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Yesterday we went to the Dojo Eco shop in Manchester, to see and order an organic and natural double mattress and accessories.  Our friend’s have one of the mattresses already and they are great.

We travelled by public transport as usual – train, free city shuttle bus and then a short walk – it’s out of the centre in a more industrial area.

The shop was amazing; lots of wonderful eco products – even more than they have on the website it seemed.

We ordered the Firm/Springy double mattress (£495 – cheapest organic one we’ve found), a cotton mattress pad (£100 – I love my comfort) and two millet husk pillows (£27 each) – all of which we were able to try out first at the shop.

The mattresses are made of organic British wool, organic cotton, natural latex and coconut fibre.  They are made to order in Manchester (ours is even been made to measure at no extra cost) and are delivered in approximately two weeks which is great.

We left a deposit and the balance is due when they ring to organise delivery, which is very fair.

We also bought a selection of FSC wooden brushes with plant fibresbristles (£1.25 to £6.50) , an organic cotton duck soft a toy for our friend’s new baby, an Onya Back Bag (£10 – alternative to plastic backpack),  a ball of natural jute twine (£3.75) and a wooden juicer (£3.50) …..and we could have bought so much more.

There was lots of great eco toys, organic fabrics, organic and eco household furnishings and eco garden products – the list goes on and on………

We also visited the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry, which is free except for special exhibitions and was enjoyed by all the family.

The calculator is quite simple to use, very visual and I experienced no time lag between screens.

Our Carbon Footprint Results

The CO2 emitted from our homes heating is 3.09 tonnes per year
The C02 emitted by our appliances is 1.68 tonnes per year
The C02 emitted by our travel is 0 tonnes per year

Our Family Carbon Footprint is 4.77 tonnes per year

The national average is 10.22 tonnes per year!

Our home heating is 1.47 tonnes less
Our appliances are 0.12 tonnes more
This is probably because Paul’s a software engineer and we all love gadgets!
It still surprises me though because we never leave appliances on standby and buy the most energy efficient appliances available?
Our travel is 4.10 tonnes less – as we choose not to have a car and not to fly for work or pleasure.

The target footprint is 3.8 tonnes per year
We need to reduce our heating CO2 by 0.63 tonnes per year
We need to reduce our appliances CO2 by 0.34 tonne per year
And we are already on target of 0 tonnes of CO2 for travel

The top tips were:
1. Fit draught proofing around doors and window – maybe I should have ticket this box, do we need extra draught proofing with UPVC windows and doors?
2. Install underfloor insulation and save a third of a tonne of CO2 per year – a bit difficult with solid floors on the ground floor and what about wooden first and second floors spaces with wires and pipes in them?
3. Fill your dishwasher up to full and use the economy setting more frequently – we already do this!
4. Turn the brightness and contrast down on new TV’s – can’t stand over bright pictures anyway and our LCD TV is naturally quite dark.

The Full Report

In the full report it goes into more detail about the top tips and has links to sections on the Energy Saving Trust’s website where there is detailed information.
Highlights the things we’re already doing well, along with the CO2 savings they are already making.

My Thoughts

It’s quite a long test – the top tips lack basic information – will everyone make it to the full report which is quite good?

I was also disappointed that the Energy Saving Trust is still recommending traditional materials like mineral wool for insulation – when sheep’s wool and paper based insulation are now more and more widely available.

So now for more research into the draught proofing and floor insulation!
And again it depends on the eco credential of the materials and upheaval and cost – in relation to our children’s special needs/learning disabilities and moving house soon

Well, not sure if it was our computer as we have been having a few problems, but the check was quite slow. Then the pdf of the results was a page full of symbols, so I had to opt for them to be emailed to me which arrive within about five minutes as an attachment.
The report says:

“you could cut your annual fuel bills by £94 and production of climate damaging carbon dioxide (CO2) by 0.7 tonnes.
It also rates your home from A (very good) to G (very poor) in terms of how energy efficient it is – and could potentially be!”

Our energy efficiency rated currently is a “D” and could potentially be a “C”

There’s just one improvement the report identifies:
Solid wall insulation, which is describes as:
“Solid wall insulation involves adding a layer of insulation either to the inside
or outside surface of a home’s external walls, which can reduce heat loss
through the wall by up to 80?

And is we make them all, it says we could save 18% of the energy we use every year.
Further recommendations it give (which we already do) include:

TRVs - Make sure that thermostatic radiator valves are set appropriately for the occupancy of the room.
Domestic Appliances – Purchase ‘Energy Saving Recommended’ domestic appliances when replacements are needed. Energy saving
products use less energy and therefore have less of an environmental impact, as well as being cheaper to run.
Heating Programmer – Make sure you regularly check the heating pattern of your heating programmer to ensure that it stays in line with
the current occupancy of the house. Make sure the programmer does not accidentally get set to, or left on CONSTANT by mistake. If there is a power outage, check your programmer has not lost its schedule or the clock
changed

It then goes on to provide general information on saving energy and reducing CO2 - through good we buy, to how we travel, saving energy around the home, generating our own electricity

My thoughts:
Well for anyone new to saving energy and reducing CO2 there’s lots of useful information, and reminders for the rest of us.

We had considered solid wall insulation – but we don’t want to cover up the stone on the outside of our home as it would loose it’s character and could be an eyesore in a street of Victorian stone terraces. As for interior insulation; it would depend on the material – the environmental pollution it could introduce (especially for our middle child who reacted to a recycled wool carpet with a return of his asthma), how environmentally friendly the insulation products was, how much space we would loose (as our home is only small, too small for all of us!), the upheaval as we home educate and have children with learning disabilities/special needs who don’t cope with change well and of course the cost of the insulation and potential re-decoration as we’re looking to move within the next few month.

And we try to be very environmentally aware and friendly!

If we were staying in the house we would search out an environmentally friendly option to insulate our walls, but I will still look into the options and pass them onto out buyers.

The Energy Saving Trust have an easy to use site, packed with information on saving energy in relation to climate change and reducing your carbon footprint.

Here a link from them with some ways to cut your carbon footprint:
Energy Saving Trust Cutting Your Carbon Foot Print

On their website you can also do an on-line Home Energy Check

And they have a link to the Government website Act On Co2 where you can calculate your carbon footprint.

In my next post I’ll put up our results for these!