End of year review

I can't believe we've got to the end of the Carbon Watchers pilot scheme already!

It's only been within the past 6 weeks we've really got a grasp of reducing our household electricity consumption and we've made a massive difference.

it's all since DH put in the tankless water heater. Our daily usage has reduced from 17 kwh per day back in February to 9 kwh for the past month. I'm over the moon with that reduction. It isn't solely because of the tankless water heater, it's because that one change increased my awareness about how we use electricity.

I started looking at how I cook and realised I was leaving things on the hob. I'd bring them to the boil, and leave them to simmer for ages because I would get side tracked. now I'm using a timer and I can't tell you how quickly 10 minutes disappears on this darn computer....

We're also turning everything off at night; all that is running is the fridges and freezer and one lightbulb for DD. The lightbulb is an LED, so that uses next to nothing.

I'm batch cooking more and using the residual heat from the oven to do things like roast onions for using in soups and curries later in the week. That means I don't need to use the hob to fry onions.

And now we have the woodburner going, I'm using it to cook on, keep things warm and pre heat water before boiling in the kettle - it's all making a difference.

I've just redone my carbon footprint. Back in January, when I started the plan; we used 4.72 tonnes, split up as follows:

Home 0.44
Appliances 2.53
Travel 1.75

In June, half way through I had 5.01 split up as follows:

Home 0.51
Appliances 2.75
Travel 1.75

Today, I had 3.9 tonnes as follows:

Home 0.45
Appliances 1.32
Travel 2.13

I'm not quite sure what's happened with the travel except that I might have under estimated the number of miles I do at the beginning of the year. I was surprised to see it's between 8 and 9000 per year; I thought it was around 6000. but DD was going to a club every day of the week at one point, so that involved a lot of driving around.

Plus, because we bought a car with better fuel consumption, we had three holidays away this year - normally we have just 1 holiday - a bit counter productive really, but there we are!
I'm really pleased with the appliances dropping lower and this must be down to the tankless water heater and replacing all the lightbulbs with LEDs.

We've also put in a couple of solar panels and had double glazing installed and we're currently STILL waiting for a more efficient wood burner to be installed.

All in all we've done loads when I look back over the year. I remember listing all our goals on the side of this blog and feeling they were well out of reach. It looks like we've completed about 80% of them, so I'm really pleased with that. There is always room for improvement, so we'll be contuntally monitoring things and seeing where we can reduce our carbon footprint further.

Our tankless water heater!

I'm really excited! DH got an old shower from a friend, attached it to the outside of the kitchen wall, has installed a new tap on the kitchen sink (which he also got for free) and we now have hot water for washing up without needing to put the immersion heater on!

I am hopeful this will enable us to reduce our electricity by a considerable amount. At the moment we have the immersion heater on for 1 hour a day and I feel that often a lot of that heat is wasted.

We only have a couple of baths per week, so for 5 days of the week we are heating up an entire tank of water for a couple bowls of washing up water. I know I could use the kettle to heat the water, but I do like to have hot water for hand washing - especially for DD as she plays with all sorts of unmentionable things.

We're going to see how we get on with it for a month or so. If it works out really well we will consider investing in a 'real' tankless water heater which we can use for the bath too. The investment will be around £200 but I have a feeling the payback will be quick.

So I'm off to bed and will be switching the immersion heater off until we need a bath - yipee!

Now you're wondering from looking at the photo how I get the water out of the tap, right? There is nothing to turn! Well my creative, genius man has installed a foot switch LOL!

It's tiny piece of wood attached to the kick board and I push my foot against it. Et voila - instant hot water!

He did this because I often have dirty hands from kneading sticky dough or have greasy hands from dealing with butter or oil. Now I don't need to touch the tap to turn it on!

October;s theme - bye bye standby

The theme for October is to turn appliances off standby.

Apparently People in Britain waste more than £740 million worth of electricity each year leaving appliances on standby.

This equates to the average UK household spending up to 8% of their electricity bill by leaving the red light on at night!

The average home has 12 appliances on standby or on charge.

I've got back into good habits lately with turning off the computer peripherals (laser printer and router) before bed. I had been leaving these on.

This week we set up a power down in the bedroom for our monitor, DVD player and surround sound system. This means by turning off the DVD player, it automatically switches off the other appliances.

We have a CD, amp and pre amp in the lounge, but I'm good at switching those off the wall already and we only use it about once a week anyway.

The mobile phone is only charged about once a month as I never use it and I keep it on trickle charge in the car.

Just out of interest; I've also started using my energy monitor again to see what appliances and gadgets are using the most electricity.

• My laptop is using 1/2 kw per day from 7am to 10pm - about 6p.

• The kettle uses 0.9p to boil the water I need for one drink and 2.4p to boil a full kettle so it really does make a difference to boil only the water you need!

• My dehydrator uses 32p to dry a complete load of food - about 2 kws for 8 hours.

• My mobile phone didn't cost anything LOL! I guess it's either a tiny amount or it was already charged more than I thought when I did it this week; I'll have to do it again and see.

I really think we now turn everything off standby, but I will make the effort this month to spend 5 minutes walking around the house before bed to check.

Theme for September - Do you really need to travel?

This month's theme is about road travel again.

We've already looked at ways to drive more efficiently. I've been keeping a log of how much fuel we put in the car and how many miles we do on a spread sheet and it's showing our average fuel consumption to be 42 mpg. We have an onboard caluclator thing, but I've been keeping a record of how much diesel we put in and how many miles we get from it - I'm not sure which is the most accurate.

For September, we're encouraged to consider our road transport both in terms of

• Personal travel
• The things we buy

22% of the UK's carbon emissions come from road transport so looking at these two ideas can help cut the country's overall emissions.

Now I have to confess that we do 'pop out' more than we should. We changed our car to a more fuel efficient one, but didn't change our habits much; in fact I think we saw it as a green light (boom boom) to be a little more careless with car use.

I talked to DH about this the other day and so far I've managed to walk to the shops once, instead of getting the car out. I have other issues that prevent me walking as much as I might, but I can build on taking one trip a month to the local shop or Post Office.

