energy Archives - Eco Thrifty Living

How hungry is your appliance?

Zoe — Wed, 12 Feb 2014 20:28:00 +0000

This is a guest post from Mr ETL (my husband) about how we found out exactly how much we are spending on our background electricity usage throughout the year and how it is broken down by appliance.

We are spending around £365 a year on our background electricity usage!

When I look at our energy usage we are always using some electricity, even in the middle of the night. It’s only 200-500 watts per hour so not a huge amount but it does mount up, averaging roughly 8.4kwh per day, about £1 a day, so approximately £365 a year which is quite a lot before we actually turn any lights on or cook anything. I wanted to gain a better idea of what’s using all that electricity and a quick search of Amazon came up with quite a few plug in energy monitors which tell you how much a particular appliance uses. The one I bought is a Belkin one. I liked this one in particular because you can plug the appliance you are monitoring into the back of this energy monitors plug and there is a cable leading to a screen. This is really handy when the plug socket is behind the appliance as not all energy monitors have this feature (i.e. there is no cable between the plug and the screen on some of them) and getting my head down to read the value with all the dirt and creepy crawlies behind the fridge for example didn’t appeal. We try to turn things off when we aren’t using them, so I hate to think how much we could be spending on electricity throughout the year if we weren’t.

Which appliances are costing us the most?

So I had a walk around the house and looked for appliances that are either on or on standby that might be contributing to my “background” energy usage. Below is the list I came up with in order I thought would be using the most electricity

Fridge
Tropical fish tank
Outside pond pump
Cooker on standby
House cordless phones (base station plus charging units)
Kitchen radio on standby
Mobile phone chargers
Cable TV box
NAS box

I started with the fridge, plugged the unit into the wall and then the fridge plug into that and left it for a week, it reads the energy usage and estimates a yearly cost based on a electricity cost you can enter on the unit. So it estimates the fridge will cost me about £66 a year, not a huge amount I can do about it, but might look at how much a newer fridge might cost, can’t see it being cost effective though.

Next I looked at my tropical fish tank, I’ve got the lights, pump and heater on a multi plug so plugged it into that. A few days later it told me I was spending about £70 in electricity a year on my fish tank.

The cable box is costing about £25 a year, interestingly it doesn’t seem to make much difference between standby and running but as it’s not advisable to take it off standby, again I don’t have much choice.

That still leaves me with over £200 of “vampire” usage to find, next on my list is the NAS box, for those of you less technical it’s where we put all our pictures, kids films and laptop backups so the whole family can access it, it’s on 24/7 at the minute, it sleeps most of the time and actually is costing me another £45.

We’ve got 2 ponds that we inherited when we moved in, we got some fish from a friend and put some in each pond. They both have filters which need running 24/7, I hadn’t really thought about how much they were costing me but a day of running one of the filters with the monitor told me it was costing us over £40 a year. The other pond has a leak so I moved all the fish into one pond, have stopped running the other pond filter and I think I won’t bother any more. One pond for fish and the other can be au naturel. Saving me £40!Say no to standby – you could save a surprising amount of money!

I’ve still got more appliances to monitor to track the rest of the usage but what this exercise has shown me is 3 things:

A big chunk of my electricity bill is things that are on all the time, some I can’t do much about and some I can.
Lots of electrical items left on standby add up to a surprising amount of money.
The plugin monitor (Belkin Energy Saving Insight Energy Cost Monitor
) will easily pay for itself in finding appliances to turn of standby or use more sparingly.

Once I’m finished with the monitor I’m going to lend it to someone so they can benefit from it to. I’d recommend this monitor or one like it, if it finds just one thing that’s costing you more than you thought it will probably have paid for itself.

Note: we have solar panels and the energy monitor can’t factor in the electricity which we haven’t paid for, so for us it provides a rough guide to how much certain appliances are costing us throughout the year.

Disclaimer. I bought the monitor and this is not a sponsored post so have no affiliation to the manufacturer. Of course you do want one and buy it through the link here we make a (very) small amount of commission from it so buy buy buy

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How to make a DIY chimney balloon

Zoe — Tue, 12 Nov 2013 10:00:00 +0000

How can you make your own chimney balloon for free?

