Energy

The challenge

Read the pdf document below to find out what the Eco Family got up to in November:

Eco Family diary

Our family challenge for this month was energy efficiency in the home. I was initially looking at ways to reduce energy usage around the home by measuring and recording my findings on a weekly basis. It was important for me and my girls to understand why we were trying to reduce our energy consumption in the first place. The main reason for us was to save money, as well as the important issues of reducing our carbon emissions (CO2 footprint), as we researched in our last month’s challenge, the impact of climate change, which constantly plays a big part in our energy usage in the home. By way of energy consumption we were defining and investigating switching off lights, when not in use, or monitors/equipment in the home on standby, and any other domestic appliances.

Using our energy monitor

We were given an energy monitor at the beginning of the month to assist us in measuring our usage of electricity in the home. This was easily programmed to the main electricity metre supply in order for activating the transmitter display monitor unit inside our home. Once it was set up, the unit showed energy in terms of watts and cost per month based on the watts which regularly fluctuated pending on how much watts was used during the day. For instance my tumble dryer would use more wattage than that of my radio or tv in my home. The challenge was straight forward in following the instructions, but I found the monitor slightly confusing to read at first as the energy usage was constantly changing and I was getting different costs, which I was not sure was a true reflection of my usage, but saying that I thought the trial was very useful to know how much consumption my family were using on a daily/monthly basis, and to have best intentions to try and reduce/save in the long term. I feel I am now learning to use the unit and will get more useful information from it in the coming months.

We were also given lots of useful tips to incorporate when using the monitor. The girls got involved and were aware to switch off lights in unused rooms around the house and standby items such as tv and DVD player/games console off at the socket as well as we installed the energy saving kit given to us too that has a remote control (which the girls thought was cool) to maintain switching on and off appliances.

My youngest child (Micaela 6 years old) was given stickers each time to put on her chart for showing good enthusiasm in spotting any electricity left on in the home. It was nice seeing the children taking an active interest in saving electricity because they also related saving electricity to having more money to spend on other things instead like treats which was an incentive for them to look forward too.

I always like a bit of challenge and the challenge was interesting to do, although I did already participate in some good energy advice actions in hand such as switching my home lights off when not in use and installing a timer to turn my hall lighting on and off. I will still continue to use the monitor and also do some practical energy efficiency to preserve the warmth in my home like adding extra curtains with my blinds on windows and moving furniture around the home to get better heating usage in the rooms.

Staff diary

We also challenge our staff members to take up the Eco-challenge. Read how our Communications Officer, Chloe Atkins, got on with the Energy Month.

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