We combine errands wherever we can, but our downfall is the occasional takeaway, DVD rental or beer - those are the three things we get the car out for, but forward planning and more self discipline could stop all of that.

We do however, 'shop local' in the grand scheme of things. I'm amazed how many of my friends travel to Gloucester to shop when we have so many great places in a more immediate area. We have a butcher and library 3 miles away and a co-op and Lidls about 6 miles away. Our farm shop is about 5 miles away and we have an orchard 2 miles down the road. We're very lucky and supporting the orchard and farm shop also means we reduce our food miles because it's grown on site.

In addition we grow some of our own food - this year it was tomatoes, courgettes, beans, sweetcorn, potatoes, beetroot, salad leaves, kale, cucumber, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, pumpkins and we grow our own herbs.

I am vegetarian and eat a lot of rice and lentils - flown in from India and turkey no doubt. I think it's easier for a meat eater to eat locally; we can buy organic meat which is reared a few miles away and get local eggs and cheese (neither of which I eat).

I've been thinking about going back to supermarket delivery - that is a greener way to shop because a full supermarket truck keeps about 20 cars off the road. The thing is we're not very good at organising and shopping for an entire week.

This is all sounding like excuses, but I just know my limitations!

I travel into Gloucester once a month for a healing treatment, and we end up with a long list of things to do while we are there, like catching up with my friend who lives over there and going to shops to get things we cannot buy locally. I also pick up a suma order from Gloucester, and try and combine it all on the same day.

I think we do pretty well, but there is always room for improvement. We do all our leisure activities locally; most of it involves walking outside the back door into the fields. And this term, we've cut our daughter's clubs and activities from one every day to three per week so that will help reduce our car use. There is also talk of a local brownies group which means she can leave the one we drive to and join one within walking distance.

I haven't been taking readings for long enough to see our yearly mileage, but it looks like it's between 500 and 800 miles per month or 6000 - 9600 per year. I'm sure that is below 'average'.

Theme for August - Eco driving

I tend to find ''eco driving' a bit of a conflict of terms, but in this instance it means getting more miles to the gallon and thus reducing your carbon footprint.

We traded our thirsty 4x4 for an MPV this year. The 4x4 gave us 23 mpg. Our people carrier gives us around 55mpg; so we've already made a massive difference to our fuel consumption.

Tips for eco driving include:

Before you drive

• De-clutter your boot and remove the roof rack if you don’t need it
• Plan your trip: try and combine several short trips into one longer one
• Time your trip: avoid peak times if you can and check local radio for delays
• If you’re going somewhere unfamiliar plan the route to avoid detours
• Arrange to share the journey if possible – more “people miles” per gallon

How to drive smarter:

• Drive off from cold, just don’t rev the engine
• Change up the gears early - between 2,000 and 2,500 rpm
• Drive in the highest gear possible without labouring the engine
• Keep your distance from the car in front and look as far ahead as possible to avoid unnecessary braking
• Step off the accelerator as early as possible (but remain in gear) when slowing down or driving downhill
• Avoid excessive speed: at 70 mph a car uses approximately 10% more fuel than at 50 mph
• Park so you can drive straight off again

Lucie, the lady running Carbon Watchers, reckons her fuel consumption has changed from 45 - 48 mpg since using these tips.

It is reckoned that smarter driving or eco-driving could save you up to £220 and half a tonne of carbon per year.

There are a couple more tips that I am aware of; getting regular services on the car and checking the tyre pressure is correct.

I've now signed up for the Energy Saving Trust MPG calculator; so I'll be interested to hear what that comes up with.
We only have one car and there are always the three of us in it, we combine errands, plus we only do around 6000 miles per year. So there is probably little else we can do to change our figure on this month's challenge.

Theme for July - Reducing water consumption

We're back onto water again! In April we looked at capturing free water, such as installing rain butts.

We now have 4 in the garden, all full thanks for the recent rain. We're considering using them to flush the toilet, but until the weather improves for hubby to be able to get safely on the roof, that won't be happening.

This month we had to focus on the water we pay for i.e the stuff that comes out of our taps and look at ways we could reduce waste.

Tips included:

1. Catch it: always put the plug in or a bowl underneath when you are running the tap.
2. Re-use it: unless the water is really greasy and dirty you can usually re-use it for something, the garden is always good but other ideas include rinsing the dirt off the car before washing or giving your unwanted drinking water to animal.
3. Cleanest first: really a variation on re-using, if you wash the cleanest things first you can re-use the water on the dirtier bits after, at least for a pre-wash. Works for dishes, surfaces, floors, cars, dogs – everything!

We don't have a water meter here and I've been advised by the water board not to fit one as my usage means my water bill would increase!

However, I believe that over the next few years, water meters will be compulsory, so now is a good time to get into some better habits. Apparently, you can have a meter fitted and if you find it is not cost effective you can go back to unmetered; as long as you let the water company know within 12 months.

I must admit, I was quite shocked to think we used so much, but we have old toilets which require a lot of flush water, a mud magnet for a child (baths, washing) and DH does love to run that tap when he brushes his teeth.

This week my daughter was lying in the bath musing over whether a bath was a waste of water. Pouring all that water down the drain seems like a terrible waste and I'd love some way to capture it easily. I have to admit, if it requires much work it will be something I won't do.

it would be great to have that water captured in a tank, but with a downstairs bathroom we don't have much force of gravity.

Still, it made for an interesting home education experiment - how long does it take a dripping tap to fill a washing up bowl of water :)

We discovered too that the average person in the UK uses 150 litres of water per day. That's just astonishing...

I tried a couple of calculators recommended by Carbon Watchers and got the following results:

99 litres per day from the BBC water calculator (it didn't ask for drinking and eating requirements, which I thought was very strange!)

Over on the Thames water calculator, we just had a reading of 'low' for our water usage; it gave little information and I wouldn't recommend it.

So anyway, what can we do. Well, I don't really know. We already share bathwater; DD will bath after me or I'll share it with DH. Yes we *could* fit aerated taps, but I really don't think that will happen. One thing that might make a difference is putting a shower over the bath - I might be more inclined to use it as I ALWAYS take baths. I hate our shower room; it's manky and needs refiting, so I can't bring myself to go in there! Lame I know, but there we are; that is my eco confession!

