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Win an energy monitor!

We’d like lots more people to save energy, so we’re giving away ten eco-eye mini energy monitors – the handy little gadgets we’ve been using on the Low Carbon Households project, which let you see just how much electricity your home is using, in real time.

Fitting them is easy (they clip on to your power supply cable near the fusebox) and the results are guaranteed to raise eyebrows from everyone in your household.

To be in with a chance of winning, simply take a look around the energy section of the site and leave a comment on any post in that category before 12 midday on 28 October (making sure you’ve given us a valid email address – which will not be published on the site).We will then enter you into our free prize draw.

Then we’ll select the winners at random – and if you’re one of them we’ll send you your very own eco-eye mini.

That’s it. No catch [see our full terms and conditions]. Although if you’d care to let us know how you get on with your new gadget, we’d love to hear from you.

Lightning image by

Flickr user idarknight

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Originally posted 2009-10-20 23:14:00. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

I’m not sure that there’s yet been an invasion of Nazi zombies, but should one ever happen there’s a fair chance the authorities wouldn’t want to shout about it. Or warn approaching motorists.

All the same, it’s hard not to laugh at a recent craze that has seen temporary road warning signs in the US hacked to read something other than considered safety messages about roadworks.

The messages, reported by the blog Jalopnik, range from the matter of fact (THIS SIGN HAS BEEN HACKED), through the cautionary (ZOMBIES AHEAD! and RAPTORS AHEAD, CAUTION!) to the rather heartbreaking (NOBODY HAS EVER / LOVED YOU).

Instructions for altering the signs’ messages were published in January on a website dedicated to hacking various hardware and software. In most cases, the site claims, the sign controls aren’t protected by a lock or anything other than the default password.

But while their altered messages are clearly a little irresponsible, the signs themselves are yet another example of technology making people’s lives easier. In the past, warning motorists of impending doom took a can of paint and some dedication:

IMAGES by Flickr users underbiteman and shinythings

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Originally posted 2009-02-05 18:20:00. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Guest blogger Paul Pritchard is UK head of corporate responsibility for MORE TH>N’s parent company, RSA. He agreed to give up something he loves as part of our energy-saving project, and share the highs and lows with us on Living. You can read the first instalment here – below is the second splash.

Over two weeks now and I am pretty confident I am going to make it.

I have had a couple of wavering moments – both at the weekend and prompted by Charlotte and Olivia taking baths themselves (I understand why food dieters are so keen to remove chocolate and other temptations from the house).

It did prompt a debate (more of a whine really) that it was probably OK to go into a bath that had already been used by someone else. After all, the aim of this is to save energy and the bath has already been run… however it was unarguably still a bath and I had promised I wouldn’t.

I have also started timing Olivia in the shower and wondering (with just a tiny hint of malice) how long in the (electric) shower corresponds to a (shallow, gas heated) bath – carbon wise. If I left the warm water in the bath it would surely mean I used less heating in the house (in winter anyway).

Does anybody know of a time plug for baths which lets the water out only when all the heat has gone into the room (say when the water cools to 20 degrees). Sounds like the sort of idea someone should have had while sitting in a bath.

A literary plug

I have also been trying to enlist support in the form of quotes from the great and the good. Not sure I have found anything quite suitable but I liked the following from William S Burroughs

‘I had not taken a bath in a year nor changed my clothes or removed them except to stick a needle every hour in the fibrous grey wooden flesh of heroin addiction. I did absolutely nothing.’

Haven’t quite got to that state yet at least but it fits my mental picture of the author.

Then I found something by Sylvia Plath – I cant say I know much about her but it’s probably summed up well by the source of the quote – thinkexist.com ‘(her) works are preoccupied with alienation, death and self-destruction.’

So what did she have to say on baths?

“There must be quite a few things that a hot bath won’t cure, but I don’t know many of them.”

