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

[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.