Lightening Online

With all the excitement of Blog Action Day on Monday, I didn’t get around to posting this weeks results for our electricity challenge. Okay, it wasn’t so much that I didn’t get “around” to it as I was putting it off. I didn’t want this post coming *too* close to my blog action day post.

Why? Ummm…… well, we didn’t do so well this week.

I was expecting our usage to be a bit higher this week. After all, with school holidays we were ALL home ALL day for the WHOLE week. That has to make a difference right? Plus we had oil column heaters running in both bedrooms for a couple of nights when 1 child had croup and 1 had asthma.

BUT, things were even WORSE than I expected. *sob* *sob*

Our average daily usage for the week ended up being 22.9kWh!!!! I was kind of hoping for 20 or lower. Our goal is 15 but we only seem to achieve that if we’re not home!!!!

On a brighter note, we only used 3.8kWh’s of hot water this week - for the WHOLE week!!! Which works out to 0.54kWh’s per day. Obviously we’re getting a bit more solar power from the sun as the days get longer. And perhaps the shorter shower times are slowly getting there. Oh, that’s right, we didn’t bath our kids for the whole week. LOL. Just kidding!

So, I’ve been doing a bit of research into how much electricity certain appliances use. I found an excellent resource online by clicking on one of my google adsense links. Um ah…. you’re not supposed to do that (click on your own links). It’s okay, they don’t pay you if you click on them but you’re still not supposed to click on them which is a pain in the you know where because there have been several I wanted to click on. Apparently you can get some kind of preview mode for checking out the links yourself but it was all a bit technical for me. *sigh*

Anyway, back onto what I learnt in my research.

Our oil filled column heaters are costing us around 23c per hour to run. So for a 12 hour night it’s costing us $2.76 per night (per room) to keep warm!!!! Interestingly enough, our small fan heater costs the same amount to run. I wouldn’t leave that going in the kids rooms but I had always thought the oil heaters were cheaper to run than fan heaters. It would appear not.

Obviously these figures are only a rough guide and the heater clicks on and off through the night so it’s unlikely it is costing us quite that much per night. Still food for thought. Something we really need to do before next winter is purchase Econo-Heat wall panels for the kids bedrooms. In contrast they cost around 8c per hour or around 96c for a 12 hour night to run. I think they would be safer as well as they don’t get quite as hot to touch.

I also found out that a single electric blanket costs around 1c per hour to run. How’s that for economical? Now I have the perfect excuse to spend the day in bed during winter - I’m being “economical”. LOL.

Well, more interesting results with our power usage this week.

Our average daily usage was 11.27kWh, down from 16.27kWh last week.

Hot water average daily usage was 1.97kWh, down from 3.3kWh the week before.

BUT, it wasn’t as low as I thought it might have been. Not that I had a figure in my head but I just expected a more dramatic drop than that with us being away for 5/7 days this week.

I did a bit of a rough calculation and subtracted 2 days at last weeks average daily usage then divided the remaining figure by 5. My theory being that this should give me a rough idea of what our household uses when nobody is home. Did you follow all that? LOL.

So, from my figurings, we used around 9.27kWh per day (give or take) when we weren’t here. I didn’t expect it to be quite that high.

One of these days I’ll remember to take a reading before we leave so I can get a more accurate figure of what electricity is used when no-one is home.

DH did point out to me this morning that he has an small old fridge running in the shed which would use some extra power over and above “normal” household use. It holds his vaccines and vitamins etc for the sheep. So not all of our usage is household.

I have found some shower timers online. There’s a store called neco that have lots of great things for saving power, water and generally helping out the environment. If you want to check them out there is a link in my sidebar. In the interests of full disclosure, I don’t get paid for you to click that link. They do give me 5% of anything you might spend there though (if you click through that link). If you’d rather they didn’t, that’s fine. I just figured since I wanted to mention them anyway, I’d put in an affiliate link to make them easier to find. Any money is a bonus and not what I want this blog to be about.