Introducing guest post number three from my husband.

It’s getting colder outside and we have had the heating on already. I’m on a mission to use technology and gadgets to reduce energy usage and save money. So when I could feel a cold draft in our family room it didn’t take long to track down the source of it – our chimney.

Please note this article contains affiliate links marked with an asterisk. If you click through and buy something, it won’t cost you anything extra, but it will help to support the blog – thanks!

We decided a while ago that our gas fire was not very efficient and we haven’t used it in ages. The decision not to use it at all was sealed when we needed to get a gas safety certificate. The gas man said we needed new fake coals or we could just cap the gas. We went with capping the gas.

When our kids are older I’d like a wood burner but until then our chimney is just a source of wasted heat. So I started looking into what was available. I came across chimney sheep* & a chimney balloon* which you can buy, put in your chimney and blow up. When you want to use the fire you just deflate it. You can reuse it many times over so quite thrifty already. This made me wonder if I needed to buy it or if I could make my own.

I then saw a post where someone used a black bag and some loft insulation. I picked up some bags of loft insulation from freecycle so that seemed like a good and free solution. This project took me less than an hour and has saved us money, as well as making the room more comfortable.

I used the following to make the chimney balloon:

2x thick black bin bags
Old loft insulation (fiberglass)
Strip of material or string
Piece of plastic pipe
Safety glasses
Gloves

It was a bit of trial and error with how much insulation to put in. I put in loads initially and then couldn’t push it through the opening of the fireplace. The idea is to put the bag far enough up the chimney that you can’t see it. Leave just the end of the material hanging down to be able to pull it down when you need to.

I double bagged the insulation as the inside of the chimney is quite rough. The missus was worried about ventilation and it is important there is some air flow in the chimney. This stops condensation causing problems so I found a castoff of some plastic piping.

I put that up the chimney first and then squeezed the insulation as small as possible to get it into the hole and then let it expand into the chimney stack leaving the pipe to provide a small amount of ventilation. There is still some airflow but is no longer a big draft. A job well done! It was quick and didn’t cost us a penny.

Warning: Do not do this if you have a working fireplace. A chimney balloon designed for the task would be much safer and they are not expensive.

For more tips on how keep heat in and cold out check out these 6 easy ways to reduce your heating bills.

Want to get started with reducing your waste? Buy my Eco Thrifty Living Book! One of the central themes in it is reducing waste – the suggestions I make are affordable and could save you money! I think it’s a great introduction to the eco-thrifty life but I’m probably biased. Before you make up your mind, check out the reviews on Amazon and from bloggers: Frugal Family, Inspirationalise , A Refuge for Daffodils and Allotment Recipes.

I’d love to know if you have made a DIY chimney balloon and how it is working for you? If you would like to read more DIY energy saving solutions you might enjoy this post on heat retention cooking.

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Tado the intelligent heating control – first impressions

Zoe — Wed, 16 Oct 2013 08:39:00 +0000

I recently wrote an article about how and why my husband is tracking my every move and I mentioned that we are beta testing a new heating control called Tado. Well apparently it is useful for things other than just remotely letting him know when I’ve left the house and he has written this article explaining more.

Tado the intelligent heating control – first impressions

We are lucky enough to be beta testers for a new type of intelligent heating control. I like my gadgets and I like saving money and this seems to fit the bill well. So why am I excited to have a new thermostat? It isn’t usually the most interesting of gadgets.Well this one is pretty clever.

Tado is made up of 2 main parts – the Tado Box which connects to the boiler and replaces your existing room thermostat and the Tado App, which runs on your smart phone and is the way you control the heating.

The guys designing Tado have made it really simple to use asking 4 key questions:

What temperature do you want the house to be at when you’re home?
What temperature do you want it to be at when you’re sleeping?
What time do you wake up in the morning?
What time do you go to sleep?

