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The Surrey Environment Partnership website has a whole host of information on how to recycle different items across the county.

How can people get involved and take action?

If you’d like to take action this Earth Day, the list below has some inspiration:

• Reduce plastic waste – One of the best ways to do this is to avoid unnecessary and single-use plastic. If you have to use plastic in some capacity, then it’s best ones to use a reusable alternative such as reusable water bottles and reusable food containers.
• Reduce contribution to fast fashion – Fast fashion is responsible for approximately 10% of carbon emissions worldwide. Buying used clothes and shopping at sustainable fashion brands can help to reduce the impact.
• Changing your diet to plant-based – This one can be a big change, but if you’re able to change your diet to a more environmentally friendly diet, this can help reduce emissions and help protect the earth.

Take part this Earth Day event and to help Surrey, and the world a better place to live, not only for ourselves but for future generations to come.  

• Learn to clean and sort your recycling properly – Making sure that you understand how to recycle properly will make a bigger impact and will be much better for the environment.
• Educating friends and family – If you have friends and family that may not know how to recycle properly, then educating them about recycling and what impact it has will help a lot.
• Reduce the need to recycle - Zero waste shops are a great way to cut down the number of materials and resources we consume and reduces waste at the point of generation.
• Recycle Now – This website here can be used to know what items you have and if they can be recycled or not. It will also give you close locations to where those items can be recycled.
• Having recycling bins nearby – Having recycling bins close-by will definitely encourage you more to recycle as well as other people around you.

Recycling in Surrey

Surrey Environment Partnership is made of Surrey County Council and the 11 district and borough councils, the web page explains the steps we are taking to improve recycling rates across the county and tackle food waste. The web page contains helpful tips on how to recycle different items as well as information on how waste is processed locally. 

Recycling won’t be an easy task if done alone and will require a collective effort to make a positive impact for the planet. If we all made a conscious effort to recycle more and generate less waste, the collective impact could be huge. 

• Organize an event – You can participate in events or plan them that will focus on wetlands. These can be guided tours or clean-up activities. Here are a couple of event that you could be a part of Events | Surrey Wildlife Trust

• Support organisations – You can contribute to organisations that dedicate themselves to wetland preservation and restoration efforts such as the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust.

• Advocate for wetlands – Raising awareness about wetlands to friends and family or to your community.

If you’re interested in protecting wetlands beyond World Wetlands Day, this can be your chance! Make a pledge to protect and preserve wetlandsboth now and in the future.

For more tips visit: Tips to save money on your energy bills this winter (surreycc.info)

Support available

A few things that Surrey County Council can do to support you is funding home retrofit measures. One example of this is free funding to heat your home, how this works is if your home is not primarily heated by mains gas, you might benefit from a grant of up to £25,000. This is available for families with a household income of less than £31,000. The grant can be used to fund heating and insulation measures. For more information including full eligibility, visit the Action Surrey website.

In terms of financial and health support, Surrey County Council understands that there are a lot of people in Surrey that are having many challenging situations, which is why there is a health and welfare support pageyou can use.

There is also an Energy Advice Toolavailable for people in Surrey that will offer information and advice as well as a Local energy advice demonstrator project which you can learn more about here.

We know that this time of year it can be difficult to save energy, but we hope these tips and the offer of support make it possible to reduce energy use and lower energy bills.

Our main website has all the details and guidance for how to register for Bikeability Training. Schools often organise their own bike training courses for pupils, so be sure to check if there are any upcoming courses.

We’re often in autopilot and jump in the car to do the school run, the emissions from driving impact local air quality – especially around the school gates. Encouraging children to cycle to school will not only give them a health and wellbeing boost, but it’ll also make the air they breathe cleaner.

You can take a pledge to cycle to school this week by filling in a form on the Bikeability website which will enter you into their prize draw and to win a new children’s bike. Happy cycling!

We've inviested in our walking and cycling infrastructure to make walking and cycling easier, safer and more accessible for. We have built 13km of new walking and cycling schemes in areas across Surrey to help people reduce car journeys and travel in an active way. We have also put together some new cycle routes to try.

One of the best ways to get involved is to try and swap the car for walking or cycling for those 20-minute journeys. If you sign up to the BetterPoints app, you can get rewarded for walking, cycling or using public transport instead of using the car. For every sustainable journey you make, you’ll earn points which can be redeemed for vouchers to spend or can be donated to a charity.

Get inspired and visit our website for suggested routes and future cycle training opportunities.

