Month: December 2018

Free marketing avenues for Kapiti non-profits

It’s amazing to me how much free marketing is available to non-profits. Before I started working for a radio station in Kapiti, I had simply no idea just how much attention a non-profit organisation or event could get with virtually no marketing budget. 

Below are some ideas of what is available locally in Kapiti:

Radio Community Notices


Community notices play on radio stations all across Kapiti. With Mediaworks, the same community notice can play across all seven local stations, at no charge, provided that the event is non-profit or otherwise meets the station criteria. This means potentially tens of thousands of listeners for no cost. In addition to Mediaworks, there is also NZME, not to mention the local station Beach FM. It’s worth getting in touch with these stations prior to any local event. 

Newspaper 


A similar set up is available through local newspapers in Kapiti. Many local news outlets offer a free notice in their pages to non-profit organisations and events. The circulation on these papers is often very wide, and the local notices will be read by a large number of readers.


Local Facebook Pages


There are a number of town and regional Facebook pages that are free to post on, and sometimes encourage promotion not just for non-profits but also for businesses. A little bit of buzz on these pages can generate a lot of traffic. In Kapiti, for instance, there is the Kapiti Coast Page, and in Otaki we also have the Sunny Otaki page. Both of these pages are free to post on and will allow promotion (at the time of writing) for non-profit events.


Radio Facebook Pages


Radio stations are often looking for local content and will sometimes plug a non-profit event or promotion. Often the local stations have thousands of likes and the post will be seen by several hundred people at least. Contact the content organiser for the media outlet to see if you can get a post on their page. 


I wrote this article because I’ve seen a number of events take place throughout the year that seemed to me to be under-promoted. Meanwhile there are radio stations and local media outlets actively scouring for content, who often would be very happy to talk with you. These are just a few ways in which you can boost attendance for a local non-profit event by hundreds of people with less than an hour of actual work involved. 

What is the ROI of a rice cooker (solar powered) with calculators

So my solar powered slow cooker diet is going well, with loads and loads of stress free and delicious food experiments under way, utilising great local organic Kapiti produce. I wanted to take a further step in the sustainability direction, so I bought myself a rice cooker to work along with the solar panels.
Continue reading “What is the ROI of a rice cooker (solar powered) with calculators”

Do HRV systems dehumidify a living environment?

We’ve installed the HRV system and it’s actually doing a pretty bang up job of mitigating our heat consumption, so much so that in recent weeks our motel administration block ICP has been a net exporter of renewable energy to the grid. <p><br><!–more–>

I am not happy with HRV, however, because one thing they told me would happen, didn’t happen. When the sales agent called on me, he explained to me that not only did the HRV system circulate warm air from the roof into the living area, but it also made the living area easier to warm by removing moisture from the air. <p><br>

I was interested in this idea and decided to put it to the test. How much moisture did the HRV system remove from the air? And how much would the process lead to the speeding up of heating within the living environment?<p><br>

To test this, I went out and bought a hygrometer before the HRV installation took place. A hygrometer measures the level of humidity. I also did a test during the evening to run the heater until it had caused an increase in the temperature by two degrees, and to time how long it took to do this (around 30 minutes).<p><br>

Prior to the installation, I got a humidity reading of 61. Based on my discussion with the sales rep, I was expecting the humidity to drop to between 30 and 40 post installation. I would then be able to retest the heater experiment in the reduced moisture environment and calculate how much actual time the moisture levels saved us in energy in heating the environment. <p><br>

As it turned out, the HRV system had no impact on moisture levels at all. And why would it? HRV does not dehumidify an environment; it only ventilates it. The moisture readings after the installation were the same as before, except on a couple of readings where they were slightly higher. <p><br>

Because of this, the secondary test was effectively redundant. Because HRV does not dehumidify the living environment, only ventilates it, it logically follows that energy expenditure to heat the environment would be the same prior to installation as post installation. <p><br>

So the sales rep received one very firmly worded email. I do not know whether this is an isolated incident, or a misleading marketing claim that HRV makes regularly, but it’s very disappointing, because that false claim was a core part of our decision to adopt the system. <p><br>

Apart from this infuriating lie, I so far can only recommend the HRV system. It has actually made a substantial difference to our average energy consumption at this time of year, and looks to be a good investment, despite the high-ish filter replacement costs. In particular, it reduces our energy consumption during early evening, which is a peak time where solar is not available, meaning that it has tipped the balance for our motel administration block to become a net exporter of renewable energy to the grid.