Regarding washing I only ever wash with full loads and I simply do not agree that a dishwasher is more efficient than washing by hand. It depends on how you wash, surely? If I wash up twice a day using a washing up bowl each time, then that is only 18 litres of water. I'm sure a dishwasher would use more than that. plus I can use my water on the plants, whereas dishwashing water ends up down the drain. Plus most of the time I wash up without washing up liquid; unless things are greasy there is no need for a product, which I would then need to rinse off.

So I'm yet to be convinced on this dishwashing vs handwashing arguement.

There is an intriguing statistic on the Carbon Watchers site, which I don't actually understand:

The average family's annual water use releases as much CO2 as two transatlantic flights, according to Waterwise.

What on earth does that mean?

Anyway, we were sent a showerbob which is a timer for the shower; I must admit I've been using it for soft boiled eggs as it's three minutes LOL!

Double glazing

We're almost there with making a decision about double glazing!

We have had four quotes now, all from small, local firms rather than large corporations.

I feel a bit uneasy about the whole UPVC idea; I know it has its issues with the environment, but also, heating your home, only to have that heat leak outside is not a good move either.

We cannot afford hard wood frames, which would be my preference, so this is a time when we will have to compromise.

The one company I feel best about has a recycling policy at least - the glass is all recycled, but not the wooden frames as they have to be careful of lead paint.
Our house was build in 1936, so underneath all the modern paint will be some lead somewhere. Normally, I would burn the wood, at least to get something back from it; but I won't be burning it with the lead paint on it. So sadly, it will end up in a skip and eventually in landfill where it will contaminate the earth :(

I also learned that the manufacturer of PVC windows uses lead to stop discolouration! This will be phased out in 2012 and two of the companies we have had quotes from already use lead-free PVC.

There is so much to learn about making ethical decisions and it still seems to be a case of compromise no matter which way you look!

Grants for wood burner

I asked about grants to install a more fuel efficient wood burner. Here is the answer from Carbon Watchers. It's interesting; I never knew that pellet stoves were funded under renewable energy, but log burners aren't. I need to look into this and decide on our best move:

"In terms of grant help, you could get something towards a pellet stove, but not a replacement log burner.

I know this presents difficulties with the cost of fuel (and availability, to a certain extent) but for some reason they don’t fund log burners as a renewable energy thing (harder to calculate the carbon savings, maybe?).

If you went for a pellet stove you could get £1000 from Gloucestershire County Council (administered by SWEA, if you want further info please see our SWEA website.

You could also get £600 for a standalone pellet stove, or £1500 if connected to radiators/back boiler from the Low Carbon Buildings Programme.

For general info on this option please see our factsheet on wood burners and pellet stoves.

As a recipient of DLA you also qualify for the central government grant “Warm Front”, regardless of your age or income.
They only fund a limited range of measures, and only do heating works when what you’ve got is broken, so unfortunately I doubt they would replace your log burner for something that’s more efficient.

However, if you find you need a replacement hot water cylinder they may well fund this so it could be worth calling them now, explaining the situation and letting them decide whether to send an assessor out. Contact Warm Front for further details or call 0800 316 2805."

Electricity usage review

Here's a funky table that my Carbon Watcher person made for me, along with some information and a graph of my electricity usage since December 2008.

I have to admit, my mind has been on other things lately, but with the 1st of a new month upon us, I'm going to take another reading today and see where we can cut back further:

Date	Elec read	kWh	kWh/day	tCO2
09/12/2008	96207	640	20	0.344
01/01/2009	96661	806	26	0.433
01/02/2009	97467	472	17	0.253
01/03/2009	97939	525	17	0.282
01/04/2009	98464	463	15	0.249
01/05/2009	98927	503	16	0.270
01/06/2009	99430	646	18	0.347
06/07/2009	77
Total		4055		2.177

The kWh for December are pro rata as there was nearly a third of a month “missing” but the kWh per day is real. I’ve put this in to help you see whether your consumption is really increasing, as feared. 1 kWh difference per day is the equivalent of having a 1 bar electric fire running for an hour, or a 60W light bulb on for 16 hours every day - so quite a lot of energy really! If you’re already pretty on top of your electricity use (and I think you are) I think you’re right to query the immersion heater.

Don’t be disheartened about the increase in electricity usage – it’s only a 5% variance and as your footprint was tiny to start with it was always going to be harder to see any savings made.

Since the beginning of Carbon Watchers in December 2009 you’ve been sending us
monthly readings from your electricity meter. From this we have calculated
your carbon emissions over the last seven months as follows:
•
You’ve used 4,055 kWh of electricity, which equates to 2.2 tonnes of carbon
emissions. That’s enough to fill 12 double-decker buses! To offset this amount of carbon you’d
need to plant 9 trees and maintain this number to keep the carbon locked away.
The graph below shows the pattern of your carbon emissions from electricity:

Update half way through

This morning I received a 'half way through' letter from the Gloucestershire Carbon Watchers team.

It reminded me of the things I said I could do, so now it's time to review! We were also asked to redo our Act On Co2 carbon footprint calculator to see how we are doing.

Unfortunately, my carbon footprint is going UP! I don't understand it really.

