Diamond Isle Sculptured Glass

EFFICIENT FURNACE
      The furnace funs on natural gas and I designed it to be very efficient.  It is insulated with the most up to date materials and powered by a modern burner designed and supplied by MRJ Furnaces .
      Unlike most glassworks I generally use the furnace and not a glory hole to reheat the piece. This saves a great deal of energy and stops the studio from cooking! The furnace is on all the time, day and night – to turn it off at the end of the day and then fire it up in the morning would not only waste large amounts of gas, it would also stress the structure of the furnace through all the sudden shrinking & expanding. Every night I turn the furnace down a little and between me and two  assistants we aim to use it every day of the week.
      In the Summer of 2008 I had a stainless steel heat exchanger fitted to the flue to preheat the air before it goes into the burner. This has resulted in the furnace using about 25% less gass!

CAR FREE SCHEME
We are also part of this great scheme which encourages customers to leave their cars at home and use other forms of transport.  We are happy to give 10% discount to any customer who arrives by puplic transport or bicycle!  A valid bus ticket or bike helmet would need to be shown.

GALLERY HEATED BY  FLUE!
With the help of my father in law we built a heat exchanger off the main flue and this recycles the final waste heat from the furnace to power a large six foot radiator which we sourced from a scrap yard. This helps to keep the gallery end of the studio good and hot during the winter! 

LEAD FREE GLASS
The glass I use is soda based and does not contain any lead. I am therefore not releasing any lead into the air during melting and into the water system during the grinding processes.

RECYCLING ALL THE GLASS
I also recycle all the left over glass called cullet.  Many glassworks throw their coloured cullet away. We carefully separate all the colours, tub them up and twice a year,  melt all green bits left over, then all the blue etc. These mixes create unique colours that are perfect for the recycled glass awards and cast fossils. 

PACKAGING
Luckily working on a large site like this, some packaging materials can be recycled. This includes boxes, bubble wrap, flowpack and polystyrene sheets. The gift boxes I buy are made from a cardboard which is made from sustainable forests that are replanted to replace trees that are cut down.   We are now placing the majority of purchases in paper bags and only using plastic for heavier items.  Some of our packaging is now sourced from Green Island Supplies.

SUPPORTING CHARITIES - OVER £3000 RAISED SO FAR!
Instead of a demonstration fee, we suggest people make a small donation to one of three charities:  
£1726 has been donated to GIFT TO NATURE which helps  Island conservation projects. Visit their website to see what work they do - gifttonature.org.uk
Our KIDS ARC FOUNDATION donation box has now collected £1280.97.  The money will help this international charity help orphaned young children from Tailand.  
The IOW Earl Mountbatten Hospice's Go Yellow Day helped raise £42.
Barnardos have also recently received a £50 donation.
We have also donated £100 towards the Africa Children's Development Trust.