I heard from a friend that the government are toying with taxing business parking to encourage use of public transport. Sadly, it is another example of people in London thinking that everyone else in the country has the same public transport facilities that they do. They are wrong.
For example, my situation is fairly average. I travel 10 miles to work by motorbike, I leave home 30 minutes before work starts and arrive home about 30 minutes after I finish. It costs me around £30/month in petrol. Total time away from home = 9 hours/day
If I were to take the train, I would have to cycle 15 minutes to the station 5 minutes before the train leaves (at 7:57 for a 9:00am start) and then arrive about 15 minutes cycle ride from work at 8:05am. Of course, I could arrange flexi-time (which I wouldn't be given, already been there) but even if I could, there is a return train at 3:20 and then not another one till 17:05 which gets back home at 17:13 for a cycle ride home for around 17:30 assuming there are on time. Total time away from home = 10 hours per day, total cost = £96/month!!
By bus, I would have to walk to town (15mins) for an 8:03 bus and be able to return at 17:53 to town plus another 15 minute walk home. Total time away from home = 10hrs25m cost = £30/month.
Basically, it's not going to happen. There are also people who live much further from public transport than me, who can't cycle for some reason and who travel much greater distances. We are already hit by massive fuel tax so just leave it. Until public transport is improved majorly, it will only ever serve about 10% of the population.
Wednesday 25 August 2010
Thursday 19 August 2010
How to Insulate Your Walls
I read this interesting report about how lots of people who are most interested in saving energy have no idea what saves a lot of energy and what is not worth the hassle.
Anyway, Most of you know to insulate your loft well (fill the bit between the joists to the level and then go across the other way with the wider rolls to make a total of 300mm or more - nice and cheap) but what about windows and walls?
Well double-glazing saves a lot of energy over single-glazing but is expensive both in terms of installation price (I'm sure much more than it needs to be) but also in the energy required to construct the windows so for most people, this means waiting until the windows are broken or doing a few at a time. Leaving the curtains closed after sun-down also helps.
Now to walls. You have lots of construction types including wood, brick and cavity walls (two skins of brick or more commonly brick outside and concrete block inside) also solid concrete. As with most insulation, you should consider all of this to be unacceptably lossy without any insulation and regardless of the fact that 300mm concrete might be more efficient than 200mm brick, it still pays to use a very good insulator such as rigid phenolic insulation (often known by the trade name Kingspan but made by others also).
New houses generally have to use a cavity with 2 inches of rigid insulation in the gap to achieve an acceptable low heat loss but what if you do not have a new house?
If you have a cavity wall, you can opt to fill it with various loose fill materials. This is OK but I'm not convinced it is a good idea (I'm surprised it is even allowed) because it bridges the cavity which is designed primarily to avoid damp penetration (not heat insulation!).
If you want an alternative or have solid walls of any type, you can do one of two things. You can insulate the outside with heat resistant render mix (done by registered installers usually but shop around) or you can insulate the inside of the outside walls with 25 or 50mm rigid insulation either covered by plasterboard or integrated with plasterboard (which is easier but more expensive).
Both of these will make a big difference in heat loss through the walls so find out how much it is to get the work done. A builder or decent decorator will be able to fit the insulation and plasterboard but make sure you get someone who knows how to drywall to finish off the plasterboard.
Anyway, Most of you know to insulate your loft well (fill the bit between the joists to the level and then go across the other way with the wider rolls to make a total of 300mm or more - nice and cheap) but what about windows and walls?
Well double-glazing saves a lot of energy over single-glazing but is expensive both in terms of installation price (I'm sure much more than it needs to be) but also in the energy required to construct the windows so for most people, this means waiting until the windows are broken or doing a few at a time. Leaving the curtains closed after sun-down also helps.
Now to walls. You have lots of construction types including wood, brick and cavity walls (two skins of brick or more commonly brick outside and concrete block inside) also solid concrete. As with most insulation, you should consider all of this to be unacceptably lossy without any insulation and regardless of the fact that 300mm concrete might be more efficient than 200mm brick, it still pays to use a very good insulator such as rigid phenolic insulation (often known by the trade name Kingspan but made by others also).
New houses generally have to use a cavity with 2 inches of rigid insulation in the gap to achieve an acceptable low heat loss but what if you do not have a new house?
If you have a cavity wall, you can opt to fill it with various loose fill materials. This is OK but I'm not convinced it is a good idea (I'm surprised it is even allowed) because it bridges the cavity which is designed primarily to avoid damp penetration (not heat insulation!).
If you want an alternative or have solid walls of any type, you can do one of two things. You can insulate the outside with heat resistant render mix (done by registered installers usually but shop around) or you can insulate the inside of the outside walls with 25 or 50mm rigid insulation either covered by plasterboard or integrated with plasterboard (which is easier but more expensive).
Both of these will make a big difference in heat loss through the walls so find out how much it is to get the work done. A builder or decent decorator will be able to fit the insulation and plasterboard but make sure you get someone who knows how to drywall to finish off the plasterboard.