In January, when I started the plan; we used 4.72 tonnes, split up as follows:

Home 0.44
Appliances 2.53
Travel 1.75

This morning I had 5.01 split up as follows:

Home 0.51
Appliances 2.75
Travel 1.75

The things I said I would look into at the beginning of the year were:

• purchase another water butt - DONE; we now have 4 altogether
• Look into cost of dimmable low energy bulbs - DONE; we've decided to use LED and have a small solar panel to run them
• Get another quote for double glazing - Will get DH to do that today and hopefully we'll be able to make a decision on whether to go ahead with it
• Consider selling one car - We don't use it anyway, so although it should be sold it's not contributing to our carbon footprint
• Draught proofing back door - Glos Carbon Watchers have just offered us some free draft proofing, so we'll take them up on the offer
• Consider changing wood burner for more efficient model - we need to get some quotes on this and look into a Warm Front Grant
• Look into costs for installing Eco Dan air source heat pump - need to get on with this
• Read electricity meter once a month - I need to get back into DAILY readings as I'm shocked at our usage. I've just gone through the last 5 months and found the following:

FEB 472
MAR 525
APR 463
MAY 503
JUNE 647

I know I've got slack with taking readings and DH has been leaving the printer and router on all night. In addition I think the thermostat has gone in the hot water tank as the water is scalding. My challenge is that DH LIKES the really hot water so never does anything about it or perceives this as anything 'wrong' **sigh**

What I'm going to do is drag out the OWL meter and the Kill-o-watt and start using it again to see if I can find any other culprits. I'm annoyed because we are now using solar energy for some of our lighting and was kind of hoping to see some changes. I knew they wouldn't be huge, but just a little would have been nice.

Here's my todo list then

• power down router and printer at night
• take daily meter readings
• use OWL and kill-a-watt
• consider bikes for short journeys
• Reconsider tankless water heater for kitchen sink
• Get service done on the car
  
• Check tyre pressure on car fortnightly
• Complete LED lighting around the home

Theme for June - reducing waste at source

I haven't got time to write much today, so I'm copying some information from the latest I received from Gloucestershire carbon watchers on the theme for June:

This month we’re completing our look at the “three Rs” of reduce, re-use, recycle with the hardest – but also the most effective – reducing waste at source.

Ideas include:

• Borrowing instead of buying through local libraries

• Borrow, hire, buy second hand or make your own (if you can) instead of buying new stuff

• Buy the most durable items you can afford. Items that last may become family heirlooms or priceless antiques!
  

• Regular cleaning, care and maintenance can extend the life of many products.

• Buy things with simple mechanisms that may be easily repaired, for example mechanical rather than electronic
  

• As well as avoiding disposable products, check that items you buy do not rely on disposable parts, for example can the cartridges for a new printer be refilled?
  

• Shop for food with a meal plan in mind: over a third of the food bought in the UK ends up in the bin. Visit www.lovefoodhatewaste.com for tips.

Lots to think about then and plenty of ideas to get us started. I'll look forward to this month's challenge!

No idea what has happened to the text - I'm not very good with blogger!

Water conservation and solar charger

Back in April, we focused on reducing water usage. You might remember that there was little I felt I could do for that as well. We are not on a meter, so I had no way of knowing if we used less or not. Hubby has a penchant for leaving the water running when brushing his teeth and flushing the toilet every time he has a pee.

Anyway, we have repaired two water butts AND bought our fourth! I'm really pleased and this week, they all filled well from the rain we had. So now I have four full rain barrels and I feel very abundant!

While we were buying our barrel (a 200 litre recycled barbecue sauce container no less!) we priced up some large water tanks. We are toying with the idea of making our own 'grey water' system for the downstairs toilet.

We have a flat roof, which would be ideal for strengthening (it needs repairing anyway, so we could combine jobs). Then we could put a big tank on the roof and gravity feed the cistern. Hubby used to be a water treatment engineer, so I'm in good hands and trust him to figure it out.

I was horrified to realise, that unless I have a bath or use the washing machine, my biggest use of water is flushing the toilet. That just seems wrong when people in the world do not have access to safe drinking water.

In addition, we had a really dry time here during April and the beginning of May. All the barrels were empty and we had planted all our seeds. So we made use of our local stream! It was a great exercise for our daughter; having to go out first thing to gather a big bucket of water. She enjoyed it, and it was a great way to introduce her to the idea that not all people are as fortunate as us.

My other piece of news is that I WON the reuse competition! My idea of using an old coffee pot, piercing a hole in the lid and using it to store string without it getting tangled won me a Freeloader Solar charger for the car. We can use it for the mobile phone and Tom Tom, which is great and means I don't have to charge these items up from mains electricity in the house. Invariably the chargers get left on once the item is charged up and apparently this can waste quite a lot of electricity.

I'm just familiarising myself with the Freeloader, so I'll write a full review when I've had chance to test everything out.

May - Reduce carbon emissions by car sharing

Goodness, I'm late! It's nearly the end of the month already, so it's time to report on May's focus for Carbon Watchers.

This month it was entitled "Don't drive one in five" with the reminder that if everyone found another way to travel to work or school just one day a week, there would be 20% less traffic on the roads.

Makes perfect sense to me.

Unfortunately, there was little I could do for this challenge.

First, we don't do a school or work run. When we did a school run, it was impossible to get anyone to car share with us and it was very frustrating. Four families from our village drove to a school in the next village - we all HAD to drive, it was a main road and notorious for speeding lorries. All the parents wanted to take their own kids to school every day. Sometimes we would even be on the road in a convoy and it used to infuriate me!

Second, we try and give our neighbours a lift if we are going anywhere. We have a family across the road without a car and with lots of children, so we help out if we can. Our neighbour on the other side is an elderly lady who never learned to drive, so we take her to the shops too, if she wants us to.

Third, I am unable to use public transport, use a bike or walk far because I have anxiety attacks. Basically, having my car provides a 'quick getaway' if I feel threatened.

I have to accept that this is the way things are for us right now.

However, our yearly mileage is below average. We do between 6 and 7,000 miles per year. I think the average is 12,000.

I would like to walk or cycle more and it's something I'm building up to, but it's very difficult right now. So we do what we can - only go out when necessary, combine errands, take our neighbours with us, and have traded our thirsty 4x4 for a car which gives us between 45 and 60 miles to the gallon.

There are various car share schemes which links drivers and passengers to share regular or occasional journey. These are great for those who can take advantage of them and ideal in an office situation where everyone starts and ends their day at the same time.

In Gloucestershire, we have Car Share Gloucestershire Across the UK there are various schemes, such as Car Share , National car share and Lift Share.

Theme for the month - April showers!

I'm really pleased that I have the April challenge through already for Gloucestershire Carbon watchers. Before the challenge to the month has come half way through the month which doesn't leave me long to focus on things and look at where I could make some changes.

