell you exactly what you’re using Watt-wise and how screwed you’re going to be when the bill hits the doormat. Most people get away with one meter (if that), I’m was a nerdy freak and got a load to try in tandem.

In this post I’ll be reviewing the various bits involved with each system after using the meters for a considerable period of time. So far, I’ve had these meters:

• Owl Wireless
• Eco Eye
• AlertMe
• Current Cost Envi CC128

First up, the Owl Wireless. We’ve had this the longest, and it lives in Emma’s study/bedroom. It just works. The humidity monitor was initially something that I thought we’d have no use for, but it’s surprisingly useful — if I wake up cranky in the summertime, it might be down to the humidity. This meter tells both of us whether my crankiness is down to the weather or some other reason. It’s also a pre-emptive device for Emma to check if I’m likely to be cranky before I get up, so emergency avoid-Pete-at-all-costs can be put into action. The Owl Wireless also has a pretty accurate temperature gauge, which is also useful. Truth is, I rarely — if ever — use this device for gauging power use. That side of things is accurate and responsive, however. The batteries last for ages and it just works. Recommended for newly-qualified house nerds who just want to know what’s going on.

Next up, the Eco Eye. Very few buttons. Massive LCD screen. Seriously, the readout must be 5cm/2” tall. Does seem very fond of batteries and always has the shortest battery lifespan of all the devices. I use rechargeable batteries for all the devices, and this one chomps up the most. I’ve had an Eco Eye for almost as long as the Owl Wireless, and I had high hopes for it initially; the company were advertising a data cable and software thingy to get usage stats out of the unit, allowing for all kinds of spreadsheet and graphy nerdism. Alas, it was delayed, and then when it finally did appear it was a cable to connect to the mains meter side of the arrangement on their commercial (>200 Amps) version. Clearly it was intended at the office or industrial business community, but I still think it was a missed opportunity — an easy way to connect a home device to a home computer would have far more appeal, not to mention unit sales.

Which brings us to AlertMe. I was a big AlertMe groupie in the early stages, I signed up for their energy monitoring package — notably the only vendor at the time offering a stable setup to fire usage data into Google PowerMeter — something which I was more than a bit interested in. After buying the power usage bits, I uhm-ed and aah-ed about bolting on the home security package and going a bit nuts with that. Ultimately, I decided against it. Not for any sinister reason, but a couple of things did ring alarm bells (excuse the unintended pun). For one, the AlertMe setup is a service and not just a device. There’s a little box which connects the socket devices and mains unit into the box of tricks at AlertMe HQ. Put it this way, I can log into a secure website and remotely turn my sockets on and off, from anywhere in the world. Neat. And also a bit scary. Well, a lot scary. I’m still wondering how long it would take someone to snag some logins from the AlertMe site and start turning sockets off…or disarming alarm systems. I also had an email from someone at AlertMe telling me that the firmware in one of the sockets was out of date, and that they needed to do some remote administration to updates. This is good service, alerting you (me) to the problem and offering to fix it. Which got me thinking: anyone at AlertMe could remotely access my sockets. I don’t think they would, at least not without asking, but all it takes is a disgruntled employee and my power could go off. The important stuff is protected by UPSes, granted, but there’s still a risk. Which brings us to today. I’ve had enough of AlertMe. I don’t dislike it, as such..I just don’t have any real use for what it offers me. It’s not for me. It’s a good service, but not my thing any longer. The functionality of Google PowerMeter is something I like, but won’t be paying AlertMe for the privilege. There are other devices that can plug into PowerMeter without the annual subscription cost.

…like the CurrentCost Envi. I bloody love this thing. Simple, stable, clear readout. I was put onto CC128 (and, indirectly, Pachube, possibly the best way to make pretty graphs from stuff) by Ben Ward, through his Weasel Shit For Fun & Profit post. CC128 has the best features of a bunch of other monitors with an extra dollop of sandpit nerdism thrown in. CC128 lives in the kitchen. It feels at home, there. I did go and buy a data cable (another ten spot on top of the purchase price) and eventually I’ll get around to scooping some of the data off it and do something with it. Oh, and it was the only device that came with a wall-wart power supply as standard, not requiring another pile of money to have one shipped at silly cost. Nice.

It’s a shame that I fell out of love with AlertMe. Through no fault of their own it just fell out of favour, and everything about CC128 just ticked the right boxes. It just works. It’ll work when I throw more usage sensors into the house (water, gas, etc) and it’ll keep working when I move house. It’ll work when the Internet breaks down. It’ll be even more wonderful and amazing when I dial up the nerdy and get the most from it, but until then it’s the best of the bunch.

Thompson & Morgan UK are offering free P&P on all orders placed this weekend – between now and midnight on Sunday 30th January. Which is very exciting news if you were intending to place a seed and/ or plants order, as their P&P charges can be a little bit hefty (up to £6.74, depending on what you’re buying). Now you can spend all of your money on plants and seeds ;)

I’m particularly excited about it as I had a £10 gift voucher and was trying to think of the best way to spend it. Factoring in the P&P charges gave me less money to spend – so today I have spent the whole £10 (and an extra 38p!) on the 6 mint plants I wanted plus a packet of very pretty seeds. Colour me happy :D

*Updated 31/01/2011 – the free P&P offer has been extended until midnight on 1st Feb 2011.

If you’re based in the UK (excluding Northern Ireland) and you head over to Free Green Gadgets and sign up before the end of the year, you can claim a free energy saving plug, and a water widget that cuts down the water use of your shower. The net result for you is lower energy bills, and you’ll reduce your impact on the environment as well.

Several organizations are promoting this offer and have their own promotional codes to use, but if you rock up at the website without one then you can use GADGET when you’re filling in the form. Only one application per household.

Tesco have a new Clubcard website, which allows you to see how many Clubcard vouchers you’ve been sent in the last few years. If you’ve lost any (knowingly or unknowingly) then you can see the voucher numbers online – which means you can spend them at Tesco online.

Go to the site, login to ‘My Clubcard Account’ and select ‘Your Vouchers’ in the left hand menu to see the details.

If you’d rather spend them in-store then you can ring the Clubcard helpline for free on 0800 591 688 and they’ll sort you out with new vouchers. They’ll also help you out if you’re having problems accessing the new online system.

It’s done. I’ve finally managed to get my place booked on a self build course at the National Self-Build and Renovation Centre after an email to Mike Hardwick, who hooked me up with a lady called Rebecca (I think) who was very apologetic and sorted me out.

In addition to that, I booked a hotel room for the duration and got 40% off at Hilton with o2 Blueroom for business, one of the perks of an iPhone business contract.

Exciting times. November is shaping up to be a busy month.