This month, Surrey County Council held a cabinet meeting where it was decided that the Wildlife Aid Foundation | British wildlife rescue centre would become the latest recipient of a Your Fund Surrey grant to promote biodiversity across the county and protect British wildlife.

Conserving nature across Surrey

The Wildlife Aid Foundation are a charity dedicated to the rescue, rehabilitation and release of British wildlife. This great work has taken place over four decades and supported some of Britian’s most vulnerable and endangered animals such as birds, deer, hedgehogs and foxes.

Your Fund Surrey link - Your Fund Surrey for community projects - Surrey County Council (surreycc.gov.uk)

The Your Fund Surrey grant will be used to build the Wildlife Aid Centre, a new accessible visitor centre and community hub which will provide year-round activities for visitors. The funds will also be used to install accessible boardwalks, viewing platforms and hides which will offer visitors free access across the site.

The centre will feature meeting and learning spaces, a community hub, which will be great for schools and families. The Wildlife Aid hospital will be moved, and improvements will be made to its facilities so more injured animals can be treated. This will provide more volunteering opportunities for people interested in wildlife conservation and animal welfare.

The new 20-acre site, half a mile away from the Wildlife Aid Foundation’s current home in Leatherhead will be used to help more people learn about the importance of protecting, supporting and living alongside wildlife.

Why protecting nature is important

Spending time in nature can reduce stress and allow you to feel more relaxed. Getting out and about and increasing your activity level can improve physical health and wellbeing.

Preserving biodiversity in green spaces is vital, and there are many benefits just to name a few; trees absorb carbon dioxide and give us oxygen to breathe, and healthy ecosystems provide us with food to eat.

It’s also vital to protect animal and insect species as without pollinators like bees we’d have less food crops available. Having a diverse variety of habitats is important as they provide different benefits; for example, large plants, and wetland habitats naturally slow down rainfall and help the soil gradually absorb an optimum amount of water.

This week marks Love Parks week, an event to recognise the value of parks and outdoor spaces. We’re taking this opportunity to celebrate the amazing green spaces we have across Surrey and provide some inspiration to get us all out in parks over this week.

Parks in Surrey

In 2022, 22 Surrey parks received prestigious green flag awards with Guildford having the most green flag parks in the county. These awards are designed to raise the standards of parks and green spaces in the UK and reward the best ones.

Surrey is one of England’s most wooded county with 22.4% of Surrey being covered by woodland.

We are currently in the early stages of developing a Local Nature Recovery Strategy to identify locations to improve nature and provide other environmental benefits. Parks could play a big role as biodiversity hotspots/corridors protecting wildlife by providing habitat as they are a huge part of parks and improving access to green space for health and wellbeing as Surrey is mainly green with its countryside.

We’re very lucky to have an abundance of greenspace across Surrey, check out this article 12 glorious parks in Surrey to sunbathe and picnic for free on a sunny day - Surrey Live (getsurrey.co.uk)

The great outdoors

There are many great benefits of spending time in nature. Firstly, it can reduce stress which can have a positive effect on other areas of your life, allowing you to feel more relaxed. Also, getting out and about can increase how active you are which can improve and physical health and wellbeing.

Preserving biodiversity in green spaces is vital, and there are many associated benefits just to name a few; trees absorb carbon dioxide and give us oxygen to breathe, and healthy ecosystems provide us with food to eat.

It’s also vital to protect animal and insect species as without pollinators like bees we’d have less food crops available. Having a diverse variety of habitats is important as they provide different benefits; for example, large plants, and wetland habitats naturally slow down rainfall and help the soil gradually absorb an optimum amount of water.

Keeping our parks free of litter

Love Parks week have their own annual campaign for this week, 28th July to 6th August, which have been going on for a number of years, that celebrate parks and green space. These spaces are a way of bringing communities together and provide an opportunity to connect with nature. The link below has more information about the event and how you can get involved.

Love Parks Week | Keep Britain Tidy

These tips are just a few pieces of inspiration of how you can get involved and make a difference this Plastic Free July, check out their website to find out more: Plastic Free July – Be Part of the Plastic Pollution Solution

Shop local. The Surrey Hills AONB has a directory of fantastic local businesses in Surrey. You can also filter many websites such as Etsy and Not on the High Street by ‘United Kingdom’ to keep travel emissions down.

Get creative with homemade gifts such as knitting a scarf, a plant you’ve propagated or grown, baking mince pies or photos of you with loved ones.

Give experiences rather than ‘things’. Giving experiences is a lovely alternative and it can be meaningful to carve out time to spend with people and give you something to look forward to post Christmas too. Ideas could be an event ticket, a cooking class, or a meal out.

