We’ve been redecorating some of our offices bit by bit over the last few months. Since we’d bought eco paints containing no VOCs for the walls from Ecos (see this post), we decided to look for an environmentally friendly floor covering too. We came across a product called Marmoleum® which is a special type of linoleum. Marmoleum is made from linseed oil, rosin (from pine trees), wood flour, cork flour, natural pigments, limestone and jute all of which are natural ingredients and all of which are sustainable. Last weekend we put a new floor covering down in some of the offices and kitchen area. Looks great! And there are loads of different colours and styles to choose from. Check out the manufacturers website, here.

I have just signed up Alara to Cyclescheme. This is a fantastic initiative where employees can get a really good bike for just over half price and pay for it out of their salary over 12 months. The idea is to encourage staff to cycle to work instead of driving or using public transport, thus helping the environment and encouraging a healthy lifestyle. Joining the scheme is very simple process - employers just need to register on the cyclescheme website, complete 1 simple form and that’s it.

The way it works is that the company actually buys the bike on behalf of the employee, then the employee pays the company back over a period of 12 months through contributions from their salary. The company can claim back the VAT on the bike and also doesn’t have to pay tax or national insurance on the employee’s repayments so there’s a further saving. The overall cost of the bike is reduced by nearly 45% so the employee gets a great deal and the employer gets a fitter, healthier worker. To calculate how much you could save, click here.

Well, wind turbine testing hasn’t gone particularly well so far. After setting up a ‘windmill workshop’ and building a scaled down model of the turbine, we then had trouble finding a fan that we could use to generate enough ‘wind’ to test the design.

To start with we bought a propeller type fan on ebay but when we connected it all up we found that it just threw air out of the sides rather than the front, so the airflow wasn’t uniform – there was a dead spot in the middle, right at the point where we really needed the strongest airflow!

Then we tried a big extractor fan thinking that more power would do the job, but no, we had the same problem. We even tried building a makeshift wind tunnel around the fan to try to channel the airflow forward. Didn’t work either.

So now we are trying a centrifugal fan (also from ebay) rather than a propeller type. The hope is that this type of fan will produce a more uniform airflow so that we can continue with our testing. If it doesn’t work, then we’re stuck as I’m out of ideas! Suggestions anyone…?

We’ve nearly finalised the design of our wind turbine so it’s now time to think about how to go about putting the turbine on the roof of our factory. We’ve decided to employ a structural engineer to help us because we will need to assess whether the roof structure is strong enough to cope with the static and dynamic loads associated with the spinning wind turbine. We also need help in determining how to safely attach the turbine to the roof. Our building is a warehouse with a steel framework and a slightly pitched roof so it’s not the easiest place to mount a turbine!

My contacts at London South Bank University have recommended a few local structural engineers who might be able to help us, so I have contacted them and am waiting now to hear their thoughts on the project and the potential cost of the work. I hope that getting them involved will help our planning application, and will certainly help when we apply for building control approval.

Yesterday we had another volunteer day, this time we were planting blueberries. This proved to be more difficult than I thought it would be as blueberries like acidic soil but ours is alkaline. To give them the best start we had to dig very large holes and fill them with special ericaceous topsoil for acid loving plants. A big thank you to all our volunteers who spent most of the day digging through our rubble like soil to make the holes big enough and deep enough! We also finished mulching around the trees with cardboard, which will help to keep the moisture in the soil over the summer. Another successful day thanks to our volunteers, who mostly came up from Camley Street Natural Park.