Thursday 12 August 2010
Closing a credit card account is really easy right?
I've paid off my Santander credit card. I borrowed money from my parents to do it and can pay them back more than they get from an ISA and I pay less interest than a credit card. Part of the reason that I chose to kill this one off was that they put up my interest rate on the card from 18% to 24% just like that (I did have 30 days to pay off the balance of £1,500 though!). I was told this was because of my usage pattern (in other words I was not spending on it so they weren't getting much interest). Even though I spent on it until I got the money to pay it off, I got another letter saying it was going up again. Although the base rate is what 2%? They can get away with upping my rate to 25% just by giving me notice as if I can just pay off the balance if I am unhappy! Pretty outrageous. This at a time when an ISA might give you 4% interest.
Anyway, I rang to close the account and it took a total of about 10 minutes on the phone to get through the rubbish "press 1 for..." menus and then talk to 2 people to close the account. The thing that got me most was after saying I wanted it closed, I was asked if I could hold while it was closed. I asked why, couldn't they just close it for me and I could hang up? Apparently not. I was then on hold for about a minute before being told it had closed. We have computers nowadays, they are supposed to make things quick and easy. Closing an account should be "Does the person owe any more money? No -> Close account" and the computer should do this pretty much instantly. For some completely ironic reason, I could have gone to a branch from home and had a person close the account in less time than it took on the phone (except I probably wouldn't be allowed to close it at a bank or otherwise wait in an incompetent queue).
This country does make me despair when the solutions to these issues are so simple, there are too many incompetent people in management now we have the "too many chiefs model of management" in this country.
Anyway, I rang to close the account and it took a total of about 10 minutes on the phone to get through the rubbish "press 1 for..." menus and then talk to 2 people to close the account. The thing that got me most was after saying I wanted it closed, I was asked if I could hold while it was closed. I asked why, couldn't they just close it for me and I could hang up? Apparently not. I was then on hold for about a minute before being told it had closed. We have computers nowadays, they are supposed to make things quick and easy. Closing an account should be "Does the person owe any more money? No -> Close account" and the computer should do this pretty much instantly. For some completely ironic reason, I could have gone to a branch from home and had a person close the account in less time than it took on the phone (except I probably wouldn't be allowed to close it at a bank or otherwise wait in an incompetent queue).
This country does make me despair when the solutions to these issues are so simple, there are too many incompetent people in management now we have the "too many chiefs model of management" in this country.
Wednesday 11 August 2010
Hats off to you both
Raoul Wallenberg and Wilm Hosenfeld. Hardly household names but people who should be remembered and honoured for showing righteousness in the horrors of world war 2.
Raoul Wallenburg was a Swedish diplomat who at the young age of 32 went to Hungary to save Jews from deportation to certain death. He used a combination of believable (but fake) passport like documents and a lot of swagger and confidence to save over 100,000 Jews by pretending they were protected by Sweden - a country who Germany had to keep sweet since they were supplying the Reich with iron ore. Tales of bravery abound and in around 6 months he had lived a lifetime. Sadly he was arrested by the Russians as a spy shortly afterwards and because of incompetence on the part of Sweden and secrecy on the part of Russia, he was never seen again, believed to have lived for a few decades in Russian prisons and by now presumed dead.
Wilm Hosenfeld was made famous in the film the Pianist when he is shown helping the eponymous character with food and protection despite being a Nazi. It so happened that he was also a devout Catholic and was horrified at treatment of the Jews and saved several Jews and Poles from harm. Sadly again he was whisked away by Russia and died in a prisoner of war camp before the Pianist could come and lobby on his behalf.
We lack many heroes like this nowadays, we worship crap singers and overpaid footballers. It would be great to teach more about these kind of people in schools and have people aspire to true greatness.
Raoul Wallenburg was a Swedish diplomat who at the young age of 32 went to Hungary to save Jews from deportation to certain death. He used a combination of believable (but fake) passport like documents and a lot of swagger and confidence to save over 100,000 Jews by pretending they were protected by Sweden - a country who Germany had to keep sweet since they were supplying the Reich with iron ore. Tales of bravery abound and in around 6 months he had lived a lifetime. Sadly he was arrested by the Russians as a spy shortly afterwards and because of incompetence on the part of Sweden and secrecy on the part of Russia, he was never seen again, believed to have lived for a few decades in Russian prisons and by now presumed dead.
Wilm Hosenfeld was made famous in the film the Pianist when he is shown helping the eponymous character with food and protection despite being a Nazi. It so happened that he was also a devout Catholic and was horrified at treatment of the Jews and saved several Jews and Poles from harm. Sadly again he was whisked away by Russia and died in a prisoner of war camp before the Pianist could come and lobby on his behalf.
We lack many heroes like this nowadays, we worship crap singers and overpaid footballers. It would be great to teach more about these kind of people in schools and have people aspire to true greatness.
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