Give the gift of your time – babysitting, gardening, cooking, IT skills.

Give edible gifts that you know will get consumed!

Jazzing up your home needn’t be expensive. You can make your own decorations, virtually for free, by using natural materials. A simple glass jar filled with branches and berries is both elegant and festive.

Check out your local charity shops or Facebook marketplace for second-hand decorations.

If you have a real Christmas tree make sure that you recycle it after the holidays, curb side collection dates will be available from your district or borough council.

Plan carefully how much food you need to avoid waste and make plans ahead of time for leftovers such as turkey sandwiches, or bubble and squeak. If you need inspiration of ways to reduce waste you could check out l ow-waste chef Max La Manna who shares innovative ways of reducing of waste in the kitchen!

Have you considered cooking a different meat or plant-based main? Gocompare.com Energy conducted research showing that cooking a turkey (taking approximately five hours) costs 1.5 times as much as a typical family’s electricity bill for a whole day.

Another great source of tips and information is the Surrey Environment Partnership. Their website is full of information on reducing food waste and how to dispose of different kinds of waste in your area.

As we approach Cycle to Work Day on 4th August, our latest guest blogger - Surrey County Councillor Paul Deach - shares his experiences of taking the plunge from car to electric bike.

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In October last year, I spoke to an environmental motion to a full council meeting and committed to send my car back to the lease company and buy an eBike to become my primary mode of transport from January 2022.

It was a scary undertaking at the time because I rely on transport to get me around quite a wide area in Surrey for my job and council commitments. My job requires some equipment that I have to carry around, and at the time not as physically fit. My family thought I was mad.

The main reason I made this decision was that I know that if I am to encourage residents to try active travel as a means to replace some (not all) car journeys credibly, I need understand all the barriers and pain points.

In early January this year (2022) I took delivery of an eBike, and a week later, my car returned to the lease company, so there was no going back.

The pain points I mentioned earlier; I experienced many of those almost immediately. After only a week of owning my eBike, the batter developed a fault. Because I had purchased my bike directly from a reputable manufacturer, I was not worried about it as I knew they would send me a replacement part under warranty. Or at least I thought that's what would happen. But because of global supply chain and shipping issues, I still had not received the replacement part after four months. After only a few weeks of the manufacturer confirming they would send me a replacement part, I realised I was not getting it soon. So I decided to buy another eBike to keep it as a spare in case I have such issues again in the future. That bike served me well, but it was a much cheaper one and not suitable as a primary mode of transport. I returned the first bike to the manufacturer in May 2022 and got a full refund.

The biggest lesson (or pain point) that I learned so that resid ents don't have to is to always buy an eBike from a specialist and reputable local eBike store. This is because they can advise you on the right bike for your needs and will be able to solve any issues you might encounter quickly as they will have good availability of parts. While this way of buying your bike might be a little more expensive, you will not regret it, especially if something goes wrong.

I ended up buying the bike I should have purchased in the first place from Spokes of Bagshot. I test-rode three eBikes before deciding to buy the one I settled on, and I could not be happier with my purchase.

There have been some other less stressful pain points that I have experienced, such as getting caught out in the rain and cold weather without the appropriate clothing for the conditions. I have learned that if you can keep your extremities warm such as your head, face, neck, torso & hands, dry and warm, no matter how cold it gets, it is not at all awful.

I was a little concerned about having the confidence to ride on main roads but soon discovered that there are more cycle paths/routes than I thought in Surrey. While there is still some work to be done by the council on cycle routes, it is possible to make most journeys on cycle paths, off-road or back streets and avoid most main roads. I have found that Google Maps is the best resource for planning cycle routes.

I can often do many of my work commutes entirely off the road. I live in Deepcut; therefore, I am fortunate to have the Basingstoke Canal practically on my doorstep. Two of my largest clients are in Woking, which means I can hop onto the towpath from my house and cycle directly to my clients without touching any roads.

My other concern was that some of my commutes involve significant distances, even for an eBike. For instance, County Hall is in Reigate. That would involve a 66-mile ride, round trip, which would take about 3 hours each way. That is not viable, but I quickly discovered I could take my bike on virtually any train in the County. My nearest station with a direct train to Reigate is Farnborough North which, from my door to the platform, is a 12-minute bike ride. From Reigate Station to County Hall is about a 15-minute ride. Not only is this a cheaper way to get to County Hall than driving, but it is also quicker.

Over the two-year term of my car lease, I have worked out that it cost at least £11k, including all the running costs. I also have to hand it back to the lease company at the end of the term.

