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!?