Going Greener
This "saving money" section, with the wonderful "How to thrive on non-EHU" thread and some others, is ever more concentrating on such things as solar power, which is truly valuable and I'm not alone in learning a lot, for which I'm grateful to those posting here.
I'd like the CMC to start a new section devoted to issues of going greener, which is not necessarily the same as saving money, but often ends up that way in the long run. I'll ask them, but am not holding my breath!
Meanwhile I'd like to ask the collective wisdom and experience here: with Solar power already getting a good airing, what other ways are you aware of / already practising, which can help us with a more ecologically friendly approach to caravanning or MH-ing?
We're still only months into our caravanning career, so have lots to learn. I've already learned a lot which wasn't obvious at first sight, things which the website we're all on here certainly doesn't shout about, but there must be a whole lot more tips and techniques we're unaware of. I'm confident we're not the only ones who would like to make our holidays more eco-friendly, without wearing hair shirts.
I do realise the very idea of a box on wheels which you drag/drive round the country isn't in itself very green, and look forward to the time when cleaner, effective vehicles are more available and more affordable, but for the time being, I'm hoping for ideas of what's practicable now, please.
They can be high tech, or low tech, just things which work, and make a positive difference.
Thanks.
Comments
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HH, good post, it would be nice to see the club contribute regularly to this thread with ideas and comments on suggestions made and some of their own which,im sure, the sites team will have been given much thought over recent uears/months....
for starters, heres my twopenneth and something a bit different to our usual so.ar panels and refillable gas themes.....
ELECTRIC BIKES......
these are wonderful things that can get us all put and about to a radius of, say, 15-20 miles of sites, without having to take the car.
shopping can be acheived with decent pannier sets, the paper shop/milk run now doesnt involve a car.....
of course, perhaps walking or running might be even better but lets (literally) 'cycle' before we run....
ive just done a little over 10,000 km on my ebike, which ive had for 40 months.....now, a lot of that milage has been for pleasure, but theres an awful lot, too, that has been for short (upto 20 miles) shopping trips that means the equivalent mileage has been saved in the car....
we use them at home but also when away in the MH and they can even be charged when off EHU by means of an inverter.....so, for the majority of my time away,my battery power for my bike even comes from the sun....
yesterday we did a 66km round trip to the island of Normoutier (from St Jean de Monts) on a continuous off road, purpose built track, and you really get to see the countryside like this.
in the spring we were in Spain for 9 weeks and dribbling into the countryside away from the tourist areas took just a few minutes and we were totally immersed in the quiet and calmness of the inland areas...
this just would not be the same in a car.....
if anyone is thinking about it, i would say have a try of an ebike, post your interest here and those that use them can offer some advice on type, size, battery range, charging, weights, costs etc, etc....
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One eco site that we stopped at on the other side, used solar power to heat all the water. That perhaps might not work here, but they also had a compost heap where they asked you to put veg waste, there was a list of what was and wasn't acceptable. I don't see why the CC should not do something similar. It should reduce overall refuse transported off site and therefore have a cost impact. The compost could be used on site.
Oh as to your comment about a box on wheels. We can all make a big difference 50 / 55 burns significantly less fuel than 60 mph.
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Thanks all for a great start, let's hope the thread grows!
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Nice idea, BB, and one we'd not considered. Do these bikes fold down, or do you just have to have a large space to transport them?
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Eco site - what a lovely thought :-) We've used sites in this country where the facilities block water has been either entirely or partially heated by solar roof panels, and they've worked very well.
Compost bins, that's a good thought. I'm writing to the CMC to prod them about various measures on their sites, and this is a good one. If you don't mind, I'll borrow it and add it to my letter.
Agree about taking a few mph of the speed. We're lucky that our pop-top van has a lot less drag too, which really helps, but that's not to everyone's taste!
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Food for thought there - I certainly reckon this could be much more used by sites. We've met places using roof water for flushing - not CMC of course - but once we recycle washing water with soap and grease in it seems more problematic, either in buildings or vans.
I suppose it could be used to fill the flush tank... though I'm guessing storing it might lead to clogging the system up?
But it does seem a pity just to chuck it, yes.
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Compost bins, that's a good thought. I'm writing to the CMC to prod them about various measures on their sites, and this is a good one. If you don't mind, I'll borrow it and add it to my letter.
Please do. It is only the second time I have come across it. Both were in France. The other time on a site run by an English couple.
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Might ( 1 ) not just encourage the use of gas (refillables) if so not necessarily greener. I would certainly want to stay as warm.
We use service pitches. Yes I definitely use more water for washing up in the van. However, probably less for my shower as I am limited by hot water capacity.