The eBike is not without its running costs; after the initial price of the bike, it costs about £0.15 to charge from empty to full. I'll get about a 30-mile range on that. The bike also has some consumables as any other vehicle would. For instance, to maintain it, I have to lube the drivetrain, and it's a good idea to keep it clean to reduce wear and tear on things like the cassette and chain. I still have the first bottle of lube and cleaning fluid that I bought in January total cost about £18.00. I have also probably spent about £300 on other essentials like clothing, helmet, lock and tools. I had to replace the chain after about 650 miles. That cost £35 for the chain and labour. I have also purchased dedicated bike insurance for about £130 per year. All in all significantly cheaper than the lease car.

But the most significant benefit is the sheer joy cycling has brought me. I have discovered amazing things in my community that I did not know existed or certainly did not fully appreciate. It has had a profoundly positive effect on my well-being, in particular my mental health. Overall, I am happier, healthier and have a lot more money in my pocket.

I also feel good that I am positively impacting the environment, and there is one less car on our busy roads.

To follow my eBike experiences, check out my Facebook page at facebook.com/DeepcutDeach

This event is funded by Surrey County Council and is being delivered in partnership with Community Energy South. You can book your free place on Eventbrite.

As you may be aware, Surrey County Council has declared a climate emergency and committed the county to becoming net zero carbon by 2050. As part of this, Surrey County Council have teamed up with Community Energy South to provide support for the development of community-led projects throughout Surrey.

Are you interested in local low carbon community energy? Come along to this webinar on February 3rd at 2-3pm to find out how Community Energy South can support Your Fund Surrey projects. They want to know about any community-led energy projects that may already be in place surrey or if you are a group planning a local low carbon and renewable energy project.

What is Community Energy? Community energy is all about drawing on local skills and people power to create ground level, community-based solutions to the climate crisis. It’s about people wanting to act now to secure a low carbon future, local green jobs and ethical investment. It’s about making our energy work for us and the environment in our communities and becoming more resilient.

We would be grateful if you could complete this survey , for us to capture what is happening in your community, hear about your ideas and find the best ways for Community Energy to Support new and existing projects. The survey should take no more than 10 minutes and is a valuable way for you to contribute to taking action on the climate crisis. The survey shuts on 6th February.

If you have any questions or would like to suggest other groups to contact as part of this project, please email contact@communityenergysouth.org.

For more information and to register for the webinar please go to the Eventbrite page.

This blog is part of a series written by Surrey residents who will be sharing their personal experiences of making changes to reduce their carbon footprint. We hope the blogs will provide other people with inspiration and guidance to make changes of their own. If you think you would like to contribute, please submit an expression of interest via this form.

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Over the past year I became more aware of my environmental impact and decided to minimize it as much as possible. So, I began looking into ways of having a more sustainable lifestyle and decided to start off this journey by reducing the amount of plastic waste I produce.

I went through my bathroom and kitchen products and discovered that over 90% of them were packed in bulky plastic containers. I then decided to consume the ones I had already purchased and to start looking for more environmentally-friendly alternatives. Here is what I did and how I went from all-plastic-everything to close-to-zero-waste:

On the same note, I stopped buying fruits and vegetables that are wrapped in plastic and decided to shop in my local farmer’s market with my own reusable shopping bag on hand. Also, I discovered Oddbox, a great online business that rescues fresh fruits and vegetables directly from farms and delivers them to your door. You can read more on their website, but personally, I think it’s a great idea and everything I purchased from them was delicious and fresh:

These are some changes that I made to reduce the plastic I send to landfill and I can definitely say that not only do I feel better as a consumer but I also saved a lot of pocket money in the process.

On the 10th November the COP26 United Nations Conference on Climate Change came to Surrey to showcase the local ambition to create a greener future through reducing transport emissions. After a successful funding bid to the Greater South East Energy Hub, on behalf of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, in mid-September the Surrey County Council Greener Futures Team were selected to host a COP26 Regional Roadshow event.

The theme of the event was how to deliver net zero transport in a rural county by taking a ‘smart county’ approach to physical connectivity. This links to our ambitions to significantly reduce transport emissions in Surrey. Primarily this will mean using public transport and active travel (walking and cycling) when possible, and switching to ultra-low emission vehicles for private journeys.

(Above: Local school children talking to Patrick Warner from Buses about the prototype hydrogen bus that visited the event)

Transport emissions account for 41% of carbon emissions in Surrey, which is higher than the average for the South of England. This is alongside the public health impacts of air pollution.

