Energy and water audits

The Energy Monitor a couple of days after installation.
(Click on photos to enlarge.)

We had an energy and water audit done a few weeks ago. These audits are subsidised by the Queensland Government to help us cut down on our energy and water consumption. It cost us $50 and was well worth every cent of that. If you're in Queensland and haven't had one done yet, ring up today and book, I promise you will not regret it. I was at work when our audit electrician inspected our home but from what Hanno told me, he looked at a wide range of things.

He checked that the fridge was running at the correct temperature - between 3* - 5* C and gave us a thermometer for future checks. He also checked our freezer - which needs to run between -15 and -18*C. This thermometer can also be used to test the temperature of the hot water system. If it's too high, the thermostat can be adjusted to a more conservative setting. All these checks will save money if you're running too high.

Another check he made was in the bathrooms. He checked the shower heads to make sure ours reduced the flow to save water, and the energy to heat it, but gave an adequate amount for showering. Both our shower heads were fine, and we have solar hot water, so we were looking good in the bathrooms. He would have given us new shower heads if we needed them. He checked all the light fittings and as we'd already switched to compact fluros bulbs a couple of years back, most of our lights were okay but our small lamps weren't. The last time we checked, probably two years ago, we couldn't find compact fluros for our bedside table lamps nor the lamp on my desk. He installed new little CFs in those lamps and gave us eight new CF globes for future use.

This is the monitor this morning.

The best part of the entire audit though is the Wireless Energy Monitor (above), this was also given to us as part of the audit. The electrician installed it on our power board outside, then programed the monitor that sits in our kitchen. The monitor picks up wireless signals from our power board and updates constantly, telling us how much electricity is being consumed, if it is peak hour or not, the temperature in the house, the time and date and how much our electricity has cost us so far. The monitor can also be programed to ring an alarm if you go over a certain level. You can see in the photo soon after it was installed it was, now it's on $29.33. I watched a local TV program about these monitors last night and I was absolutely shocked to see their monitors showing in excess of $400, and one woman's electricity was around $750! Crikey, thankfully ours has never been that high. Ours is usually hovering between $100 and $200, per three months. According to the monitor, our bill this period will be around $180. Even so, now we're working to reduce that.

The way we're doing that is that we use the monitor to see how much it goes up or down according to what we're using. For instance, I now know that it costs much less to use our laptop than the desktop computer. We had not used our clothes dyer for years, but we had to use it the other day and now I know it costs around 30 cents an hour to run it. When we're operating at full capacity here at night, we're using around 70 cents an hour, most of the time our monitor sits between 5 - 9 cents. I will eventually get round to testing all our appliances to see which ones chew up the energy. If I can, I'll get rid of the energy gluttons.

The Climate Smart web site is here and there's quite a bit of good information there about cutting back on electricity and water. Apparently we will soon receive a customised Electricity and Water Efficiency Plan that was made up using the data the electrician collected while he did the audit. That may give us other ideas about cutting back even more.

Do these audits happen anywhere else? If not, why not? This service will help us cut our carbon emissions as well as save us money, it needs to be done all over Australia and in every country. If you don't have this service provided locally, email or phone your local state politician and ask WHY?

On the same day the auditor came, we had insulation installed - again subsidised by our government, this time the Federal government, as part of the economic stimulus. Since we had it done the temperature in the house has remained constant, around 20 - 22*C, with no heating or cooling needed. This will also save us money and carbon. I don't always have much that is good to say about our politicians but this time, they got it right.

PS: With Hanno away, and me working these two days, I'm running behind on a lot of things but I wanted to recognise the lovely comments this week. I will respond to them as soon as I can.

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