This month, we're looking at water and are encouraged to make the most of the upcoming April showers. Apparently, we could all fill around 450 water butts per year in the UK with the average amount of rainfall which falls in our gardens!

Well, we have three water butts already, and I'm going to go out and check them later on today. I know one is sound, as I used it the other day, but I need to check the integrity of the others. I'd like a couple more water butts, but I'm not sure if I have anywhere to put them - so I need to take a walk around the garden and do some planning.

We're also asked to check any leaks in the house (we don't have any as drips and leaks drive me insane!) but I am without a kitchen tap - it has a spanner on it! I would love to get that fixed this month, although, to be honest, it's only a cosmetic thing.

One thing DH is really bad at is running the tap while he brushes his teeth. I've chatted to him about this, but he refuses to budge, so I'll just have to put up with it. Unfortunately, he doesn't have the incentive to cut back because we are not on a meter. I'm sure it would be a different story if he were paying for every drop! Still, he is amazing with most of my hippy ideas, so I won't complain.

One project we have for a long term goal is to gather rainwater from our bathroom roof (its flat) and use it to flush the toilet. another thing I could do is capture my bath water and use it to water the plants. If I do this, I could make up for DH's tooth brushing antics :D

We have 3 baths a week, which isn't excessive for a family of 3, but I have plans to put a shower over the bath to make showering an option too.

I only use the washing machine when full to capacity and it's an economy machine. I know it still uses loads, but it uses less than some.

I think there are many ways in which we could reduce our water usage and I'll see what I can implement this month. of course, I won't actually be able to tell from a water meter or anything, but at least I know i'll be doing my bit.

Carbon watchers for March - Reuse

The theme for March is reuse.
Gloucestershire Carbon watchers did things a little differently by launching this month's theme as a competition. The winner of the best reuse idea will win a solar powered charger and two runners up will get some microfibre cleaning cloths, which don't require any chemical detergents.

About 70% of household waste can be recycled or composted, but not everything. Some items of waste are made of more than one material, which means it takes so much energy to recycle that it outweighs the benefits. For example, a crisp packet can be made of plastic film and paper, which cannot be easily separated.

By re-using as many items of 'waste' before recycling or disposing, it helps us reduce the amount of 'real' or 'residual' rubbish we create.

We do quite a lot of reuse in our household, but really we try to stop at the 'reduce' point if possible.

Some of my suggestions included

An old coffee jar has a ball of string placed inside it. The lid has a hole made in it, large enough for the string to be fed through and this prevents string becoming a tangled mess in the drawer - you can just pull through the amount you want and cut it off.

We buy honey in bulk - in 7lb containers which have a lid. My daughter uses these to store pens and arts and craft supplies.

I never buy any jiffy bags, bubble wrap or envelopes because I carefully open all post and reuse them. In fact I've had to give away two large boxes on freecycle because I gathered so much stuff. So I've saved things from the landfill AND saved money!

we have a tree house made from 'gash wood'. All of it scraps left over from building projects which would otherwise have gone into the skip. When our neighbour saw us building it, he gave us the final piece - a corrugated sheet of metal made the perfect roof!

I kept all the annoying plastic ties for our daughter's Christmas presents and these are being used as either cable ties around the house, to help train roses and will be used for this years tomato plants.

All glass jars are kept for jam and chutney making later in the year. many are freecycled too because people ask for them.

We occasionally get a mange tout or mini sweetcorn craving. I try to buy local, seasonal produce, but sometimes you want a treat. These come in plastic trays, so we reuse these trays as drip trays for houseplants.

We've found that the plastic lids from a particular brand of filter coffee are the right size for using as open tin covers - the sort of covers you buy for putting on top of half a tin of cat food to keep it fresh.

I reuse yogurt pots for freezing home made soup and storing leftovers in the fridge,

We use candle stubs for lighting the fire. Only a little bit at a time LOL!

I never buy clingflim; I reuse things in the house for wrapping sandwiches such as cereal pack inners, old bread bags, ryvita packets - these all last a long time before finally falling apart.

Pringles containers are used for pen pots by my daughter.

Old towels are cut up and made into flannels or used as spill cloths in the kitchen to save buying kitchen towel.

Hubby never gets rid of an outworn electrical applliance without salvaging stainless steel screws, flexes, the fuse, the plug and any other useful parts.

We have various odd things in the garden as planters - an old belfast sink that was dumped in my old house, old saucepans with missing handles, rusty bakeware and anything else like that gets a few seeds planted in it.

There have been some great suggestions from other people too, so I'm wishing everyone luck and hoping we can all inspire one another to think before we bin :)

Feb electricity usage

I'm still a bit stunned. Yesterday I spent an hour creating a spreadsheet for my electricity usage. I'm not very adept at using spreadsheets, so I was tearing my hair out by the end of it. Anyway, I know have one that works - go me!

That's the good news.

The bad news is that even with trying to reduce our usage as much as possible over the month we have used 524 kwh, which equates to £64.75
We have a capped rate, and I think it's cheap (11p inclu tax per unit plus 13p daily standing order). The fluctuation of prices means I feel better on a capped tariff, but maybe it's time to shop around. Perhaps I'd be better off paying more and not having a daily standing charge. I find the whole thing a minefield to be honest which leads to procrastination.

My goal is to join a green provider, but there is no way I can finance that at the moment. We'd have to get our usage right down because they are generally more expensive. (in my limited knowledge)

Feb update

I'm going to do a catch up with February - nothing like the first day of March to be doing that!

Regarding electricity; I've been taking daily readings and it has become apparent that a tankless water heater will be our next major job. We are currently having the immersion on for one hour in the morning and then not putting it on again unless someone wants a bath. In the summer I hope to get a tankless water heater installed, but if not, I think we can leave the immersion off altogether unless taking a bath. we can wash the dishes in water boiled in the kettle.

Water. I made a call to Severn Trent about reducing our bills. I thought we could get a discount because we are on benefit. Apparently we can if we have a child with a medially diagnosed illness; so I got that totally wrong. He took me through a quick guestimate online and told me that we were better off sticking with what we had rather than switching to a meter. We currently pay about £220 a year for water and he reckoned that on a meter we would spend over £300.