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Hi HH. Yes, good post. E bikes are something I'm going to have to consider too. As far as grey water is concerned, We don't tip ours down the drain. We either tip it into a hedge to help with watering or, more recently I have made a pump out box. Simply an automatic bilge pump in a plastic box with a 12v feed, and a 5 m length of hose on the exhaust. Water goes in from kitchen and wash room and gets automatically pumped out into a ditch or the bottom of a hedge etc-- stops all the messing about with the wastemaster which I tend to forget about anyway. Apart from that, I'm racking my brains to think of anything I can do to be greener. The OH is red hot on recycling . The other thing I do as I have a 22yr old Toyota Surf 3.0lt with the old style diesel is use 50% old but very well filtered veg oil in the fuel. It costs the same as a small hatchback that way. Only during the warm months though- 20% in the winter. The engine handles it very well and the extra lubricant helps the engine run better and preserves it. My last vehicle did 380,555 miles on it!! It also gets rid of a potential pollutant, - sorry guys- NOT RECOMMENDED FOR THE MODERN COMMON RAIL DIESEL ENGINE!!
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I read on the web that Dethleffs have released the worlds first Solar Powered M/H called the E.home!! 107hp motor, range 100 miles. 334sq ft of flexible panel. There are various battery options. There are other innovations within the vehicle too. All very clever. Well, I guess it's a start- now there's Green for you!!
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HH, ebikes come in many forms, some a normal frame with motor attached to the front hub, rear hub or in the centre driving the crank like a normal bike.
some bikes fold, they normally have the power via one of the wheel hubs due to the 'fold' being in the middle...
some have full sized wheels, some have smaller ones...
prices vary from around £4-500 upto around £3000 (or more for something specialised)
battery technology is improving all the time, but batteries are still relatively heavy and expensive.....lighter batteries are (even) more expensive...
range varies with riding style, power required, terrain, weight of rider, wind (not in the rider....), battery capacity etc, etc....
power levels can be varied to suit conditions and terrain
my bike (Bosch centre drive with 400 watt hour battery) will easily do 70 miles (110 km) on a charge.....ive never run it right down....
latest German Kalkhoff are advertising 205 km (in ideal conditions).
notwithstanding all the above, if interested folk on.y need to buy what suits their requirements......if you want to pop to the shops (5miles) or do a 10 mile trip from site, this wont (necessarily) require spending thousands on a top line bike.....
conversely, of your regular trip was (say) a 15/20 mile each way commute to work (many do this) a small wheeed folder might not be the answer....
comfort and ridong position (for both short and long trips) will also be a consideration so a good test run is very important.
then, of course, youll want to take it with you on van trips, so how you carry it (them?) is important too.....along with any effect on payload and axle weights etc......
anyway, thats enough to get you started, check out these websites for a broad range of bikes.....these are just electric bike shops....
nationwideebikes
50cycles
good luck
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That must be similar to the "free" WiFi that a poster was seeking on another thread, or possibly the free cofffee and Telegraph I was given in Waitrose yesterday.
Unless of course they are going to charge for it twice, both in the price and at the meter.☹️
I assume that if electric was metered it would be greener to use it than your gas, because at least some of it comes from renewables.
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Holiday at home?
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Just to explain why for us at least metered electricity may not be greener.
Wether it was metered or not I would still want to heat the van to the same level. So it would come down to cost and the best way to do it. Depending on the unit cost, nothing might change and we would continue as we do now. If the cost meant there was a cost saving to be made by using refillables we would switch to these for heating and possibly the fridge.
As I put above, if the net result meant we used more gas and less electricity, that would actually be less green, and the thread was about going greener. I realise this will not apply to everyone, but it will to myself and I suspect a lot more.
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It's simple economics and psychology. If something is seen as being free or included in a cost then it is perceived as having no value. Just watch people pile their plates in an all you eat buffet or drink themselves silly at a free bar. If they are charged then behaviour changes. If you are being charged by use it simply concentrates the mind. You may want the van to be heated to the same temperature when your are in it, but if you are paying for it you are much more likely to switch it off when you go out for the day.
This thread isn't about fairness it was about going greener and pricing is one highly effective way of modelling people's behaviour. It is also very unpopular, just listen to the howls whenever metering is mentioned. But there are only howls because people know that it's going to cost them money unless they change there behaviour.
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This thread isn't about fairness it was about going greener and pricing is one highly effective way of modelling people's behaviour. It is also very unpopular, just listen to the howls whenever metering is mentioned. But there are only howls because people know that it's going to cost them money unless they change there behaviour.
We seem to agree Boff. As you say the thread is about going greener. People will almost certainly cut down on electricity use if it was metered, I might, it just depends on cost. However, I would not wish to change my comfort levels, so in my case it could mean a switch to gas, if there was a cost saving. The net result for me would be that I was less green, as none of the extra gas I would use comes from renewables.
Now perhaps if they start harnessing all that spare methane from cows and we could burn it, as a few farms do. Although you are still burning a gas. Electricity is and should become even more greener than gas. So is minimising its use and switching to pure fossil fuel greener?
