Tag Archive for: eco friendly

Why You Should Buy Trim Trail Play Equipment Made Out Of Recycled Plastic

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There are so many times that I have visited schools and seen picnic tables made out of recycled plastic sitting on the school playground. Not just one but typically quite a few of them. You then ask the school staff why they purchased them and the response is always the same – they simply just last a lot longer than the traditional timber ones, they will never rot or degrade and more importantly they don’t require any on-going maintenance.

And in the same vein, there are the same amount of schools I visit where I see trim trail playground equipment covered in out-of-bounds hazard tape as per below.

And when you ask why this is, again the answer is pretty standard. The play equipment is no longer safe because it is starting to rot or the rounded timber has cracked so badly that the children are getting loads of splinters or are putting their fingers into the gaps. So it falls upon the site manager to constantly maintain it or as in a lot of cases, the trim trail equipment is simply condemned because it is beyond repair or is simply uneconomic to do so.

So I got to thinking that if you consider the above, why not therefore manufacture and sell trim trail recycled plastic play equipment made out this wonderful material? It has so many benefits by doing so and these are some of them:

  • It requires very little or nil maintenance as recycled plastic does not rot, corrode or decay
  • It does not splinter or have “shakes” like traditional timber does when it naturally dries out
  • It is very hard to vandalise (less flammable than timber) and graffiti and is resistant to algae and insects
  • It is hard wearing and durable – you can expect a lifetime five times than that of timber
  • UV resistant and available in different colours
  • It is eco friendly as it manufactured 100% out of recycled plastic bottles

But of course, it is a little bit more expensive than traditional timber but if you factor in the above benefits, it actually represents very good value for money especially when you consider its extended lifespan and reduced (none) on-going maintenance costs.

Our recycled plastic trim trail play equipment range incorporates stepping stones, log weavers, balance beams, net climbers, wobbly log bridges, A frame climbers and chin up bars.

For further information, please call the Hideout House Company on 01865 858982 or email: info@hideouthouse.com

www.hideouthouse.com

Outdoor Classroom at Ashford Prep School

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enclosed outdoor classrooms

6m octagonal outdoor classroom

We have just installed a 6m octagonal outdoor classroom building at Ashford Prep School in Kent who are absolutely delighted with it. It is going to be used for a whole host of applications and since its installation earlier this month, the school’s PTA have now agreed to turn into a truly eco classroom. We are therefore going to add a water butt and roof guttering system for rainwater harvesting and install a special renewable energy monitoring system.

This will consist of an energy monitoring board attached to a post-mounted wind turbine and solar panel system so that the children can see how much energy is being created by the wind and sun and thanks to an in-built datalogger, they can also register and monitor this information for outdoor studies and eco sustainability lessons. The monitoring board also has two outdoor power sockets so that the energy created by the wind turbine and solar panel is stored into a battery and by means of an inverter is then turned into usable electricity – so green power in its purest form! Children can therefore appreciate how renewable energy can be created & harnessed and used for appliances such as laptops, mobile phones, visualisers etc

Renewable energy system with sensory light panel

Renewable energy system with sensory light panel

Eco classrooms from the Hideout House Company are proving to be very popular especially by those schools who have an Eco Schools Accreditation.

For further information, please contact the Hideout House Company on 01865 858982 or email info@hideouthouse.com

www.hideouthouse.com

 

 

How Eco Is Your Eco Classroom Really?

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It certainly can be an easy boast or claim about your classroom’s eco credentials and there are some buildings out which claim to be eco friendly simply because they are well insulated (which is stipulated  anyway in building regs if so required) and thereby thermally efficient. Or the timber has some sort of FSC or PEFC accreditation.

Well, we believe that eco classrooms should not only be environmentally friendly, it should also teach children about environmental and sustainability issues as well. If you are going to teach a child something, it is always better if you can actually demonstrate it and they to be a part of the educational process. And that is why we have developed our eco classrooms to feature the following:

  • Living sedum roofs to attract bio-diversity
  • Renewable energy systems such as educational wind turbine/solar panel/energy monitoring board with power points & special dynamo bikes which the children have to pedal to create power
  • Roof guttering and water butt systems for rainwater harvesting
  • Low energy lighting and solar pipes
  • External planters for growing food
  • Mini greenhouses and storage units
  • Mini dipping ponds

The whole Eco Schools programme is now becoming popular in UK schools and indeed there are now nearly 18,000 registered eco schools in England alone. We have successfully installed these type of buildings in eco schools throughout the UK in various different formats – fully enclosed and insulated buildings or as outdoor classrooms. For further details on these buildings, please visit

www.hideouthouse.com

The Green Room

The Benefits of Eco Classrooms

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There are indeed some very good reasons why your school should consider buying an eco classroom building as opposed to a more traditional design and specification. Below we list the principle reasons for going down the eco design route:

  • It goes without saying of course that eco classrooms are environmentally friendly and are doing their bit to keep the environment in check. Quite simply, you are protecting the planet for future generations to enjoy
  • Reduced costs – energy efficient and sustainable buildings reduce overall energy bills
  • With modular builds, you save on transport and on-site build costs and therefore reduce the CO2 footprint of costly distribution and production methods
  • Your school can promote environmental awareness to the school and local community as well as connecting children with nature
  • Use the building as an educational resource so that children can actually be part of the sustainability knowledge process
  • They are usually manufactured from eco friendly materials – accredited sustainable timber from managed plantations, living sedum roofs, rainwater harvesting systems and sun pipes
  • They can use renewable energy sources for heating and lighting (solar panels, wind turbines and air source heat pumps)
  • Eco classrooms can help towards your Eco Schools accreditations as they compliment some of the major eco school topics – RENEWABLE ENERGY, BIO-DIVERSITY, SCHOOL GROUNDS, RE-CYCLING & GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP
  • There could be some grants available too which will support the funding of these types of classroom buildings

For further information, please visit

The Hideout House Company Ltd

www.hideouthouse.com

eco outdoor classroom

eco outdoor classroom

The Green Room

 

 

Why You Should Buy School Playground Equipment Made From Recycled Plastic

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If you are looking to replace your existing school playground equipment or indeed are looking to purchase some additional items, then we would advise you to strongly consider buying it out of recycled plastic as opposed to traditional timber. I was at a school just last week who are wanting to replace some existing adventure trim trail items because they have split very badly and when the site manager tried to move them found out that they were rotten to the core below ground level. And this is equipment which was only installed less than five years ago!

Nowadays you will probably see in school playgrounds a lot of outdoor picnic tables made from recycled plastic and there are some very good reasons why. We love selling it because it is of course very eco friendly due to the fact that it is made out of 100% recycled materials – mainly plastic bottles. But aside from saving the planet, these are the other principal benefits of recycled plastic play equipment:

Maintenance free as it doesn’t ever rot, corrode or splinter like traditional timber

Crack proof and does not have “shakes” (like traditional timber)

Eco friendly as it is made out of recycled plastic bottles and is fully recyclable at the end of its use

UV resistant with little colour loss due to direct sunlight

Resistant to graffiti, insects and algae

Less flammable than traditional timber and resistant to most chemicals

Hard wearing and exceptionally durable – typically lasting five times longer than timber and does not degrade with age

With budgets tighter than ever, schools have to ensure that they are getting value for money but a quality product too which is going to last. That is why we strongly believe that in the non too distant future school playground equipment made out of recycled plastic will be the standard specification.

For further details, please visit

The Hideout House Company

www.hideouthouse.com

Recyled plastic Trim trail

Recyled plastic Trim trail

What Exactly Are Eco Classrooms?

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The Green Room

These type of eco friendly buildings are becoming ever more popular in schools but what exactly are they? And why are they different from standard classroom buildings?

One could simply argue that any building is now eco friendly as current building methods and building regulations stipulate that they have to be thermally efficient on account of their insulation properties (indeed for larger buildings you have to submit SBEM  – simplified building energy model – calculations which essentially provide for an analysis of building energy consumption and Co2 emission rates). If they are timber clad, you would also need to ensure that the original source of the timber supply is either FSC or PEFC accredited or certified – basically this ensures that for every tree cut down, another one is planted.

But you can go a whole step further in the design of eco classrooms to ensure they are truly eco friendly:

*Sedum Living Roofs – these can usually only be applied to flat or shallow mono pitch roofs because they do not work with steep roof pitches. And they tend to be more expensive than other roof systems as the building has to be structurally  “beefed up” in order to take the extra weight of the sedum and its underlays. BUT they do naturally absorb CO2 from the atmosphere, sedum is a natural insulator and they attract all sorts of bio-diversity

*Renewable Energy – dependent upon the power load required for your classroom building, you can use solar panels and wind turbines to provide some if not all of the electricity. Usually however these type of systems provide for say 40% of the overall electricity pull with the rest coming directly from the grid. However you can also earn money from solar panel systems by feeding electricity back into the grid as well as benefitting from the lower energy bills. We have also worked on projects where some of the power is generated by children pedalling special dynamo bikes!

*Air source heat pumps – act both as a combined space heating and air conditioning unit but they produce less C02 than traditional systems because air is the main component being used which of course is a renewable resource

*Guttering and water butts – these can be used as rainwater harvesting systems

*LED lighting and sun pipes in the roof to allow in extra natural light

And of course the added benefit is that these type of eco classrooms teach the children about environmental issues and demonstrate how we can lead more of a sustainable life.

For more information, please contact Simon Fearnehough on 01865 858982 or email simon@hideouthouse.com

or simply visit

The Hideout House Company Ltd

 

the eco centre

the eco classroom