My Energy use Diary

Frugaldom

I love the idea of milk cartons filled with water sitting in full sun so there's warm water for dishes and washing! I think this is quite ingenious and am going to try this as soon as I can. I realise that it won't heat up that much but anything is better than nothing when it's only going to end up poured down the drain. We also have quite a few BBQs during summer you can use camping pots & pans to heat water on the BBQ after you're finished cooking. This month, I'm going to try switching on the hot water only every 3rd night instead of every 2nd night and use shower for hairwashing, as I'm the worst culprit for running away hot water when doing my hair.

Setmefree2, you are doing really well. Perhaps you could try the hot water on every second day and we'll compare notes on keeping under the 10 kwh per day average?

greenbee

setmefree2 wrote: »

Ps - so now how can I reduce this even further?

Stay with friends?! :rotfl:

I'm heating water only, twice a day for half an hour, plus using the hob and mine comes in at about 9.78kwH ...

... so I'm going to switch off the half hour in the morning - and that way I'll have an incentive to get up and go to the gym before work, as they have hot water there!

I guess you get to a point where you can't cut back much more, so you need to work out how to minimise the increase during winter.

Keep up the good work!

[Deleted User]

A really good idea re the milk cartons. They will be super energy absorbers if they are painted black

Frugaldom

kittie wrote: »

A really good idea re the milk cartons. They will be super energy absorbers if they are painted black

:T I never even thought about that! I did think of placing a mirror behind them to reflect even more sunlight! This could become quite a talking point if the cartons were painted too! A solar powered water feature of the alternative kind! :rotfl:

Desperate price increases call for desperate measures, so I'm refusing to turn on the hot water tank at all this week to see how we all cope. So far, so good, and I've even managed to have enough hot water saved in the flasks to do all the coffee/tea and still have some left for the dinner dishes. Sticking a pyrex bowl or casserole of water in the bottom of the oven whilst cooking, and in a pot on top of the ring whilst it's swithed off cooling down, are other easy ways of squeezing a bit of extra energy from each kwh used. This is becoming as addictive as living on 4k! At the rate of power savings, my 4k budget should be able to remain unchanged for 2009, meaning that inflation for my personal spending could remain at 0% for 3 consecutive years! :T :j Now I need to try to cut it further and get myself a negative inflation rate against my cost of living! :rotfl:Off to analyse the budget and see where else cuts can be made. :cool:

Edited in - After a quick look, I need to send apologies to all close family; the only obvious place left to make savings is on the gift budget!

A_fiend_for_life

nykmedia wrote: »

Edited in - After a quick look, I need to send apologies to all close family; the only obvious place left to make savings is on the gift budget!

You've taken that too far!!

setmefree2

Hi all:hello:,

We've back from holiday a week and I still haven't put on the freezer or the spare fridge. I'm going to try and see how long I can live without them. We tend to shop everyday at the mo ( as this keeps our food bills down), so not really missing either. I have family coming to stay so I may need to use them next week:D. I'm also trying not to do any washing for about a week - since the kids are off school I don't have to worry about the availability of school uniform. So no washing means no drying and no ironing;).

Al The Best

SMF2

PS the car is going fine at the mo

Frugaldom

Hello, hope you enjoyed the holiday, setmefree2

I just checked back a year on my electricity and discovered that during July 2007, our average daily useage of electricity was umm... 23 kwh per day! :eek: I'm horrified! How could we be [strike]using[/strike] wasting so much?
THANK YOU for making me more aware of this! :T For the same period in July 2008, we used HALF that amount! And I'm fairly confident that we can get this month's down to an average of 10 per day. I'll need to do a price comparison for 2006, 2007 and 2008 when I find my notes; I hope I didn't burn them to keep warm last winter! :rotfl:

setmefree2

Hi:hello:,

I always find it strange when I set off on any sort of MSE challenge 'cos I always end up wondering how I wasted so much in the past:rolleyes:. It can make me full of regret.:cool: But on wards on upwards (or downwards on this occassion:D) - 23 kwh is alot though isn't it?

Good Luck

SMF2

Frugaldom

Hello!

23 kwh is a HUGE amount when comparing it to now. But I did used to leave the water on every night. Still, it does seem an awful lot! I got up to an average of 81 per day during the winter last year, but this is a VERY cold house and there were 5 of us here practically fulltime at that point, so I know that the kwh useage has to reduce by 2/5 but would rather it halfed. So, my winter aim is 40 per day, but it will be a huge struggle trying to heat this place at that.

Re the 'full of regret' theory, I don't look at it like that in the least I don't look back with regret, it's more about making progress with the benefit of having learned by past mistakes, and having the chance to make some changes

Little_Mama

Hi SMF2,

Thanks to this diary, as I mentioned in your MFW post, I've been keeping a close eye on our usage, particularly this week and despite having two children who need their PS2 controllers surgically removed and doing up to 7 washloads every 2 days (on the economy wash and line drying) I've managed to get us down to:-

6.19 average Kwh for electric (43.33 for the week)
6.66:eek: average Kwh for gas (4.19 units but then did all that conversion palava!)

Not too bad for a 4 bed detached but I'm going to make sure it doesn't creep up.

When we went on our hols we defrosted the chest freezer in the garage. When back I started using it again but realised that I just wasn't filling it up and was freezing air! So we've switched back off again and just managed with the fridge freezer in the kitchen with is not particularly large. I'm now buying less frozen and eating more from our allotment, ideally I only plan to use the chest freezer at Christmas.....unless I get bumper crops of anything I can freeze.

Winter will be interesting, I plan to make much more use of the open fire and the conservatory will become a drying room........in amongst my pepper & chilli plants!:D

I had a look at my bills from Eon and they made a rate change wef 1st June which was significant enough, good pence per Kwh here and there and now I've capped too it's all going up just for staying still so I really want to play them at their own game and give them no more than I need to!

And with that I'd better get off here......I'll have to get a pedalled powered pc, dual action helps the legs & bum muscles and save on the leccy! :rotfl:

LM