Tado then pretty much works everything else out. It knows what temperature the house is at and claims that it learns how long it takes to heat your house up. So the idea is that it works out how to heat the house up just in time for you to get out of bed. This should mean that the more insulation is in the house the less time the heating will need to be on. It also gets the weather forecast for the local area so sunny days and very cold nights affect how it heats.

Now for the clever bit, it knows when you and the other members of your family are home by the app on the smartphone. When the last person leaves the house it turns the heating off. I have tested this and it’s really good, it recognises when we have left the house within a few minutes and knows we are home just as fast. It says it works out if you’re heading home and turns on the heating in time but as it’s only been installed over the summer so far so we will have to wait and see about that.

I don’t know when it’s going to be available in the UK, probably next year after they get the results of the winter and I don’t know what the price will be but so far so good, I can now see what the temperature in the house is, how long the heating has actually been on and slightly big brotherly when the wife is at home or not I am looking forward to seeing how it actually performs over winter and will report back then.

To find out more look at the Tado website.

In case you are wondering this is not a sponsored post.

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How and why my husband is tracking my every move!

Zoe — Sat, 05 Oct 2013 19:19:00 +0000

Don’t worry my other half isn’t a crazy stalker, he just has a ridiculous amount of information about our home energy usage! I have mentioned previously about how we keep an eye on the efficiency of our solar panels, but that was only one part of it.

We have an Eco Eye Monitor which produces a huge amount of information for us on amount of energy we use and generate from our solar panels. My husband has somehow linked this information up to his mobile phone. This means he knows exactly when (literally within 5 minutes of it happening) I have done the washing, or put the kettle on and whether it was a good time of day or not for it i.e. whether the solar panels were generating enough electricity to cover my usage. I have very specific instructions about what times of day I can put the washing machine and dishwasher on and woe betide if I don’t put them on at the right time of day!

I do agree with the theory of putting the washing on when the sun is shining, but in reality it isn’t always practical (especially if the sun hasn’t been shining for a few days). It is useful though to have this level of information as it means that we can see roughly what time the solar panels start generating enough energy to put the relevant appliances on and we can delay start them for those times if we are going out the house.

The other way my husband is tracking me is via our central heating. We are beta testing a new heating control called Tado. We no longer have buttons in our home to turn our heating on, the control recognises whether we are in the house or not via an app on our smartphones. The theory being that in the winter if the heating is on and we both leave the house the system will turn itself off rather than staying on at allotted times regardless of whether we are there or not. What it does mean though is that my husband can see via the heating system when I have left the house… Sometimes I think he should just put up CCTV cameras and be done with it

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Picture request!

Zoe — Tue, 09 Jul 2013 19:48:00 +0000

This morning I was tweeting away about how we keep an eye on the efficiency of our solar panels and I was asked to put up some pictures of our panels. They are a bit obscured by the bushes and trees but there they are! They’ve been generating lots of energy for us in this lovely weather!

If you liked this post I would really appreciate it if you click like on Facebook and follow on Twitter – thanks!

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How to keep an eye on the efficiency of your solar panels!

Zoe — Mon, 08 Jul 2013 09:00:00 +0000

We have had solar panels on our roof since November 2011. We had concerns about buying solar panels originally and one of the worries we had was how would we be able to continually ensure that they were performing as they should be. Well ever since we have had them we (by that I mean my husband) have been monitoring their performance closely. We have an Eco Eye Smart PV Monitor which provides us with lots of very useful information both on a moment by moment basis and in the longer term. My husband takes the data generated and sends it to the Sheffield Solar Farm for inclusion in their Microgen Database which they use to collate national data about solar panel performance. We in turn can then see how well our panels are performing compared to others in our area/ around the UK. We met some of the team recently at the Eco Technology Show in Brighton and they promised me a guest post about it . So here it is:

The Microgen Database:

Photovoltaic (PV) solar panels get a mixed response in the UK media, largely due to our lack of full-on sunshine. How can solar panels possibly produce energy when the sun’s behind clouds much of the time?

