About us.....

Abingdon Carbon Cutters is a Community Action Group formed to help reduce the carbon footprint of Abingdon in response to climate change, and to promote a sustainable and resilient lifestyle for our town as fossil fuel stocks decline. We meet on the third Wednesday of each month at St Ethelwold's House, which is here.

At some meetings, we have guest speakers to present various topics, and at others we discuss our own personal actions to address climate change. The group has a focus on encouragement, both of one another, and of the town community.

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Sunday, October 17, 2010

Are you planning to Eco-Renovate?

If you're planning any work on your house in the future, one of these events might be of interest to you

1. Future Oxfordshire Eco-renovation discussion – Monday 25th October, 7-9pm, Oxford University Centre for the Environment (Directions )

Thank you to those who have already responded to say they’re coming to this – there’s room for more, so if you’d like to come please email jo@climatex.org at least 3 hours before the meeting.

Intro: Overview of community eco-renovation activity in past few years in Oxfordshire

Where next? Open space to discuss ideas and potential collaborations, which could include, but not be limited to:

· Future eco-renovation projects

· Networking

· Skill sharing

· Householder to householder support

· What’s working well with eco-renovation on a local level

· What people would like to see happening

What might come out of the evening: Collaborations, potential projects..

Background: Oxfordshire ClimateXchange and the Climate Outreach Information Network (COIN) have run a variety of eco-renovation events over the past three years, and have been funded to do this. There is currently no funding to support more eco-renovation events at ClimateX or COIN, but there is a strong network of eco-renovators with plenty of experience and knowledge to share, which is a great resource. Networking doesn’t always need funding, and in addition to the online networking I would be interested in what ideas you have for continuing the eco-renovation networking and events organising. It might be a web forum, it might be someone who would be willing to develop the eco-homes ideas in Oxfordshire... or it might be someone who’s willing to develop the ideas further and work with others to attract funding.

If you’re interested in developing the eco-renovation network further, but can’t come to the meeting, please let me know beforehand – either email or phone. I’ll circulate a brief post- report of the meeting.



2. Post Occupancy Evaluation of Local Eco-renovated homes, Monday 1st November, 6.30 – 7.30 pm


Post-Occupancy Evaluation (POE) is an evaluative tool used to understand the performance of a building in use. Its purpose is to answer the following questions:

1) How is a building working?

2) Is this what was intended?

3) How can it be improved?

‘Ecovation’ is a communications project run by COIN (Climate Outreach Information Network) who, in partnership with Oxfordshire ClimateXchange, have organised a series of events showcasing householders who have refurbished their properties to a high environmental standard. A POE was carried out by Oxford Brookes University Department of Architecture on three properties, which acted as case studies in helping to understand which refurbishment methods were most effective in relation to energy reduction and occupant satisfaction. Internal conditions of the properties were monitored for 6 months and occupants were interviewed as part of the investigative research.

The key findings showed that the most energy-efficient measures are not necessarily the most effective, showing unintended consequences throughout, while occupants and their behaviour play a crucial role in the performance of buildings. These findings will be presented and discussed in the form of a public talk at Oxford Brookes University.

Details of the talk are as follows:

Date: Monday 1st November 2010

Time: 6:30pm to 7:30pm

Venue: Room G119, Gibbs Building, Oxford Brookes University, Headington Campus, Gipsy Lane, Oxford OX3 0BP

directions

**The room is only able to accommodate 30 people, so please confirm your attendance by emailing Simon at simonchung13@gmail.com **



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