Despite the damp weather it was a hugely successful day with over 40 partners involved. The event was also filmed and livestreamed to the COP26 website, with Surrey County Council Executive Director of Environment, Transport and Infrastructure, Katie Stewart acting as the host. Katie spoke to and interviewed numerous people over the day including Paralympian Sam Ruddock, who was there to support the electric bike challenge which took place. The event was open to the public to visit the stalls and we also had local schools including St Polycarps Primary School, visit to learn about climate change and transport. Students from Kings International College and the Woking Shifa Network travelled to the event on three new electric community buses provided by Woking Bustler. The Active Surrey pedal powered Scalextric track proved particularly popular with visitors of all ages!

(Above: Representatives from the Shifa Network, who organising cycle training for South East Asian women in Woking, with Katie Stewart (second from right))

It was a fantastic day but also the start of a journey. Local authorities in Surrey only directly control less than 1% of all emissions so it is vital that we work together with all partners, residents, communities and businesses to meet our target to become a net zero county by 2050.

Highlights from the day included the BBC interviewing Surrey County Council member for Transport Matt Furniss about the new hydrogen buses that will be hitting Surrey roads in June, an Air Pollution Art Exhibition with the University for Creative Arts and an electric bicycle challenge courtesy of Canyon Bikes with Paralympic cyclist Sam Ruddock.

Other partners included:

Brompton Bike Hire showcasing docking station solutions for rural areas.

Shifa East Asian Women’s Wellbeing Network discussing their cycle training scheme.

Local organisations Farnham Repair Café and Farnham Cycle Campaign.

Hurst Park School discussing Eco Schools and Bikeability Training for young people.

Surrey Choices and Wheels for All demonstrating a range of specially adapted bikes for people with disabilities and differing needs to enjoy cycling

Energy Saving Trust offering visitors free test drives of a range of electric cars.

Graham Homes and Gary Nash from Surrey County Council’s Youth Offer delivering a free Dr Bike cycle maintenance session

And Waverley Borough Council, Farnham Town Council and the Farnham Herald who helped make the event happen.

(Above: Attendees from Surrey Choices demonstrated adapted bikes from Wheels for All, pictured here with Paralympic cyclist Sam Ruddock (centre))

A highlights video from the day will be available soon but in the meantime you can replay the livestream by visiting the COP26 website and registering here.

If you would like to stay up to date with what is going on in the Greener Futures team we also have a resident newsletter which you can sign up to here.

This blog is part of a new series written by Surrey residents who will be sharing their personal experiences of making changes to reduce their carbon footprint. We hope the blogs will provide other people with inspiration and guidance to make changes of their own. If you think you would like to contribute, please submit an expression of interest via this form.

Louise from North Surrey shares her experience of reducing the carbon footprint of her wardrobe.

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A couple of years ago I finally admitted to myself that I had a bit of a shopping problem. I like shopping. I enjoy browsing the shops, trying things on, finding a bargain and coming home with lovely bags and boxes of new things to enjoy!

But, we all know by now that the f ashion industry is one of the most polluting and unsustainable industries . In the western world we own far too many clothes, we don’t look after them and we wear them too infrequently before ditching them. In short, we treat clothes as disposable items. In the UK, an estimated £140m worth of clothing is sent to landfill every year . That’s 350,000 tonnes of wearable clothes being thrown away.

And this is despite the enormous environmental impact of producing the materials (whether that’s water usage to grow cotton or fossil fuels extracted to produce new synthetic fibres), the pollution from dyes and fabric treatments, and the transportation impact of shipping items around the world.

I recognised that my enjoyment of shopping did not sit well with my ethics and the need to reduce our carbon footprint as a society, so I set out to change that.

At first, I spent time researching more ethical companies – and there are some good ones out there. Companies that manufacture in the UK, or use specific fabrics that are more eco, or are making efforts to reduce their carbon consumption. But I avoided buying second-hand, not through any snobbery of second-hand clothing, purely because I’ve never enjoyed the pot luck nature of searching through charity shops in the hope of finding something I like that’s in my size. Especially if I’m looking for something specific – feels too much like trying to find a needle in a haystack.

And here’s where technology comes to the rescue! It’s now far easier to buy second-hand clothing online, and it’s brilliant! Oxfam have had an online presence for a while, but they’ve recently been joined by Re-fashion and Thrift+ . Both are online shops for second-hand clothing, but not affiliated to specific charities. Thrift+, in particular, focuses on high-end brands, which have often been well looked after by previous owners, so are in good condition but at a bargain price.

