Shed & Garage

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There are a couple of eco-friendly shed options available, solar powered lighting kits for off-mains sheds, eco-friendly space heaters (such as small log burners) and other bits and pieces. One good idea for an all-day shed is to use reflective paint on the roof, so that the shed remains cooler in summer. Insulating the walls and roof, secondary glazing and a raised floor are all good ideas as well.

You could always create your own shed using a variety of eco-friendly buildings methods. Several of these will be virtually free to do, although they may take a bit of time and effort. The results could be as wierd and wonderful as you like, depending on the alternative building systems you plump for, so its up to you how much you want to disconcert your neighbours or fellow allotment-holders. Read more in the Building Systems article if this appeals.

See the shop for a variety of useful battery charging, lighting and sundry items for shed or garage; some are of slightly questionable merit, but others excellent. Ours not to reason why, as ever, so please make up your own minds about which is which.

One thing that you might want to do in a shed or garage, apart from the obvious, is to make biodiesel. There are several kits that have everything you need to start, apart from the oil, and you are legally allowed to make enough diesel for around 25,000 miles motoring before you have to pay any tax. Just buy the kit and get on with it.

Biodiesel can be made from either new vegetable oil or waste oil from cooking.  If using new oil, make sure it is NOT palm oil and try to buy locally grown oil if possible: rape seed oil grown in the EU is a good start. This will need to be mixed with a good dash of alcohol (ethanol or methanol) and a pinch of lye (sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide), heated to 55% and left to brew for a while. Once done, you will be left with 90% biodiesel and 10% glycerol, which will sink to the bottom. This needs to be separated and the biodiesel checked for impurities, but otherwise that is about that.

The kit will cost from around £800 and each litre of biodiesel should cost around 50p to make. At £1 per litre for normal diesel and a car doing 50 miles to the gallon, this should save around £450 per 10,000 miles traveled.

For more information on biofuels see the Bio Power website  or the Collaborative Biodiesel Tutorial.

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