I have to admit, I was shocked at that. There are only three of us and I don't think we use a lot. I told him we had 3-4 baths per week, 1 shower, 3 loads of washing, no dishwasher, no hose pipes and we flushed the toilet 9 times a day.
I read somewhere that within the next few years everyone will have to switch to a meter. I think this is a great idea for conservation, but it might not be for our pocket! We have resources though. We have tentatively talked in the past about strengthening the bathroom roof (it's downstairs and a flat roof) and installing 3 water butts up there to flush the toilet and feed the washing machine.
We also have a well under our dining room floor; DH used to be a water treatment engineer, so he knows what to do to sink a pump and test the water for potential use. We also have a spring 4 miles away, so we could start using that for drinking water.

We had a visit from someone from GLos Carbon Watchers to create us an 'action plan'. I was disappointed with the visit. Don't get me wrong, the lady was lovely and I spent a happy hour chatting with her, but I did not leave our meeting with any useful information or a 'plan' other than the one I have come up with myself. She took details of things she should already have details of, such as my meter readings and the actions given by the ACTon and Energy Saving Trust home energy report. All of these were sent to the office over a month ago

I'm kind of hoping someone will come in and have this wealth of information about things I know nothing about. Maybe I'm too good at researching!

She couldn't give me any advice about an efficient woodburner, there are no grants for double glazing - which seems crazy, and I was given a load of glossy leaflets and two thermometers for the house, although I told her we already had thermometers and we needn't worry about the house getting too hot as it rarely gets over 20 degrees anyway.

So I received no helpful information and ended up with some glossy papers and thermometers to recycle. (I'm asking myself what is in the thermometers; is there anything bad in there? )

The lady did indicate to me that of the 40 households taking part in the pilot scheme, she was basically 'talking to the converted'. So I think if you had no knowledge at all, this would be a great scheme to get involved with. But if you already know your energy efficient bulbs from your incandescent and know that your immersion and heating is likely to use the most energy, you're basically on your way to reducing your footprint anyway.

I'm just finding the whole thing is lacking clarity and organisation. I'm sure these people are trying their best, but I get disjointed emails, there is nothing happening on the forum, it seems that messages don't get shared in the office and the monthly postcards stating the focus for that month arrive in the middle of the month!
Still, I guess it's the pilot scheme and until you jump in feet first there is no way to find out. You can't learn unless you make mistakes, right!?

Last two meter readings

My head is swimming with figures! We've kept to putting the immersion on for one hour in the morning and not having it on again.

DH has just washed up and the water is certainly warm enough for every day washing up. It wouldn't be any good for a greasy meal, but that's only once a week on a Sunday anyway. For that, we can boil up the kettle.

There is a significant drop in our readings so far.

Yesterday's was 97609 (which was 19 - I used the washing machine twice and did a fair amount of cooking)
Today's is 97721 (which is just 12 units) and DH has just put the water on for a bath, so tomorrow's will be higher.

A tankless water heater is definitely the way forward. Although I have to admit, I'm still a bit perplexed. Today I made rice pudding on the hob, which cooked for 1 1/2 hours. It's a real minefield. I have a friend's OWL monitor, but it's next to useless as it doesn't give you the reading you want to know. It shows you that having the shower on, the kettle boiling and the hob on is using 70p an hour, but it doesn't tell you a cumulative total such as HOW MUCH the 5 minute shower costs.

I have a plug in kill-a-watt, but that is limited as you can only put it into things with a socket. Items like the immersion or cooker that don't have a plug, you can't use it on and these are the things I want to know most about! In addition, the plugs for the fridge and freezers are behind them, so I can't get to the sockets.

I thought it would be much more straight forward than this, but I guess there are some unknowns like refrigeration cutting in and out..............

ho hum. 12 units per day is very encouraging. And you know what? As I look up, I see DH has left two lights on when he went out the room. grrrr. Some habits die hard!

Interesting day

Right, in my quest for the dastardly mystery electric user, I turned off the immersion for 24 hours. I wanted to try and recapture yesterday's electricity usage to get a feel for what was going on, but I had to use the oven for 1 1/2 hours and one of the hobs for quite a long time too.

I checked the meter at the beginning of lunch prep and afterwards, and had used 2 1/2 units. That's a rough guide as we had computers and refrigeration running too, but at least it gave us an idea.

We've had no baths (obviously!), no washing machine, and tried to keep everything else as 'normal' as possible. I've been keeping water warm on top of the wood burner which, along with warm water kept in the hot water tank has been fine for washing up. We wouldn't be able to wash up after a greasy meal with that, but for every day food it was fine.

In addition, it took about 20 seconds to boil a mug of water for tea and coffee by using pre-heated from the woodburner poured into the kettle. Every little bit helps, right?

Annnnnyway, after all that, living as frugally as possible for 24 hours, turning off unnecessary lights and keeping things to a bare minimum, we have used 13 units. Our reading is now 97590

Shocking huhn? Two hours of water a day has been costing us a LOT of money.

You'll see over to the right my goals point towards tankless water heaters. Now we have decided that these are first on the list on necessity. Hot water gets used every day, whereas heating is only necessary for half of the year.

We've discussed that now we are going to have the water coming on for an hour in the mornings and if we want a bath in the evening, we boost it for another hour later in the day. I have to admit I LIKE hot water en tap (boom boom) all the time. It's great that I can have a bath whenever I choose and if Dd gets herself in a mess then I can clean her up. But it's coming at a huge financial and environmental cost, so it's time to change our ways.

No baths!

I'm like a woman possessed! Since our ridiculous meter reading I've been taking daily readings. Sunday was a 'usual Sunday' - this involves use of two ovens for making Sunday dinner, we had the washing machine going and I think DH had a bath. We used 26 units.

Yesterday I put my frugal head on. I went round the house like the light police, challenging anyone who left one on. I didn't use the washing machine, didn't put the oven on, stopped people having baths and we STILL used 18 units.

