Extra insulation proves a hit

Keeping our new home, a rented cottage, is proving challenging. When the temperatures dropped last month, every room was freezing with droughts coming in from the rickety windows and doors. The huge, ancient boiler chugged away trying to keep up to no avail. It was depressing.

Solution: Rolls of insulating tape to line every gap and hole. And a large wooden drought excluder to block the massive gap on our front door. The difference is massive. It gets warmer quicker and stays warm longer.

But it brings up the issue of environmental responsibilities of landlords. Should all landlords be required to follow eco-codes for their housing stock? Should double glazing, draught proofing, minimum efficiency ratings for boilers and appliances be required?

Comments

Why isn't all packaging recyclable?

It's been an interesting week trying to buy household products and food only made from recyclable packaging. A mixed bag. Literally. For example, I just made a rocket (arugula) salad with fresh mozzarella. The rocket I bought from Waitrose last week was in a recyclable bag made from recycled plastic. However, the rocket I bought from Sainbury's today was in a bag that did not have the recyclable sign, nor was it made from recycled plastic. The Sainsbury's mozzarella was equally guilty. However, Sainsbury's does use some bags that are recyclable, mainly for their organic products. Less confusing were the products in cardboards boxes/cartons and aluminum packaging. All clearly recyclable. And almost all of the plastic packaging we bought was recyclable apart from a few random items we bought at Marks and Spencers and the lunch spot Eat. Things like salad containers that looked like they were candidates for the recycling pile turned out not to have any recycling symbols...

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Relieving your travel guilt with carbon neutralization packages

Brother Ren, who shall now be called Research Ren as he is better at it than I am, has sent in this guilt-alleviating website which allows anyone to purchase carbon neutrlaization packages. + Carbon Neutral Question you may have: What is a carbon neautralization package? Is it something that can only be purchased at Star Trek conventions? Answer: These packages plant trees to help absorb the nastiness left in the air from your flight to the Maldives. It will also calculate how much CO2 you emit on flights based on your destination as well as CO2 you emit with your car mileage. It's a smart site, easy to use and I feel more green-angelic just for looking at it. We're taking the Eurostar/TGV to a wedding in the south of France in 2 weeks rather than flying but we still have all of those air miles to make up for from our London-NY-San Fran-LA-London trip so looks like we'll be using this site's offerings to help to plant a small forest somewhere. (Though I do wonder how ...

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