Small things matter

So, the electric bill came through this morning. We are supplied by Ecotricity, who are a company who pretty much match your existing supplier, and they support sustainable energy. They, and similar companies are worth considering as they use renewable energy sources.

Now, safe to say, our electric bill isn't massive; there are two of us living in the house, and we don't go overboard on electricity use...Our bill for 3 months was £130, which includes a standing charge of £25 so essentially we are paying £35 a month, so per day just over £1. We used 764 kw/h over the last three months at 13.02p per kw/.


Shrinkthatfootprint.com estimate that each person in the UK uses an average of 496.25 kw/h per 3 months, so for two of us this works out around 992 kw/h per 3 months.

So we are using under the average, but we have been thinking, are there small things we can do to make this bill even smaller? We are on a three month challenge, join us to see if making small changes can reduce your bill and electricity use?

These are the main things in our house which use electricity, and some of the things which we already try and do but will try even more to do!!

Shower (26p per 10 min shower)
- Now it is summer, try lowering the heat
- Turn off when lathering up!
- Shorten shower time

Kettle (0.5p per minute, 0.75p per boil for 2 cups of tea with correct water amount)
- boil only what we need
- descale to reduce boiling time

Dishwasher
We tend to use the 50 degree setting at the moment...as it is more effective at cleaning
-So, we are going to try rinsing things and washing at 35 degrees

Washing machine
- Our washing machine has a 15 minute cycle, so we are going to use this more! At the moment, we tend to use the 30 min or 45 min cycle (which is still v short as cycles go, but every little counts)

Oven
- We have a standard oven, but we also have a halogen oven. We are going to try and use this more for small things (like sausages, fishcakes, small bakes, jacket potato etc)
- We also have built a cob pizza oven in the garden, so we could be using this more for the bread baking which Joe does pretty much once a week

Other
We are pretty good at turning off lights, computers etc when not in use but we will try and be extra good!


So... I will let you know the results in three months time...