News and events

Winter 2010

As we enter the New Year one hopes that it will bring increased knowledge and action with refurbishing homes in Wales and beyond. We did notice that many of the roofs in Cardiff kept their snow for a long time, so insulation must be getting better, although there were still a few (rental mostly) that were worrying clear after a couple of days.

The Eco Home Centre has had a quiet-ish winter to date, hence putting a discount on the Eco Kettles, despite the VAT rise. So if you fancy a cheap Eco Kettle, you know where to come!

You might have experienced snow damage to your guttering, so our advice is to replace any plastic gutters with new steel guttering and much better brackets. We deal with Lindab and so can supply if needed.

We shall be running the Refurbishing Terrace Housing course again in March, so watch out for dates. The course has been run twice and proved to be very well received but all participants.

The work on the Sustainable Building Products Database has been slow, but it shall be getting most of my attention in the coming weeks, so we hope to get this up and running very soon in draft format.

The E-Shop will be getting a major overhaul and relaunch very soon. We have been hard at work getting it to function properly and moving all the products over from the old site. Apologies to anyone trying to order for the past month as well, we have had some awful problems with our merchant bank that cut us off for more than three weeks!

So a happy 2011 to you all and hope to see you in the centre soon!

Start of Autumn 2010

Well the summer was a good old typical one. Sunny and warm before the school holidays, wet and cold during. Ah well, such are the breaks of living in Wales.

The seminar from the Energy Saving Trust on their Heat Pump Trials has been re-arranged for the 19th of October, so this is excellent news and it should be of great interest to anyone thinking about installing heat pumps as the research has some interesting findings. Steve Harris who is Head of MicroGeneration in the EST will be presenting and so it shall provide additional interest to anyone who wants to pick a professionals brain.

The seminar on airtightness is also a key new element that should be of interest to developers and RSLs alike as pressure starts to mount on testing for Building Regulations. Airtightness is not as obvious as it might sound and so we are so pleased that ProClima are able to deliver this seminar.

Almost Spring 10
Hope that you are well and that you have successfully endured our cold, but bright, winter.

The Eco Home Centre has been busy preparing for summer by organising a range of talks for anyone interested in installing renewable energy or restoring their solid walled home (typical inner city terraces mainly). These courses will be laid on in the centre in Canton in the evenings so that all you day time workers have a chance to attend.

The courses will be:

Refurbishing Terraced Housing for the Future - this will be a 5 week course running on Wednesday evenings from the 9th June to the 7th July.
Here you will learn about the best way of making these old solid walled houses fit for the 21st century. The course will cover: the necessary background info on the history of the buildings, what they are built from and how they were originally designed; through the changes and materials that have been used in the past to 'improve them', and then onto the practical information you will need to them more airtight, energy and water efficient, damp proof, healthy and finally how they can generate their own energy.

The sessions will be 2 hours long and run from 6pm. Cost will be £ 70 for the five evenings.

Renewable Energy in the City - this will be a series of two hour sessions running in the evening that explore the opportunities for generating electricity and heat in an urban environment. We shall cover: solar thermal; solar PV; micro wind power; the new Feed-in-Tariffs; and the potentially forthcoming Renewable Heat Incentive. The aim is to give you a background to each of these technologies, to explain what each will and won't do and cover payback periods and costs. There will also be stands from reputable and well established renewable energy installers in the centre.

The sessions will be 2 hours long and run from 6pm. Cost per session will be £ 15.

Sessions will run on the following dates:
Tuesday 4th May
Tuesday 1st June
Wednesday 14th July
Thursday 5th August
Tuesday 14th September
Wednesday 20th October

If demand is great enough we shall put on some more dates, since we wish to limit the number of attendees to 12 in order to allow for a question and answer session and also some time to look at individual properties.

If you want to reserve your place please contact: training@rounded-developments.org.uk. in order to ensure a good attendance a 50% deposit will be required to secure your place at least 2 weeks in advance of the course date.

August will see RDE running an Introduction to Straw-Bale course close to Abergavenny as well. One of our friendly contacts is building an extension to his house and is looking to use this as an opportunity to teach people about straw-bale building. There might be a small charge to cover costs, but keep an eye out for more details closer to the summer.

Ian and I both attended EcoBuild this year and we managed to shift through the huge amount of information (and green wash) there to bring you some new ideas on improving your home. Please pop in to see what info we brought back with us.

Ian has also done a short video with a couple of University of Wales students about the Eco Home Centre. He was sat down, had a camera pointed at him and told to speak. 10 minutes later the girls were gone! The results can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfC9eai64qY

We are working closely with a team bidding for a large site in Cardiff and this has proved to be an eye opening experience for one so used to the voluntary sector. However, our ability to think from the bottom up has paid off, as we have managed to influence the direction and specification of the bid quite dramatically. For example, _IF_ we are the winning bid then the site (in inner city Cardiff) will have a series of self-build plots available so this will be a great opportunity for sustainably minded people to create their custom built homes in a very sustainable urban location. Great news.

Windows, I almost forgot. One of our customers has recently enquired about our ARU Joinery windows. She used the same specification to get a quote for the EcoContract windows from the Green Building Store. The result? We were 50% cheaper! Same spec, same quality, slightly different finish, but 50% off! So if you want some high quality wooden windows pop in for a quote.

On April 18th Ian will be running the first ever Brighton Marathon for charity. He has never run a marathon before and will be running with his father and brother. He has been very busy training (although due to all the biscuits he eats hasn't really lost any weight!!) He will be raising money for a local Brighton special needs school - Downsview school who are attempting to raise £50,000 for specialist equipment. Any help would be greatly appreciated, so if you would like to donate and support Ian please visit: http://www.justgiving.com/FriendsofDownsviewSchool. A massive thanks from Ian and the team at the eco home centre in advance if you can sponsor him for this worthy cause.

Anyway that is enough for now, but remember that if you are looking for great quality eco-paints and finishes then we are the place to come to.