I will shortly (as of Friday) be out of work for a little while. Long story.
I don’t want to spend too much time sat on my booty, as that tends to make me very depressed. So, I need to keep busy.
I’ve looked into volunteering, but most organisations want a long term, regular commitment, and that’s not something I can offer as I will (hopefully) get a job again soon! I also need to ‘downshift’ for a little while as my health hasn’t been so good, and stress has been a big contributor to that.
Ideally, I’d like to green the house up a bit, but with only one wage coming in, I won’t be able to spend a lot of money on this. Some of the ideas I’ve come up with are
Draft proofing the house – It’s only heated by a gas fire in the winter but sealing cracks etc might cut down drafts and mean I can turn the heat down more often. In the dead of winter I also use oil filled radiators (I know, green fail) and this might cut down how much I need them on. Lost insulation will have to wait because of the costs.
Perform some extra appliance maintenance – Descale Kettle, Washing Machine, defrost the freezer.. things like that
Installing a homemade grey water system - I was thinking just some way of collecting water to flush the toilet and water the plants. This would have to be homemade as I can’t afford an expensive system at the moment.!
Crafting a loft fan – I can just about handle fashioning together something to fit in the loft hatch to draw warm air in the summer up into the roof to keep the air circulating. Reading about, this is surprisingly effective at dropping the temp in the house, thus cutting down the use of other fans, and the running costs of the things like the fridge/freezer.
Make a solar oven/dehydrator – At weekends and while I’m at home more looking for work, I can use to cut down my carbon footprint of cooking. Okay, we don’t have lots of sun in the UK, but enough on sunny days.
Work on my veggie garden (small as it is) – I don’t have much room, so this is only a few plants, but it’s a start.
I’m not very physically strong, and I have little knowledge of building/plumbing etc so it would all need to be fairly light and fairly easy for a layperson to understand, also, minimal set up costs.
Anything that helps me ‘green up’ either the house, or my life, would be appreciated.
Thank Y’all
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