Mmmm bit of a mismatch there, it’s just a bit mundane… but maybe it shows the power of the bath? Although there could have been fewer inspired words from the suicidal poet if she had bathed more frequently she might have just been a little bit happier?

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Originally posted 2009-10-23 13:13:00. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

So, Simon’s been living without his fridge, Tamsin H has given up her washing machine and Lee, poor soul, is going without central heating until mid-November. Brrrr. Not wanting to miss out, I’ve been wracking my brain to see what energy saving challenge I could come up with. Ideally it should be one that seems impressive, without imposing any actual hardship.

Inspiration came while checking out the 10:10 climate change campaign website which challenges all UK households to cut 10% of their energy emissions in 2010. They’ve produced a printable list of ten simple things everyone can do to cut their emissions, and number six was making sure you never buy anything new. They reason that less stuff made equals less emissions and therefore less climate damage.

It struck a seriously big chord. My home is crammed to the rafters with miscellaneous stuff, from boxes of make-up I’ve never used to mountains of clothes I’ve never worn. And sadly, with the ease of Amazon’s pesky one-click ordering, more of this stuff just seems to appear each week. I knew things were getting out of hand when I started to know the delivery drivers by name.

It had to be new

Children’s toys and books are the worst. Not wanting my 17-month-old to miss out, I feel like I’m depriving him if I don’t buy something brand new and made of lurid plastic at least once a month. And in my bid to build up a nice library of books for the little fellow I’ve realised that not once has it crossed my mind that I may be able to buy them second hand.

Now obviously, with so much stuff hanging around, the sensible thing would be to just stop buying things until I’ve used up everything I own. But with a toddler around there’s always things you need – they grow out of clothes and shoes so quickly (every ten weeks, according to the Clark’s saleswoman).

So I’ve decided that my energy saving challenge will be to buy absolutely nothing new in the next two months (apart from food and groceries, I’m not up for scavenging through bins quite yet). Instead, I’ll be finding new outfits out of the clothes I already own, using up make-up and toiletries and if I do need to buy something, it’ll have to be second hand.

Weight: lifting

Weirdly, now I’ve made the decision, I feel so much lighter, as if the weight of consumerism has been lifted off my shoulders. Imagine! No longer do I have to fret about having the latest fashions, or have to trawl the high street. I hate shopping anyway, so having my options narrowed to just a few musty second hand shops or eBay is a bonus. And thanks to Jo-ann’s excellent posts on second hand clothes shopping and ethical fashion, I needn’t miss out.

Anyway, I’ve been doing my challenge for a couple of weeks, and it’s proving slightly more tricky than I first thought. The hardest part has been trying to find a birthday present for my sister-in-law. She’s a cash-strapped mum like me, and asked for some perfume which she really needs.

Even though a request on Twitter brought back some wonderfully creative solutions (like buying vintage perfume bottles which she could fill with whatever scent she likes) at the end of the day, she really just wanted some perfume. So sadly, that’s what she got (although technically I got my husband to buy it for her, so wasn’t strictly a fail).

Anyway, find out how I get on in my next post. I need to buy my son a few ‘new’ jumpers. Any suggestions?

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Originally posted 2009-10-26 20:51:00. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

The last few weeks have really given us the opportunity to test out our car deicing techniques.

One that we neglected to mention was this one, courtesy of Autotrader. It’s billed as stop-gap if you run out of ‘proper’ deicer.

Mix up a 50/50 solution of household vinegar and water, place in a old plastic bottle with a hole cut in its lid and squeeze liberally across your car windows. Then simply scrape off the resulting sludge with an ice scraper or (not-to-be-used-again-for transactional-purposes) credit card.

Having tried brown malt vinegar over the last couple of weeks, we have to say it does leave the glass shiny, albeit with the odd whiff reminiscent of fish and chips.

Though definitely no need to add salt.

For more hints and tips for coping with the cold, see Living’s advice on winter driving.

IMAGE image by Flickr user malias

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Originally posted 2007-12-21 20:02:00. Republished by Blog Post Promoter