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Loving this thread 😃 and the how to thrive without EHU. This is where the club so be prompting manufacturers, together with decent article in the magazine THAT DON'T SHOW really old school photos of non EHU from the last century, as was featured the last time they broached the subject!
I do hope your letter does not just a reading ( I read on a thread recently, can't remember the subject annoyingly, where the instigator had a reply saying they were inundatuated with material for the magazine and would hold it on file in case it could be incorporated at a later date). Nearly fell off my chair laughing 😂
With the weather we have at present our battery is constantly full, although I confess we have EHU but that's because of the location of the site. So many things to weigh up when booking but location is often king 😉
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Never quite sure about the Greeness of caravanning. Just come back from Holiday. Which consisted of, 13 nights off ehu and 5 nights on. If we discount the nights on ehu because the gas use will be minimal. Then we used appromately 15kg of gas, or about 30litres.
However this holiday we stayed local, and did 750 miles only It that time. If I assume that my Gas guzzler does about 25mpg. Then that's 30 gallons of fuel. If we assume that 1 gallon = 5L ( yes all the numbers are approximate ) That's 150L. Which makes the Carbon footprint of living in the van trivial compared to getting the van to site. Often we go abroad and have done close to 3000 miles on a summer holiday, maybe we should all stay at home?
SteveL Completely unrealated to greeness or otherwise. To maintain my comfort levels either extremely hot or extremely cold, I will resort to gas even when I have ehu, because both heating and cooling work better on gas.
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Thanks for all these great comments. We've built ourselves such an edifice of fossil fuel dependency that the choices are hard now, and I'm under-informed and confused by much of it! Just hoping to take the steps I can, and learning more here is helpful.
Maybe the metering thing depends on whether you're helping people go greener, or pushing them. If I'm using EHU I'd prefer it to be metered, as it focusses the mind. In the same way, at home we have solar panels on the roof, and try to use household machinery when the sun's doing its bit, partly to save money, partly to save using fossil fuels, and we've chosen to sign up to a generation company which produces lots of non-fossil fuel even though it's not necessarily the cheapest. But that's our choice. There's a depressing number of people who still don't get it, and think it's all a waste of time.
I've been thinking likewise that refillable gas is great, and I'm very tempted purely for economy, but just as you say, it is still fossil fuel.Meanwhile I just found this http://blogs.edf.org/climatetalks/2011/03/14/picturing-low-carbon-development-methane-cook-stoves-in-rural-india/ Way ahead of us! I somehow can't see CMC sites accepting methane digesting plants just yet, but it shows it can be done, and presumably could be bottled.
Bakers2 - yes, what you say!
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Methane is a much worse greenhouse gas than Carbon dioxide, about 30x worse I believe. So burning waste methane (ie not natural gas) and converting it to Carbon dioxide and water is perversely a way of reducing its greenhouse potential.
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This thread isn't about fairness it was about going greener and pricing is one highly effective way of modelling people's behaviour. It is also very unpopular, just listen to the howls whenever metering is mentioned. But there are only howls because people know that it's going to cost them money unless they change there behaviour.
Boff, how right you are! I'm afraid the waste in this country is quite frankly , appalling. Waste of food, waste of water, waste of energy. I love the fact that the non EHUers never howl- why would we? And where is the club on this issue? Nowhere! This charge is being made by just a few- a minute percentage of the membership (customers) . That just shows you where people's priorities are. Bakers, you make a very valid point. You have also noticed how the club plays non EHU down have you? The club should be doing so much more to educate, help and inform regarding the energy issues available today. I have, as you all know, phoned the editorial dept up twice to do a full and unbiased article and twice - let's face it, been ignored, and I'm sure they hope I don't ring again!! I have made myself unpopular with some for 'going on about it' but faint heart never won anything. Boff, this isn't about fairness you're right- and the 'club' isn't being fair when they refuse to cover modern non EHU!
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Yes composte bins are a feature/amenity we are thinking of introducing on our cl Site Resthaven Farm.
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How about the C&MC starting to use electric golf buggies (or something similar) instead of diesel tractors for collecting waste bins etc like they increasingly seem to be doing on the continent?
All in favour of compost areas on site but unsure whether they would be used by members but certainly worth a try.
We have started using compostable refuse sacks for our rubbish rather than pure plastic. They are more expensive and tend to be only the smaller sizes at the moment but surely the way forward.
More use of solar and geothermal on C&MC sites for shower blocks where practical.
Limit (Ban?) use of awning heaters??
Recycle rainwater for toilet flushing in toilet blocks.
Dry toilets as used at Crossways C&MC site. As far as I know this is the only club site that uses them, but not sure why, as they seem a good investment.
As stated by many, a good post and well worth keeping open for suggestions and hopefully the club will consider some suggestions and members will get ideas for their own 'greener holidays'.
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