Greenhouse heat loss. Solved

[Julie]

Because it lines his pocket better?

[MikeT]

My greenhouse is better than carbon neutral. Nil heating costs, no fuel used, the plants grow in summer, fixing CO2. Admittedly, there is a bit of work moving tender plants out of the GH in the autumn & into the house (under a loft Velux window for many). Then a reverse move around early June. It's amazing how many cacti & succulents don't need any heat in winter, as long as they're reasonably dry. All the plants in the cold frames don't even need moving about, they just stay there all year.

[iann]

I have the same arrangement, Mike, plus a lighted cabinet for growing on seedlings and any winter growers that I can fit in. I just can't justify several hundred pounds on heating costs for my meagre collection at this point.

[Bill]

[quote=Julie]
Because it lines his pocket better?[/quote]

And there's me thinking it was an environmental tax

Personally it wouldn't bother me if it was used for environmental purposes, but it isn't, they are using global warming as an excuse to raise addtional revenue.

[Ernie]

Additional revenue to pay for the unjust war in Iraq!

anyway to get back to our hobby. I have often had some sympathy with commercial growers in this country who are taxed up to the hilt, get no government support, struggle to keep going then find customers complaining about the cost of the plants.

Must be nice to be a commercial grower in Holland where heating costs are subsidised by the state.

I admire anyone in the C&S trade in the UK because running any small business must be very difficult these days.

[Guest]

I had a Nissan X-Trail up to a couple of months ago, it did 35mpg about town and about 40mpg on a long run. It also had the ability to switch between 4 wheel drive and 2 wheel drive. All these bloody idiots that go on about 4*4's want their heads boiling. The reality is that our corrupt government want more revenue to pay for the totally wrong was in Iraq.

[Chris43]

There's a very simple way out of this, which is called the tax on petrol. It is all based on what you use - the more miles you do the more you pay; the more hungry your engine is the more you pay.

What on earth do we need new taxes, road pricing etc. etc. for?

So what if petrol costs ?2 a litre - that'd soon change attitudes. Or else give the government a huge amount of money to invest in alternative power sources to carbon fuels.

The fact that these politicians and their so called advisers are creating new taxes, under new guises, shows just what charlatans they are, and how they despise and patronise the people on who they ultimately should depend.

The sooner this meddling chancellor goes the better - but no chance unfortuantely. The people are just so gullible.

OK, rant over.

[AmberUK]

Surely part of the problem is that greenhouses have not been built with wanting to heat in winter as a consideration? (mines so hot in Summer I had nothing in there last year) Insulated base, walls on the north side, double glazing. If it was done it would be more expensive to make but less to heat? The victorians used to have central heating in but noone seems to have that now. I have noticed that our porch on the west side of the house with no heating and single skinned concrete only goes down to minus figures (in new celcius) when its been very cold in the day followed by a cold night. In a time the house walls don't get any heat to radiate out. If greenhouses had a wall on the north side they would get a radiator effect which would reduce heating costs. I moved cacti that seemed to be struggling into the house as I run the GH quite low (7 celcius). But as I am a newbie I guess at the heat. In the carbon footprint you have to take into consideration any insulation and how long it have a useful life. These things add up.

How are they going to do this? Visit every one of the 26 million houses in the country? Noone is going to take a day off work for this. They cannot get enough people to sweep the streets and look after old people in homes. They cannot put up the tax more just change how its distrubuted.

There are some hybrid cars that have a lower MPG rate than regular cars, though it may help with emmisions it doesn't help Co2 output. There was a survey done that looked at how easy to build, break down, MPG and how long the car lasted. And one of those giant 10MPG trucks the Americans use came really high on the low carbon footprint list. Cos it ran forever, was made of few parts, rarely broke and most of it recycled.

I don't have kids, thats how I reduce my carbon foot print, I have cacti instead. I also produce less waste than most the families round here and I certinaly recycle more, will that get added to the list? Though I have the same side house as them I also don't heat the spare bedrooms. Surely this will hit little old grannies living by themselves in a large (ex) family house they always lived in? They know if I have improved my house cos I need to apply for planning permission for extensions and anything else you do to a house is not really that expensive compared to the price of a house even big jobs like a rewrire with the average house @ ?192k. Maybe they should do less invasive things like sort out bad security lighting that wastes energy the fact we dump 1/3 our waste as food waste.

[phil]

For the past two winters in addition to using tripple wall bubble insulation to all walls and roof I've added a 50mm layer x 450mm high of Celotex cavity wall insulation board to the perimeter of my greenhouse below staging level and full height either side of the door.
This amounts to approx 25% of the total glass. Since doing this I've substantial difference to the amount of elecrticty used without losing any significant daylight.

[Tina]

Hi Ernie

It seems outrageous that they should charge us more for improvements to our own property, I can't remember anyone offering me a rebate to help pay for new window's or offer to pay for my block paved driveway, I'm pretty sure it wqas us who didn't have the holiday so we could make the house more presentable & draughtproof.

I think if they knock on the door & expect access at my home they will end up taking me to court.

Is there a campaign site or somewhere with more info ??