All posts by sophialouisecox

Community, Events

Southall joins the Transition!

Just up the Uxbridge Road, our new neighbours in Transition, Southall Transition, are holding their first public event on Friday this week.

Formed by a diverse group from the Southall community, they are certainly off to a flying start!

Southall Transition Event 29-4-14At the end of April, working with the Greenfield Children’s Centre, the group took over 50 small children and their families to Southall Community Garden, where they had a great day learning about food, gardening and the history of the area.

The group are also engaging with St. James, the developers of the former Southall Gasworks site, where nearly 4000 houses will be built over the next decade, with the aim of enhancing the sustainability and biodiversity outcomes of the project, and making it more integrated into the community.

Southall Transition will be holding a free public screening of the film “The Power of Community” on Friday 9th May, so if you live in Southall or nearby, this would be a great opportunity to see a brilliant film, to meet the team, and get involved!

It’s been Ealing Transition’s pleasure to support this group as they get started, and we’ve really enjoyed getting to know them, and exchanging (so many!) ideas. We’re sure they’re going to do great things!

Southall Transition are showing “The Power of Community” on Friday 9th May, at 7pm, Holy Trinity Church, High Street, Southall UB1 3HH.

Building, Energy, Talks

UWL Sustainable Buildings Evening

If you attended our showing of Gasland 2 on Sunday, you may have met with the MSc. researchers from University of West London who are studying the adaptability of new and old houses to Climate-Change related weather patterns; e.g. more frequent and hotter heat-waves, and more extreme rainfall events.

Thanks if you agreed to help them with their research!

On Tuesday 25th March, UWL, conjunction with West London Business are holding an evening of talks about the work of the University in this area, covering energy efficiency and adaptability, and some of the state-of-the-art tools used for studying and planning adaptations.

The event is aimed at the Building Industry, but open to those with a strong interest in this area.

The event runs from 6pm to 8pm, at the St.Mary’s Road campus, with drinks and canapés after the talks in the award-winning Pillars restaurant (which, if you attended Edible Ealing’s 1st Birthday celebration, you know will be good!).

Tickets are free, but strictly require booking on a “first-come-first-served” basis.

Please contact Ali Bahadori-Jahromi at Ali.Bahadori-Jahromi@uwl.ac.uk to book a place.
Community, Energy, Events, Sustainable Living

Follow-up to popular Secondary Glazing Workshop, 23 Feb

It was a packed house on a January Saturday afternoon in Hanwell, for a hands-on session installing secondary glazing panes to shut out the draughts and the cold.

IMG_0719

What is secondary glazing? For those of us who can’t afford double glazing, our version of secondary glazing uses acrylic panes fixed with magnetic strips.

Secondary glazing is suitable for older homes and doing it ourselves keeps costs down to between £100 and £150 for a set of bay windows. We learned through sustainability groups in North London that 3.3 mm thick acrylic panes fixed with magnetic strips are the most practical solution.

Window frames have to be sanded to make a rough surface on which the magnetic strips stick. The acrylic panes are cut to size at the factory and fit inside the frame snugly. Once the preparation had been done ahead of time, our gung-ho workshop participants helped cut the magnetic strips, stick them down onto the window frame and insert the acrylic pane. The panes can easily be removed any time.

IMG_0721The rooms with the fitted acrylic panes already feel warmer. This idea should help relieve some of the dire fuel poverty in Ealing, or at least save us some cash and reduce carbon emissions.

In the meantime, and to reduce costs further, we’ll soon be placing a bulk order for the material for the next installations.

The next workshop will be held in Hanwell, W7 on Sunday 23 February, at 2 pm; please contact Andrea if you are interested in taking part, or would like to know more about this energy-saving technique.