Green or just plain cheap

[chickenfeet]

Last year we started to make a concerted effort to use less electricity. I can't really say this was entirely due to concern for polar bears and still less was it due to any remorse at the thought of London or New York being swamped by rising sea levels. No, it was because we were really broke. That said, our electricity consumption (kWh) for the last six months has been only 56% of our usage in the equivalent period in 2005/6. I reckon that's pretty good going.

Comments

[ziactrice.livejournal.com]

Wow. What measures have paid off the best, do you think?

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

1. Being quite sparing with the heat and AC
2. Not using the tumble dryer

[shezan.livejournal.com]

Yes, I meant to ask what you did that was different. I find it difficult to stay too cool in winter, but I certainly don't have lights in any room that I'm not in, or in the hallway, etc. I also do not leave TVs, VCRs etc in Veille (watch? what's the English for being able to click the remote & awaken your TV?) Mode because apparently this can use up 8% to 10% of your electricity bill in one year.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

watch? what's the English for being able to click the remote & awaken your TV?

"Sleep" mode usually

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

or "stand by"

[shezan.livejournal.com]

Aaargh. I knew both, must be tired. Anyway, that's supposed to eat up more ekeltricity than one would think.

[lemur-catta.livejournal.com]

You'd be amazed at how little you need to turn on the heat in the winter if you wear a parka, gloves and hat indoors ;)
Its been easy for us to give up the dryer since, with the air so dry in winter things line dry on the shower rod overnight.
I'm not sure how we'll fare in summer.

[shezan.livejournal.com]

And the gloves are SO convenient to type in!

When I bought my flat, there was this supposedly heating cupboard in the bathroom that I thought was brilliant, except it, er, never heated up (although it made a horrible Spitfire-engine noise.) But it's got rods to hang stuff from so that it doesn't wrinkle, and now I don't even think or replacing it with a working tumble-dryer.

[lemur-catta.livejournal.com]

And mittens are even more fun :)
Actually, I cut the fingers of a pair of gloves so I could use my trackpad.

Only thing I miss about the tumble dryer was the lint trap. We are clean, dry and energy efficient but very linty.

[shezan.livejournal.com]

Oh good lord you really lowered the heating enough to wear a coat and gloves AT HOME?

I would die a horrible death. I have gone to week-ends in English country houses clutching my hot-water bottle and begging for a clandestine two-bar heater. (I have actually refused invitations in the country in winter because the nice people who asked me believe central heating is for wusses.) And you live in CANADA!

*shivers*

[lemur-catta.livejournal.com]

And I grew up in Northern California where we needed neither heating nor air conditioners. I'm nothing if not adaptable but, I keep telling myself I'm spending next winter in India

[lakme.livejournal.com]

We've done some things to cut our energy use too. We have no control over the heat in here, but we've switched the computer monitor, the lightbulbs, and have bought a tabletop convection oven that uses way less power. We also bought a new flat screen TV-I think Mike wanted that for more reasons than energy consumption concerns, but never mind ;-)

We have also noticed a decrease in use of energy.

[itchyfidget.livejournal.com]

Very laudible! We need to think about doing the same - our power bills are astronomical. Unfortunately this is partly because energy prices have risen hugely in the UK over the last few years, and also because we buy from a "green energy" company and they tend to be more expensive.

We don't leave devices on standby; we disconnect phone chargers, etc when they're not being used; we've *no* heating at the moment because the one heater we do actually use is broken (though we have been using a fan heater when it gets a bit nippy); we have "night storage" that supposedly heats water overnight when it's cheaper; we bought an energy-efficient washing machine ...

However, there are a number of ways in which we probably aren't doing the best we can, and I'm trying to work through those at the moment, because the latest electricity bill scared me. We run up to three computers regularly, we cook two to three meals a day on the stove (in winter, anyway), we charge phones and ipods regularly.

Mr Itchy will be very interested to hear the argument for purchasing a flat-screen TV as being based in environmental/financial concerns ;)

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

Energy prices have soared here too. At the rate we were consuming a couple of years ago we'd be running $400/month in the winter.

[a-d-medievalist.livejournal.com]

I really should do that.

[albionwood.livejournal.com]

That's great! And it points out how much more energy savings are still possible with simple changes. Many people point to the large increase in energy efficiency that has already occurred, and either state or imply that all the low-hanging fruit has been picked, and therefore conservation isn't going to help much now.

Unfortunately for us personally, it is true - we bottomed out three years ago when we lived in a super-insulated cabin. The house we're in now is not as energy-efficient. We're lucky the climate is (normally) very mild.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

I suspect our apartment is not at all energy efficient. It uses electric baseboard heaters in silly locations and I think the insulation could be much better. I'm sure if the building had been built with greater attention to energy efficiency we could get our consumption down much further.