November 13: Friends of the Baltic presented a set of useful material with advise on how to save energy in housing sector and on public participation in energy resources economizing to heads of housing communities of St.Petersburg.

Several hundreds of housing communities leaders took part in an assembly, organized by The Association of Householders-Owners, and got the chance to see the set of posters, dedicated to energy and heat economy in housing sector as well as to get comments and be consulted by Friends of the Baltic specialists.

The exhibition consisted of 8 posters, showing the most vital energy saving issues.
Most of the presented measures are easy for common people to undertake, and thus to improve the energy-related properties of the whole house. Insulation of windows and doors by using these simple measures may help increase the indoors temperature by 2 to 4 degrees Celsius in winter time, and eliminate the need to use extra heating devices, to save energy and money. To increase efficiency of heating in one's home one may set a special warmth-reflecting shield behind the radiator.

The use of energy efficient lamps and other devices (i.e. refrigerators, washing mashines etc) may decrease our energy consumption in the housing sector of the whole city by 30%.
Electronic devices that we use, in stand-by mode, add up up to 20% of our net household energy consumption. So not using this mode may be a good idea to a family budget.

Special attention of some posters was drawn to improvement of heating systems, energy saving in premises, and the ways that people themselves by making common decisions may implement modern heating system and other energy efficient measures in their houses.

Most of the housing communities' heads are educated and informed people. But they often lack knowledge on energy saving. Visitors were especially interested in alternative heating systems, mini-boiler plants which may be very profitable in current situation when monopolies are not interested in people saving energy at home.

Friends of the Baltic disseminate posters and other useful material on energy saving among all interested organizations and holds consultations at public Ecocentrum.