You can search by brand, type of clothing, colour and size, making it far easier to find what you’re looking for. You can also return items, taking the risk out of buying second-hand online in case the fit or condition is not what you were expecting. In the case of Thrift+, you can send off your old, unwanted items and choose the charity you want to benefit, and you get a cut of the proceeds too!

I’ve also found a number of Facebook groups dedicated to buying and selling specific clothing brands. The groups tend to be friendly places and they make it easy to find items that suit my style, and I know what the sizing is like. And, of course, there’s always Ebay.

Since starting out on my quest to reduce the carbon footprint of my wardrobe, I think I’ve made significant improvements. I’d estimate a good 70% of items bought this year have been second-hand. My bank account is also very happy about this! And when I do buy new, I try to buy from companies with a good track record on sustainability, which sometimes costs a bit more, but with all the money I’ve saved buying second-hand, it’s much more affordable.

This blog is part of a new series written by Surrey residents who will be sharing their personal experiences of making changes to reduce their carbon footprint. We hope the blogs will provide other people with inspiration and guidance to make changes of their own. If you think you would like to contribute, please submit an expression of interest via this form.

Ken from Buckland shares his experience of installing renewable heating in an older house.

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Most of us now are thinking about how to reduce our carbon emissions but find it hard to know what we can do that will have the biggest impact. Reading up on this, we came to realise that, for most of us living in larger or older houses, the biggest thing we can do to reduce our carbon emissions is to switch to renewable heating in our house. This led us to install an air source heat pump at our house in 2020, to replace our old gas boiler.

What is renewable heating?

There are a few options for renewable heating of houses but the one that is likely to be most suitable for most people (at least for the next ten years) is installing a heat pump. A heat pump draws heat from the air (even when it is -10 outside!) to heat your house. There are two main types of heat pump – ground source and air source. Ground source heat pumps are more expensive to install, and usually require a large area of land outside to install them on, so an air source heat pump is likely to be a more practical and affordable solution for most houses.

An air source heat pump is a box a bit like an air conditioner that is installed outside your house (usually against an external wall). They are very widely used in other European countries (including in Scandinavia), but have until recently been very little used in the UK.

Air source heat pumps use some electricity, but modern ones produce about 3.5 kWh of heat for each 1 kWh of electricity drawn from the grid, drawing the rest from the air. They will normally replace your gas or oil boiler and provide both central heating and hot water for your house.

Is it suitable for an older house?

Our house is an old four-bedroom house, originally built in the 1860s and extended twice during the 1970s. The older part of the house is solid wall construction. We therefore use a lot of energy to heat our house . We had heard that heat pumps may not be suitable for older and larger houses, or that they may need supplementary heating, but we learned that they can work well in many older and larger houses.

The industry standard for heat pumps is that the system should be specified so that it can heat your house to 21 degrees when it is -3 degrees outside, so provided it is properly specified, it should not require supplementary heating. Our experience over the first year of using it is that the house has remained cosy throughout the winter (including down to a temperature of -7 degrees outside).

Does your house need to be well insulated?

As with traditional gas boilers, it makes good sense to do what you can to improve the insulation in your house to reduce your heating bills. Good insulation helps heat pump efficiency, so If you are considering a heat pump, it makes sense to do this before you install it.

To be eligible for the current government grant, any cavity walls in your house need to be insulated, and your loft insulation needs to be up to modern standards. We’ve done this in our house, but we still have uninsulated solid walls in the older part of the house, and single glazing, as we found that it would be very expensive to do these while maintaining the character of our house.

Will a heat pump work with my existing radiators?

Heat pumps provide a gentler heat and normally work most efficiently by maintaining a constant temperature in the house 24 hours a day. To keep the house cosy with the gentler heat can require upgrading some of your radiators - this is worked out by the installer for each room in the house. In our case, we upgraded about half of our radiators (because they are a modern design, they are not actually bigger than our old radiators).

Is it noisy?

We’ve hardly noticed it. Modern heat pumps are now much quieter – they make about the same noise as a fridge, so are unlikely to be heard inside the house. When it is warm enough for you to be sitting outside the house, it is very unlikely that the heat pump will be running.

What is involved with installation?

Heat pumps are installed by specialist heat pump installers, who should be certified by the industry body (MCS). The certified installer will come and do a survey of your house and recommend a specification for a system to meet your needs (including new radiators if needed), and provide you with a quote for the work. They should also advise you if your house is not suitable for a heat pump.

As this is a fast growing industry, some certified installers have less experience than others, so it makes sense to look for installers who have installed many systems in houses like yours, and to check references. We invited three experienced installers to quote for the work.

In most cases, planning consent is not required, but you should check with your local council.