Sheffield Solar is a research team based in the Physics department at the University of Sheffield whose remit is to study the performance of solar PV panels, both on site at the Sheffield Solar Farm and “in the wild” on private houses across the UK. The Farm hosts a mixture of panel types, ranging from the standard rooftop varieties to solar-collecting glass and specialised cells intended for use in space hardware. The energy output for each panel is normalised to kW/m² and made available to the public live through the project’s main website.

[image: Polysolar’s 20% transparent module in situ]

Obviously it’s not possible to do the same with private rooftop installations, and that’s where the Microgen Database steps in.

All over the UK, over 6000 people who have solar panels installed on the roof of their home donate their PV generation data to Sheffield Solar. (New donors are always welcome!) The team then analyse the data alongside local weather conditions, and offer a monthly performance report back to the donor. The data is stripped of identifying features and made publicly available at the Microgen website [http://www.microgen-database.org.uk/]. You don’t need to be logged in to view these results, although you do of course need a login if you’re intending to donate data or post a message on the forum.

[image: Lisa (Dr Clark) and research student Jamie examine a Microgen DB report]

How useful is this data? For some PV system owners it has already provided the means to challenge the installer over unexpectedly poor output, as the database makes it possible to prove what the expectation should be. For those debating whether to take the plunge and invest in a PV system, it offers firm evidence of the likely return on that investment. And for those who are merely interested in whether PV panels can actually work in the UK, it offers welcome reassurance. Over the first two years of the Microgen project, the team’s findings have been that 98% of solar PV systems do exactly what they say on the tin.

Thanks to Steph Fox of Sheffield Solar Farm for providing this article. Just to clarify, this project is totally not for profit and relies on people donating information about their solar panels. If you have solar panels and want to keep a check on how well they are performing I would highly recommend donating your information to them! How do you ensure that you keep an eye on the efficiency of your solar panels? Please share any tips in the comments below!

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Solar Panels – a great investment?

Zoe — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 21:17:00 +0000

Solar electricity is big news in the UK at the moment. You can’t miss all the adverts for free solar panels, to be maintained for free for 25 years, providing you with electricity for free. It sounds like a dodgy deal, but they claim there is no catch.

Feed In Tariffs (FIT’s):

So what is all the fuss about? In 2010 FIT’s came into existence. FIT’s mean that electricity companies now have to make regular payments to homeowners and communities generating electricity via solar electricity panels or via wind turbines. Investors in these technologies will receive a generation tariff (i.e. payments for any electricity generated), an export tariff (these are payments for any electricity pumped back into the grid) and energy bill savings (especially if appliances are used more during daylight hours). These FIT’s have been guaranteed by the government to apply for 25 years for each investor and to be linked to inflation. For more information on FIT’s see: http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/Generate-your-own-energy/Sell-your-own-energy/Feed-in-Tariff-scheme).

Make a profit on solar electricity panels:

Solar Panel packages cost approximately between £10,000 to £15,000 for a 4kw system and it is roughly estimated that investors with the right roofs in the right locations, making full use of the FIT’s scheme can make/ save over £1000 a year. The idea is that by the end of the 25 year period they will have seen a significant return on their investment. This however is largely due to the fact that currently the rates for the generation tariff are very generous. These rates are due to decrease by 8.5% on a yearly basis (see: http://www.tescohomeefficiency.com/solar-electricity/) from April 2012 and anyone considering investing or applying for free solar panels will benefit most from the scheme under the current rates.

Free solar panels on offer in the UK – only homeowners with the best roofs are eligible:

We live on the South Coast and have two south facing roofs. We heard and saw all the adverts and decided to invite a company round to see if they would be interested in providing us with free solar panels. They spent some time outside taking various roof measurements, had a look at our fuse box and went up into our loft. After a couple of weeks, we were informed that our roof was too small and that they wouldn’t be progressing any further with us.

In a way it was a bit of a relief. We weren’t sure if it was the right decision for us and were aware that there were some pitfalls to the scheme. We were wary of what exactly we would have been agreeing to with the company and whether it would have affected our house price should we want to sell in the future.