They also have an interesting kit called “clear comfort insulation” where you create a similar effect over your windows to double glazing and therefore reduce the transfer of heat and cold through the glass. I just need to get DH to have a look at how they’re installed as you need to create a gap between the glass and this film. It would be fantastic though - I’d love to add it to the kids bedroom windows. I’m sure it would keep their rooms warmer in the winter - especially at night.

My biggest problem at the moment is what I want to buy first. LOL. Sounds very “un simple living” doesn’t it? But I do love the fact that many of their products pay for themselves over time in reduced running cost. Plus of course, the benefits to our environment.

So another week down. Four weeks to go in this challenge.

Did I tell you that my 9 year old wants to use any money saved to buy a Playstation 2? LOL. I think he figures that’s a much better use of the money than wasting it on electricity we don’t even need to be using! At least he’s also decided that a Playstation 2 is better value for money than a Playstation 3!

Well, this is really our first “normal” week since we began our electricity challenge. We had one week where we were all away for a couple of days, one week where my parents were here and one week where DH and I were ill and the kids were away a couple of days.

So, how did we go this week without all the changes to our “normal” routine?

Our average daily usage for general power was 16.27kWh (down from 18.45 in our test week).

Hot water average daily usage was 3.3kWh (down from 3.8 in our test week).

So we’re heading in the right direction. Ooh, we did have some shearing this week so the farm used a little bit more power than a “regular” week - I don’t imagine it used a lot of power, but would have used some.

On Saturday DH did some switching around of light bulbs. He found 2 energy saver ones in the cupboard (gee, they’re really doing a good job in there lol) and he’s put lower wattage ones in some of the lamps that won’t take energy saver ones. Go DH!!!!

I haven’t had a chance to do any more auditing of our electricity usage this week but I will get back to that eventually. I’m finding it quite an interesting process.

There’ll be quite a few days in the next fortnight where we won’t be home but I will keep recording our usage regardless. More to keep us all in the right frame of mind than anything (I had to turn both the kids bedroom lights off this morning when I got up ).

Woo Hoo! We had a better week this week.

Here’s a quick summary of our average daily usage over the past 4 weeks:

Wk1 18.45
Wk2 15.68
Wk3 19.01
Wk4 14.45

I am SO excited!!!! Can’t wait until the kids get home and see this! I slept in a bit this morning (which was much needed) so the reading wasn’t done before they left for school.

To be honest, I was expecting it to be a little lower this week. There were a few days when the kids weren’t home due to DH and I both being sick. I didn’t do any baking and there were a few less meals cooked.

Then again, there were other factors due to us being ill that could have affected things in the opposite direction. Like DH being home more than usual and the TV running more. We *could* have resorted to using the dryer with all the washing we had but didn’t.

So, all in all, I’m just feeling darn proud of our efforts!

I got up this morning to no-one being home (DH and DS out checking sheep) and as I walked through the house there was only 1 light I needed to turn off!!!! That is a minor miracle because usually there are half a dozen. LOL.

Hot Water usage is also looking good:

Wk1 3.8
Wk2 2.6
Wk3 3.4
Wk4 2.1

I intend to continue on with my “electricity audit” this week. It’ll be interesting to see what else I can learn about our electricity usage.

Yesterday I began my more in-depth investigations of our power usage. I’ve decided to break it down into manageable pieces.

Step 1 - a check on what light bulbs we are currently using.

I counted up a total of 16 lights and 3 lamps in our home. These 19 sources of light carry a total of 26 light bulbs.

The bathroom light is a heat lamp and has 2 specialised light bulbs and 2 heat lamp bulbs (total of 4 globes).

One of the outside lights has been replaced by 2 spotlight bulbs.

In the rest of the lights we have:

* 4 standard fluorescent lights
* 6 compact fluorescent globes
* 9 standard globes

It actually surprised me to find that we are still using 9 standard globes in our home. We have been transferring over to the compact fluorescent globes but as DH is the one that usually changes the light globes, I hadn’t really realised how many are still to go.