What does it cost to install?

The cost of installing a heat pump will depend on the size of heat pump needed for your house, the detailed layout of your house, and whether you need to upgrade radiators or hot water tank. In a typical house, an air source heat pump can cost £6-8,000. As an older and larger house, we needed a larger than normal domestic heat pump (14 kW), and the installation cost was c. £11,000. With new radiators, the total installation cost came to c. £13,000.

This is considerably more than the cost of a new gas boiler (typically c. £3,000), but to offset the cost, the government offers grants under the Renewable Heat Incentive scheme (correct at the time of writing). The grant available varies with the size of your system, but should cover most of the cost, and is paid over seven years. In our case, we will receive a total grant of around £9,000, which brings it close to the cost of a new gas boiler in the end, although there is a higher initial cash outlay.

What does it cost to run?

Most modern heat pumps will provide c. 3.5 kWh of heat for each kWh of electricity drawn from the grid, with the rest coming from the air (free!). A modern gas boiler will provide about 0.9 kWh of heat for each kWh of gas used. However, at present, 1 kWh of electricity is around four times the price of 1 kWh of gas, so the energy costs are likely to be similar to a new gas boiler. If you are replacing an old gas boiler, or an oil boiler, you are likely to see significant savings – in our case we reduced our energy bills by around 20%.

More recently, we have achieved further savings by using one of the new off-peak tariffs (available from a growing number of electricity suppliers) and timing our hot water to heat overnight using this cheaper tariff.

Air source heat pumps are simple to maintain and an annual service is usually recommended. The cost is likely to be similar to the cost of an annual service of a gas boiler.

What impact will it have on my carbon emissions?

If you own an older or larger house heated by gas or oil, it is likely that the carbon emissions from heating your house will be the biggest single component of your household emissions.

On the basis of the current mix of fossil and renewable energy in the national grid, installing a heat pump should reduce the carbon emissions from heating your house by around 85%. This should improve further over time as more of our national grid energy comes from renewables. If you use a green energy supplier, it will reduce it even further, to close to 0.

Useful Links for Further Information:

• Energy Saving Trust: Useful information on how heat pumps work, costs and benefits, government grants, etc.

energysavingtrust.org.uk/advice/air-source-heat-pumps/

• Government’s Renewable Heat Incentive scheme:

ofgem.gov.uk/environmental-programmes/domestic-rhi/about-domestic-rhi

• UK Committee on Climate Change (for evidence on need for wholesale shift to renewable heating in UK homes)

www.theccc.org.uk/publication/uk-housing-fit-for-the-future/

• UK Planning Portal on installing heat pumps Planning Permission: Air source heat pump | Heat Pumps | Planning Portal

For those unable to join us on the day the event will be livestreamed, more information and the livestream can be viewed here .

The competition:

To support COP26, the council is asking residents to think about the changes they can make to reduce their carbon footprint and to register their efforts on Wildlife Aid's iDot (I do one thing) platform . By sharing your pledge by 30 November you will be entered into a prize draw to win a Canyon Commuter ON 7 electric bike !

The campaign is part of Surrey County Council’s efforts to tackle the climate emergency as outlined in the recently agreed Climate Change Delivery Plan. The Climate Change Delivery Plan sets out our priorities and actions for the next few years to help us achieve our goals of being net zero carbon as an organisation by 2030 and as a county by 2050.

Marisa Heath, Surrey County Council Cabinet Member for Environment, said, “With 46% of carbon emissions in Surrey coming from transport, we hope that this event will encourage our residents to think differently about the way they travel.

“We have recently invested over £6m to improve footpaths and cycleways for residents and over £5m to improve bus services to help residents to rely less on their cars for certain journeys.

“As just one of five successful applicants to be awarded the funding to host a COP26 Regional Roadshow, Surrey’s involvement in COP26 shows we are leading the way in driving change and I would urge all residents to play their part by pledging to do one thing to tackle climate change. If everyone takes some action to change their behaviour, the impact on reducing carbon emissions in Surrey will be significant.”

This is the first in a new series of blogs written by Surrey residents who will be sharing their personal experiences of making changes to reduce their carbon footprint. We hope the blogs will provide other people with inspiration and guidance to make changes of their own. If you think you would like to contribute, please submit an expression of interest via this form.

Debra from Waverley. shares her experience of switching to an electric car.