Now I don't know about you, but I think that is a lot. I used the hob really efficiently too. I've figured that all electric hobs are a big waste of money. You pay for heating the room. So I bought things to the boil, put a well fitting lid on and left convection to do its work. I also insisted that we ate things like soup; so nothing that actually needed 'cooking' only things that needed warming through.

That meant that 18 units was warming up food and paying for the lighting and computers. And the immersion heater that comes on for an hour, twice a day.

When I took the reading last night and saw how much we had still got through I decided to switch the immersion off. It will remain off for 24 hours until I do the next reading. I'm going to use everything else in exactly the same way for the day and take a look at the difference. There is no reason why this should not drop us into single figures; surely.

But now I'm concerned about our refrigeration costs. We have one under counter fridge and one full size fridge, plus one large freezer. The two large appliances are in a room with no heating; a bit like a garage, so I would expect them to be using very little juice. You just never know though.

This is a real mystery and one which is driving me crazy..........

Just for the record, the readings are:
Friday 6th 97512
Saturday 7th 97533 (21 units)
Sunday 8th 97559 (26 units)
Monday 9th 97577 (18 units)

All readings are taken 9pm

Meter reading post

After my big shock with the meter reading yesterday, I've decided to to daily meter readings until I can find out what is going on.

First thing this morning I put on three layers of clothes and I have to confess I haven't even needed to think about putting an electric heater on. With snow on the ground and only a bit of poor quality damp wood for company, the house is not getting above 18 degrees at the moment.

I like to pretend I am toughened up to it, but actually I'm not. I really feel it.

Except today.

I've learned the simple truth; which I am almost embarrassed to write. I've not been dressing appropriately for the outdoor temperature. Gosh, I can hear my mother now :D

I hate layers of clothes. I really do! I hate things around my wrists. I like to write, cook, I express myself with my hands, I like to stroke the cat, to hold my daughter and I just loathe three thick layers around my arms. I'm always pushing my sleeves up out of the way.

Still, today I have worm several layers and have not thought about supplementing the heating. I've been plenty warm enough.

I've just taken another reading, as this was the time I took it yesterday and it's 97487, which means we have used 20 units in 24 hours. It's still more than I would like to be getting through, but it must be better than what we were using (183 units a week)

Last night I had a bath, but I haven't used the oven today (I have used the hob) or the washing machine, so I feel it is rather a lot.

I feel now that tankless water heaters are the way forward. Immersion heaters seem to be such a waste. Ours is well insulated, but it is not an efficient way of heating water. The oven and washing machine are A rated, so not much I can do there except use the wood burner more for cooking. Tbh though, it's not reaching a particularly high temperature; it will take forever to cook a pan of rice!

I always keep a pot of water on there for making herbal teas throughout the day, but it's been tepid today. Ewwww!

Other than that we run computers and a router all day, but I'm not sure what else. Certainly nothing that produces heat which are the things that use up the juice.

I'll have to investigate further..........

This month's meter reading

We're taking a meter reading on the first day of the month which I forgot to post up. It's 97394. Now that is very scary and very high. I need to double check these figures because, oh my, that's just massive.

That means an average of 183 units per week for the past month. Which is unheard of!

My goal is under 100 units a week, and I have to confess I haven't been watching things. I used to take daily readings and got so fed up of it. Then I took weekly and recently I've got right out of the habit.

ouch! That really hurts!

I've just checked right now and we've used 73 units since I took that reading, which was three days ago. It's an electric heater we have; I'm sure of it.

Right, that's an extra jumper from now on and no electric heating. AND a daily meter reading.

I've had an extra duvet on the bed and I'm ok with that; but it's when I get dressed in the mornings. The fire has gone down, despite being kept in all night and it's just so cold to get dressed. I need to get over myself and leave that heater off.
I put it on for ten minutes before bed too and in the afternoons when I go up for a rest. Hmmm, now I think about it; I'll put it on if I go upstairs to make a phonecall too.

Ho hum.

There is nothing quite like a shock to warm you up!

I've just had the email from Gloucestershire Carbon Watchers about our challenge for this month.

I quote from the mail:

Our theme for February is using your heating system to best effect. It’s really worth getting to grips with this as about two thirds of the carbon emissions from our homes are due to heating.

And that's it! I assume there will be more information to come, as this in itself isn't exactly helpful.

We run a wood burner, which never gets too hot so there is no need for thermostatic radiator valves. It's unusual for the radiators to get more than hand hot.

We have a thermometer in the living space (kitchen, dining room and conservatory - all open plan) and we try and keep it at 20. It's around 16 when we get up in the mornings and by mid morning is about 20 degrees).

Any more than 21 degrees and we're peeling clothes off which is counter-productive in my mind. It's amazing what you get used too. I bake now whenever I go to my parent's house and I used to think it was cold when I lived there!

Our bedrooms are about 18 degrees.

As I mentioned on a previous post, we're thinking of supplementing the wood burner with an Eco Dan. We've been shocked at the price of wood this year.......

To be honest, I think the best way to use your heating system is to insulate your house. It's better to make sure that every kwh of heat you produce heats your home and not the outside air!

Anyway, I look forward to receiving some more information soon so that I can make a start for this month.

Results of January's zero waste week challenge

We took part in the January challenge for Carbon Watchers, which was to get involved with the Gloucestershire zero waste week challenge.

As I mentioned on previous posts, this wasn't a big deal for us as we have been reducing our rubbish since last June anyway.

Anyway, even though we are used to producing minimal waste, we were very pleased with our efforts. We produced just 9 gms. As a family of 2 adults, one child and a cat we were happy with our result.

Our landfill waste was made up from 1 crisp packet and some annoying non-recyclable plastic that came through the post. One was, and I'm very annoyed about this, a piece of plastic moulding used to deliver a PC Power Down from E-On.

Why oh why, does an item that is designed to help you reduce your carbon footprint come with such rubbish (ha ha!) packaging? They have lots of articles and features on their site about energy efficiency and even have a comprehensive 'Energy Challenge'. It seems ironic that a product sent in a cardboard box (big thumbs up) then gets placed in a piece of plastic.

The other plastic was the heat sealing from a new flashcard for my computer. Once again, instead of being happy with putting the thing in a cardboard box, it had to come HEAT SEALED with plastic.