ACTION PLAN

1. Buy some more CF globes so that we can replace those that are standard globes. Now that they are available in various shapes and sizes I want to retry them in our touch lamps as well (they longer style don’t fit). I did some playing around on http://www.ergon.com.au/ (thanks to Ali who mentioned them in a recent post) and I’m estimating we could save ourselves around $100 a year simply by doing that. The 6 that we have already replaced are saving us $60-$80 a year (these are based on average figures so only a very approximate figure).

2. I noticed that currently we have 1 of the specialised light globes in our bathroom not working. Since both globes turn on when you switch on the light, I’m thinking we may as well keep them this way as I’m assuming we only use half the amount of power. I also need to investigate these light bulbs a bit more to determine if there is an alternative that uses less power available.

3. The spotlights outside are great when the kids want to play outside after dark. It’s especially handy when we have friends over and they all want to go outside (when it’s not too cold). The drawback is that they use a lot of power and we have to switch them on for quite a long time if we’re going out and returning after dark. DH has spotted a set of solar powered sensor lights in our local hardware store. They cost $100 so I’m keeping an eye on them and if they come on sale we’ll buy a set to put up in the carport (where we currently have no power). I think this would eliminate the need to leave an outside light on when we’re going to be out late.

4. Our lounge room light takes 3 globes. We currently have CF globes in them but I would like to experiment with a lower wattage as they seem quite bright and we rarely need a very bright light in the lounge room. The good thing is, if I purchase some lower wattage globes first, we can always use them in rooms like the toilet where a really bright light really isn’t necessary, if they turn out to be too dull in the lounge room.

So there you have it. It feels really good to have developed some kind of action plan. I figure every tiny baby step is a step in the right direction. And if everyone were to take 1 small step a week, imagine the difference all of those added together would make.

If anyone has come across any other solutions to reducing electricity usage through lighting - I would love to hear them.

P.S. On the topic of showering. Did you know that if you have 5 people in your household and each of you takes 5 minutes to shower, you could save yourselves around $300 a year by switching from a regular shower head (using 23 litres of water a minute) to a water saving shower head (using 9 litres of water a minute). The water saving shower heads do take a bit of getting used to but I now LOVE ours. At first it feels like a lot less water, but the pressure of the water you do get is really good. You need to commit yourself to a couple of weeks trial to allow yourself to get used to the difference. I think the benefits from both electricity and water usage are well worth the effort.

If you’d like to do your own calculations for potential savings in replacing light bulbs and showerheads click here and then click on “Energy Saving Calculator”.

Oh oh! Our electricity usage is heading in the WRONG direction!!!! Hmmmm…… The kids aren’t back from Granny’s yet but they’re going to be a bit disappointed to find that our efforts are not paying off - YET.

This week we’ve used 133.1 units (I’m guessing they’re kWh’s).

Compare that to 109.8 units last week (with no one in the house for 2 of the days) and 129.2 in the first week I measured. Basically our average daily usage compared to our first “test” week has risen by around 0.5 of a unit. Not heaps but still a step in the wrong direction. I think I’ll try and do a bit of an “audit” of sorts room by room this week and see what I can come up with.

Hot Water on the other hand HAS improved which is surprising considering we’ve had more overcast days. So I think we’re doing better with our shower lengths. We’ve dropped from 26.6 units the first week to 23.7 units this week.

Speaking of shower lengths. My attempts to find a shower timer this week were met with some interesting responses. Some store people had never even HEARD of them. Most people looked at us as if we’d grown 2 heads. Like “what on earth do you want one of those for?” Isn’t it sad in this day and age with all the publicity about water shortages that people aren’t more aware of things like this?

With our lack of rainfall these past couple of months, we’re facing the same dilemma of water shortages we were facing this time last year. Not enough to get us through the summer. So our shower length issues are now more about water than they are about electricity.

I have found some shower timers online. I’m just tossing up on what the best thing to do is. I do have a regular timer than I could put in the bathroom to use. Whether DS would remember to set it before he gets in the shower is debatable. Then I have the choice of a sand timer style for the shower or an electronic timer. The sand timer is 1/4 of the cost of the electronic timer and won’t require batteries at any time. The electronic timer allows us to set in our times (rather than a set 4 minutes) and may be more appealing to DS and therefore he’s more likely to use it. So I’m still undecided.

