With the recent increases in energy prices more people have started to do more active energy management and generate electricity or heat energy. Having talked to many people who shared their knowledge with me I thought it would be a good idea to share my experience and invite you do the same.
We like our lighting but recessed halogen lamps @ 50 watts a go meant one room would be drawing 150 watts minimum. Rather than changing the fittings we decided to re-lamp with low energy lights. You can find bulbs that will fit most fittings. Ikea is the cheapest and Homebase has the best range but you can order slightly cheaper on line.
Thanks to a conversation with my neighbour the times for off peak electricity is 1am to 8am. Off peak electricity is less than half the price with most energy providers. It is the surplus energy power stations produce to keep ticking over so sold cheaper. We have now utilised it by putting the washing machine, dryer and dish washer on time clocks. The cheapest I’ve found are Tesco’s for £3.75p easy and simple to use. We are currently being told that standby mode is very wasteful of energy and you should switch off appliances at the wall. Many manufacturers have signed up to the 1 watt program and modern appliances may already be consuming this amount in standby mode. However we can’t easily get to wall sockets because of the furniture layout so I brought a couple of smart socket blocks £30 each from Maplin. One socket is a master and when it is drawing a low amount (standby mode) it cuts power to the other appliances. So when our television is switched off, off goes the video, digital box and dvd player. I’ve also put rechargeable things on time clocks like mobile phone chargers. To check that we are actually making a difference I purchased for £7.50 a power monitor (Maplins) to gauge how much energy was actually being consumed.
Finally we changed to a sealed system and new 95% efficient boiler.
What about the Energy savings? Compared for the same period last year we used 60% of the gas and 80% of the electricity so we must be doing something right but only a full year will tell and it has been mild this winter.
Credits: Article by Tim Aikin Winter 2007 |