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We have been quietly stalking the electric car market for some time, toying with hybrids and various size options and trying to make head nor tail of it all. It was only after an unfortunate incident on the A31 when our trusty, reliable and well-loved diesel commuter car unexpectedly retired itself…. we decided to take the plunge and go fully electric! I’d like to say it was an easy choice to navigate, purchase and prepare for, but this wasn’t necessarily the case. As the telly will tell you there’s a new electric car on the market every five minutes with varying costs, benefits, gadgets and gizmos and the all-important one…range. After much debate we went for a shiny black Volkswagen e-Golf.

It turns out that buying the car was just the start of this green journey. Once purchased, we began to investigate home fast charging options. We’re fortunate to have a driveway and for the first week were charging it overnight with a normal 3-pin plug out of our bathroom window. It worked, but not very well as it took 13 hours to charge which was both inefficient and impractical. We used the government scheme -The Electric Vehicle Homecharge Scheme (EVHS) to install a fast charger. EVHS is a grant that provides a 75% contribution to the cost of installing one ChargePoint. It is capped at £350, but there are additional costs so in total in cost us around £1000. That said, the fast charger was revolutionary and charged the car in less than 4 hours, a huge improvement on the 13-hour marathon.

Additionally, we switched to Octopus Go which gives us cheaper electricity between 00:30 and 04:30. Our charger is ‘economy tariff sensing’ which basically means it will only ever charge during these times unless we override it. It’s quite a clever thing really and comes with an app, so we always know how much is in the battery. Plus, we can switch the car heating on 10 minutes before we get in it in winter, that certainly helps the school run. Charging on this tariff means our approximate cost of charging to a full battery is about £1.75 for 140 miles of range.

It’s surprising how quickly we have become anti fuel. We have a second (diesel) car which we currently can’t do without as we live rurally, but it’s being increasingly left on the drive and we’re getting quite grumpy every time we need to fill the tank up. The net result is that we do our very best only to drive our electric car whenever, and wherever we can.

That said, charging out and about is a work in progress in the UK. Whilst chargers are becoming more plentiful, it is all about planning and, sometimes, trial and error. Suffice to say, once you’ve had to stop three times on a journey on a winter’s night because you haven’t planned properly, you get better at understanding why the range fluctuates in different conditions.

There have definitely been times when our hearts have sunk because we underestimated our journey, and we watch the range drop mile by mile anxiously or got annoyed because we couldn’t unexpectedly divert or change our plans. We’ve gradually got used to this and are happy to accept this unpredictability in the name of ours, and our children’s, greener future. We always do our homework and don’t leave home without identifying the chargers on our route, and check if they are working on the trusty zap map. Planning can also enhance our journey, stopping at restaurants or playgrounds near to chargers and choosing our routes around our mileage needs. Our children are fascinated by the car and educated as to why we made the choice, this certainly helps when they are made to sit in the car when we stop off for a quick 45-minute charge!

One year on and we feel like veterans. We’re happy we went fully electric and would never consider a hybrid now. We are delighted to be making our small difference to the climate change cause. We’ve learnt a lot about how to get the best out of the car and no, we will never drive it to Cornwall with four bikes, a roof box, a large tent and two angry children… ever again!

Our next step is zero waste toothpaste…hoping that will be simpler that buying an EV!

Map of charging points for electric car drivers in UK: Zap-Map

Electric Vehicle Homecharge Scheme: guidance for customers - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Please note: This blog includes information and materials based on the opinions and experiences of other users of the site. This information and these materials have not been verified or approved by Surrey County Council. The views expressed by other users on this blog do not represent Surrey County Council views or values. Our full privacy policy is available here .

People's Assembly Surrey - 7 September, 7.30-9.30pm, book here to attend. (Last few spaces available)

Surrey Climate Commission - 9 September, 7-9pm, book here to attend.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed so far. You can have your say on commonplace until 12th September.

Please sign up via the Eventbrite link.

A dedicated newsletter, available here , has been launched to keep people up to date about what actions are already being taken to reduce carbon emissions and residents can also contribute ideas via our climate change platform which will help us to develop the Delivery Plan.

Cabinet Member for Environment, Marisa Heath said, “As a Council we are fully committed to achieving our target to be a Net-Zero county by 2050 to tackle the climate emergency we face. We have a range of programmes underway and much more planned, to reduce carbon emissions and ensure our county is a healthier place to live.

“However, we can’t do this alone. We all need to play our part to avoid further climate change and that’s why we really want to work with our residents to hear both your ideas and any concerns or questions you have so we can support you to make changes. This is about you, your community, your school, your home, your business. Sign up to our newsletter to be the first to hear when things happen.”

You can read the full newsletter here and sign up to the mailing list .

For further information please visit https://crestawardssurrey.co.uk/awards-event-2021/ .