Tuesday 10 November 2009

Still using less electricity and happy about it!

In August I blogged about our rudimentary efforts to use less electricity - not purely out of a desire to be greener, but because it's damn expensive and reducing the bill is worthwhile.

We've had another bill so I thought I'd post a quick update. It also stops my blog looking quite so neglected.


We have averaged 15.5 units a day over this quarter, compared to 22.8 for the same quarter last year, saving about 7.3 units a day. There were 82 days in last quarter, so that means 598.6 units saved at 13.11p (ignoring tax) - so thats £78.50ish in theory. The real saving was just under £70 on the bill, because the number of days differed.

Still not bad. I'm very happy with saving almost 30% on our electric bill!

Whats next?

The kettle needs replacing, so I'm hunting for the most eco-friendly (yet practical/functional) one I can find within a reasonable budget (upto about £30 - I use the kettle A LOT so I figure its worth it) - recommendations welcome.

We are also going to update our heating soon, getting rid of the old power-gobbling wall mounted ones in favour of some low energy flat panels (or similar). Then it's onto the white goods - the fridge and freezer are not currently very energy efficient... can't afford to change those until we've saved more on the bills though!

1 comments:

Kev said...

Cool stuff Matt :)
One thing you haven't mentioned though is the offsetting of the gizmos/gadgets you bought to help reduce the energy expenditure.
I suspect it will take 1-2 years at least to start noticing any real value changes.

I reckon you should look at a small wind turbine for small things like boiling the kettle or charging things up. It's free energy source (well until the utility companies start saying you can't have free wind lol ;) )

One thing is for sure though, the Utility companies are making a packet!