Change of Plan

Decided to change this to just trying to put up a post a day, be it a photo or text.

Energy efficiency

I've been interested in the power use of various items around the house, I've modified my power meter ( which monitors power for my room) so i can see the display from my desk, and got a household power meter.

some interesting things i've found....

A single watt of standby power costs around £1.50 a year to run, not much you say, but when your house has 10 or 15 things permantly on standby, they all add up!

Idle powers ;

Laptop PSU's use almost no power when a laptop isn't on. Same with phone chargers
The cordless phone in our house ( which is never used) draws 5W on idle!
The microwave draws 5W on idle
The TV draws almost 10W on idle

By turning these things off at the wall we save around £30 a year!

On top of this energy efficient light bulbs really make a difference.

A "normal" lightbulb uses around 60W
an equivalent CFL ( energy efficient bulb) uses around 12W....

Our bathroom has 4 spots in the ceiling, each being 50W..... Thats 200W of power just for turning on the lights. Considering our "idle" draw ( when nothings on, just power that essential devices draw) is about 300W, and our usage when people are in, isn't normally more than 700W/h,  200W is alot....

Ok Light is needed above the mirror, so keeping them as "normal" bulbs is ok, but above the shower, where only 1/4 of the house doesn't need glasses to see, having lower wattage, higher efficiency lights won't change things much. As a result 2 x 3W LED bulb replaced 2x50W bulbs. The LED's pay for themselves in about about 6 months, assuming 4 hours usage a day ( Reasonable considering 4 people in the house)

The hall light was also changed out from 2x60W bulbs to 2x6W CFL's, considering this is left on alot, this helps! assuming 6 hours use a day, this saves around £40!

I've still got more testing to do, I think that the 300W idle power still seems high. but managed to save £30 a year on idle devices and about £65 a year in lighting.

not bad, not bad at all!