Grrrr..

Anyway, 9 gms - that's cause for celebration and I think I'll be penning a letter to E-On.

Zero waste week

I'm way behind with posts; there is so much I wanted to share on this blog, but things are hectic at the moment, so it's just a quicky. I'll get chance to catch up soon.

Our challenge for this month is to take part in Gloucestershire's zero waste week. This is the one area where we feel confident. Our weekly waste is around 100 grams per week and we managed to go 6 months without putting our bin out, so we're ok with this one.
Rubbish is our thing LOL!

As for the rest of the challenges throughout the year, well, we'll see. They could prove to be a bit of a, erm, challenge :D

Results of our Home Energy Report

I mentioned in another post that I had taken the EST's Home Energy check. It's a free online tool for checking the energy efficiency of your home.

The results of our report showed that we could cut our annual fuel bills by around £270 a year (around 34% of our annual expenditure), and we could reduce our carbon footprint by a further 0.4 tonnes. I wasn't so convinced. Our home was rated as an 'F' for energy efficiency and the report showed that the potential of bettering this would only put us at an 'E'. Is it time to move house?!?!

According to this report, our estimated running costs are £1483 and carbon dioxide emissions are 2.3 tonnes per year. To be honest, I don't know how this compares to the 'average' household in the UK at all, so I'm not sure how useful these figures are.
We should, therefore be able to reduce these running costs to £1213 and our CO2 emissions to 1.9 by following the advice set out in the report.

There were two suggested improvements; one which we are considering anyway and the other which seems irrelevant.

The first is to do with our radiators and boiler. The report reads "To ensure that you have a good standard of heating control and improve the efficiency of your system ensure that your heating system has a programmer, room and hot water cylinder thermostats and that thermostatic radiator valves are fitted to radiators. Heating and hot water use accounts for 84% of household energy use."

Well, we run a 12kw wood burner which heats 7 radiators. We obviously can't put a programmer on it - it's either in or out, but we keep it controlled as much as we can and it's damped down at night. The hot water cylinder already has a thermostat, kept at below 60 and we don't have thermostatic radiator valves fitted to the radiators - I'll have to ask DH about this; can we run them with a woodburner? I have to say, that is rare for our radiators to get hot to the touch; they are usually just warm.

So I'm not sure how helpful that advice was.

The second suggestion was double glazing, which, as I've mentioned previously, we are considering. We'd both put it in tomorrow is the fairy of good fortune waved her magic wand upon our bank account, but for now we're saving hard and are going to get a couple more quotes before considering a DIY job.

After the more major suggestions, the report talked about CFLs. We have those in some lights, not in all - we have dimmer switches in the lounge and a few spotlights throughout the house. I don't really like CFLs to be honest, I've never yet found one with a decent colour spectrum. DH, however, is in the process of building his own LEDs. Buying them proves prohibitive due to cost. At the moment we have a prototype set in the kitchen running off a car battery.

What is interesting is that the LEDs are too blue and the CFLs are too yellow, but we are running both of them in the kitchen and it's a really good colour - go figure!

The other advise was not to run the immersion during peak hours (we're not on economy seven, so that's irrelevant), to buy energy saving appliances (I don't need to upgrade anything) and to ensure the immersion thermostat is at 60 (ours is).

So, there wasn't anything amazing in there, and I'm not impressed that even with putting their suggestions in place, the potential energy efficiency for our home is only an 'E'!

There are two other energy efficient steps we are looking at:

1- Install tankless water heaters for the bath and kitchen sink (which means we will no longer need to use an immersion heater)
2- Install an EcoDan air source heat pump; which works a bit like a fridge in reverse.

We're going to look into grants for doing some work - more on that as I find things out and we're also applying for the Warmfront grant to see if we can get a more efficient wood burner. We currently burn over 6 tonnes of wood per annum, which seems such a lot. Our last load of oak cost £65 and lasted us three weeks. Eek!

Wrap up warm for winter

Once a month we receive a postcard from Carbon Watchers about an area to focus on for that month.

In the middle of December we received a card telling us to 'wrap up warm for winter'. It included tips about cavity wall insulation, loft insulation etc.

Last year we had cavity wall insulation put in. Our loft has been converted into our bedroom, so now we have a tiny loft space. We do have SOME insulation in there, but you won't catch me going up there - places full of spiders and cobwebs are not my favourite places to hang out. I'll ask DH how much is up there when he puts the Christmas decorations away.

During December, we did a couple of measures of our own. Firstly we draught proofed the porch door and I can't begin to tell you what a massive difference this has made to the warmth of our house! We'd been playing with the idea of hanging a thick curtain behind it for months, but thought it would get in the way of the stairs and be inconvenient. When the cavity wall insulation was done, the people gave us enough draft proofing to do one door, so we actually used it and I wish we did it months ago!

In addition, we had some polystyrene sheets in the garage. DH crawled up the side of our bedroom from the loft and filled it with these sheets. For the past week, the temperature has been below freezing every night and we have not needed to put the electric convector heater on in the room before going to bed. This is a HUGE difference, as we were having to put the heater on for 15 minutes before we could bear to go up to bed!

Another goal for us will be to draught proof the back door and we've also had a couple of quote for double glazing, which we may consider putting in next Summer if we can save up enough money.

We have blankets lining the curtains in our conservatory, which we close at dusk. Unfortunately, the curtains are rotting due to UV damage, so we might need to do a repair job later in the year.

I did the Home and Energy check on the EST site and I'll write more about that in another post. I was not very impressed with our results I have to admit!

First Electricity meter reading

On the first day of the month, the carbon watchers are supposed to take a meter reading and send it in to Severn Wyre Agency. I meant to do it first thing this morning, but I've only just remembered!

Never mind; at least I have the right day. Our reading is 96661. Throughout the year we're going to be logging this to see if we can reduce the amount of electricity we use.

The village we live in does not have mains gas, so that reading is not applicable for us. In addition, we run a woodburner, so our winter electricity usage shouldn't be too much more than our summer usage, although we do have a couple of electric convector heaters as a back up heat source and I do tend to cook more meals in the winter.