Dear All

We are opening up Skywalker acres for you to come and have a look at what we are doing as part of:

"Transition Chesterfield's contribution to the national Heritage Open Days scheme! Eco-renovated buildings around Chesterfield will open to the public for free on this special weekend in September.

It's a great opportunity for nosy neighbours and anyone interested in greening their home to get up close to real live working eco-features like solar panels, sheep's wool insulation, green roofs and rainwater harvesting systems. Talk to the people who installed - and live with - all these eco-improvements, and pick up ideas and tips for your own home.

Properties open to the public
Five ordinary houses, all eco-renovated by their owners, will be open at various times over the weekend. The owners will all be offering informal tours of their homes, and will be able to tell you all about how and why they did the work, and how well the technologies are performing in practice. They'll also have displays of 'before and after' photos, samples of materials and labels round the house explaining what's been done."

Many more details in this Link:

http://www.transitionchesterfield.org.uk/content/heritage-open-days-2009

Amoungst other attracations - come and see our skeilings at all stages of 'improvement', hold bits of insulation, marvel at the almost flat lime plastering & lime wash, poke some lime putty with a stick, have a look at a heat store, feel the dry air coming out of a heat recovery unit, see a solar panel (hold a tube if you wish) share tea and sympathy and marvel at just how much we have left to do.

I might even let you wee in my low flush toilet!

Joking aside if you are in the area the properties on show display a range of green renovation options and would all be well worth a visit if you are either thinking or in the process of going for it!

We may even be offering courgette cake (got use up the bloody things somehow).

S.

Yes Alastair & Michelle have done many cool things.

I'll catch them up one day.

S.

Doc

I have a through the wall single room unit in my bathroom (vent-axia humistat job). Not a full whole house system - so may be disappointing for you. I came to the conclusion that it just was not worth us going down the route of a full system it as plumbing it into my place was too difficult. From what I could make out you need the place basically airtight for them to work properly and in our house getting very low air change figures in in the 'too difficult' box I am afraid. Ours is really a glorified extractor which recovers a bit of heat its main function is to control condensation in a very small room which, along with the lime plaster/limewash it does admirably.

Sorry if I have misled you.

S.

I'll save you a bit of courgette cake!

S.

The days went very well indeed.

Ended up repeating my tour talk in my sleep!

Whilst it was a bit nervous opening up our house we had invaluable help from some volunteers and, judging by the comments during the tours & in the visitors book, a great many people went away with the intention of getting down and dirty with insulation and draft sealing. So it was a highly effective way of getting the message out at a local scale.

Should see a few more North Derbyshire/Sheffield hits here & Nick should get some visitors up at the energy centre too.

Very tiring but rewarding experience.

Didn't shift all the courgette cake though as my son was selling his homemade honey cake (honey from next door neighbour) to help support his Yu Gi OH habit (don't ask).

Regards.

S.

You're welcome NIck

You should have seen us on Sunday evening!

We must meet up at some stage.

S.