One thing I have been doing is trying to take note of how long I’m in the shower for. The other day it took me 3 minutes from when I left our room to when I returned. So that’s 3 minutes to get the shower going, undress, shower and dry off (our room is right next door to the bathroom). I didn’t have to wash my hair though and I was trying to be *quick*. I’m not sure how long I would *usually* stay in the shower for.

How many people know how long they shower for? What would you consider a quick shower length, a regular shower length and a luxury shower length to be?

I’ve added a poll to the blog about regular shower lengths. You’ll find it on the right hand side of my blog - so everybody please add your shower lengths (I’ve not done a poll before but I’m assuming your response will be anonymous). It’ll be interesting to see what results we come up with.

Well we’re now at the completion of our first week of the electricity challenge.

The figures look great. Our average daily usage has dropped from 18.45 to 15.68 and average daily hot water usage has dropped from 3.8 to 2.6.

Unfortunately, we were also away for 2 days last week. LOL. So that would account for the drop in usage.

The kids came with me this morning to see where the electricity meter was and how I read it which was great (they were actually ready for school early - amazing!).

In my mind, this challenge is as much about raising our awareness of not wasting electricity as anything and I think it’ll take a while before the kids form new habits of turning lights off and opening their curtains etc. I’m hoping by filling in our form each week, it’ll serve as a regular reminder to them (without me specifically nagging them).

At this stage I’ve set our form up to run the challenge for 10 weeks. So we’ll see what happens over that time frame.

For the form I used a basic table in Word format with the headings running across the top line:

Date : Last week : Today : Week’s Usage : Average Daily Usage : Last Week Hot Water : Today Hot Water : Week’s Usage : Average Daily Usage

It would be so wonderful if we *could* get our average daily usage down to around the 15kWh per day. Not sure how realistic that is. Whatever improvements we make will be good though.

Today is the first day of our electricity challenge.

Meter readings last Monday were 21322.8 for regular electricity and 3230.2 for hot water.

Meter readings today are 21452.0 for regular electricity and 3256.8 for hot water.

That makes our usage for the week:

Regular - 129.2 or 18.45 units/day average (3.69 units per day per person)

Hot Water - 26.6 or 3.8 units/day average (0.76 units per day per person)

That’s already a LOT better than our last bill but a dramatic drop was expected. This is our much lower usage time of year than winter.

I’m going to attempt to read the meter around 8am on Monday’s for continuity. I’m not sure what time last Monday I read the meter so we’re not exact here but close enough.

One of the things I’d like to get done over the next day or so is compile a list of suggestions for things the kids can do to reduce our electricity usage.

Here’s what I’ve thought of so far:

* Turn off lights if you’re the last person to leave a room.

* Open your bedroom curtains instead of using the light.

* Dress for the weather (If you’re cold - add jumper, socks, beanie etc. If you’re hot - find shorts, t-shirt etc).

* Wear clothing (not underwear) more than once if it’s not dirty. Hang or fold it when you take it off so it doesn’t get creased. This will reduce the use of the washing machine and iron.

* Every time we open the fridge door, cold air escapes and the fridge motor has to run to cool it down again. The less amount of time it is open, the less cold air will escape. Try to decide what you want before you open the fridge. Avoid standing there staring and letting all the cold air escape.

* Watch less TV. Go outside instead of turning the TV on. Play a game, do a puzzle or find something to do other than watch TV. When you do watch TV - make sure you turn it off as soon as you’re finished.

* Keep your showers short so we don’t use as much hot water.

If anyone has any other ideas I can add to this list for the kids, please let me know in the comments section.

Also, can anyone tell me what kind of store might stock those timers that are waterproof? I’d like to put one in our shower so DS can time his showers - he seems to get in a daydream in the shower.

So, the challenge is on! It’ll be interesting to see what the coming weeks bring.