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