Electricity Challenge - Update 5

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! :-)