See this article in the Daily Mail about some of the downsides to free solar panels:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/property/article-1309252/MARKET-WATCH-Solar-panels-fit-prince-beware-free-offers.html

Investing in solar electricity panels – things to consider regarding installation:

My husband suggested that if we couldn’t get free solar panels we should think about investing in them ourselves and he shopped around for quotes.

One of the places we asked to quote was a local company, which has been in business for 9 years. The company was around long before the FIT’s and specialises in the purchasing and installation of solar panels. The manager came round to gather information in order to quote and stayed to answer a number of questions we had about solar panels and their installation. He pointed out the following pitfalls of having solar panels installed by a company which has just recently started installing solar electricity panel systems in the light of FIT’s.

They do not have years of experience in the industry and may be more prone to making mistakes on installation, including the potential for damage to your roof.
They are likely to be looking to get as many jobs done as quickly and cheaply as possibly to take the greatest advantage of the current tariffs. This could potentially involve them cutting corners, with use of cheap installation techniques and cheap parts, which could affect the reliability and effectiveness of the system in the long run.
If they are an already established business, they may be relying on their brand name and the brand name of others to win customers, regardless of whether they are the best people for the job or not. For example we also got a quote from Tesco’s, who quoted us for Sharp solar panels. Our guy around the corner told us that other panels have better efficiency ratings, but people choose to go with Sharp as the name appeals to people who feel they know and trust the brand. When combined with Tesco’s name, it gives people an added feeling of security.

We also learnt that whichever company you decide to go with, the installers and solar panels must be MCS approved to enable you to benefit from the FIT’s.

What can go wrong with your investment in solar panels?

Buying solar panels does seem like a fairly safe bet at the moment, but it is a large amount of money to invest and if you are considering it, as we are you may want to take into account the followings risks and how to address them.

Risk	Controls / Questions to ask prior to purchase
Installation and/or parts are of a poor quality. Damage to your roof occurs on installation.	Check the installers insurance policies to ensure that they can pay you in case of any damage/ problems. You may want to take photocopies of any relevant documentation.
	Make sure that you have full contact details for your installers, including landline number and postal address and are able to get hold of them in the event of problems arising from installation.
	Ensure installers have appropriate qualifications and experience, ask to see any relevant certificates.
	Seek references/ reviews on the company prior to employment
	Ask the installers exactly how they plan to install your system, what the key risks are and what parts they plan to use and why. Do a little research on solar panel systems, their parts and their installation and test them against it.
	Notify home insurance providers of installation of solar panels and check what you are covered for.
Fault occurs in solar panel system in the next 25 year period.	Is yearly maintenance of your solar panel system needed/ provided/ offered by your installers? How much would that cost if extra?
Panels get damaged at some point during the 25 year period	Do your panels come with a guarantee/ how long does it last and does it cover wear and tear over a 25 year period?
	Does your home insurance cover accidental and/or weather damage? Would the addition of solar panels to your home have any effect on premiums?
Panels stop working effectively	Are you being offered a 25 year efficiency guarantee?
Panels stop working effectively	Can you/ do you want to take out insurance/ put savings aside to cover this?
Can you rely on a 25 year guarantee?	Some people may prefer to go with a well known established company as they feel they may be more likely to be around in 25 years time. However many well known and established companies such as MFI for example have closed recently and there are no guarantees.
Can you rely on a 25 year guarantee?	Some of the cheaper panels, may start to lose their efficiency quicker than some of the more expensive panels. It may be worth investing in a more expensive panel to help you get your money back in the quickest amount of time possible. This also helps if the government change their minds down the line about FIT’s, or may be a problem if they change their minds really quickly.
Is my roof appropriate for solar panels? Will I really benefit fully from the FIT’s?	It might be worth inviting someone round to see if they would give you free solar panels, prior to investing yourself. If they would, then you know you are in a good location for it, as they aren’t giving them away to just anyone.
	Ask your installer what checks they have made to ensure your roof is appropriate for this scheme and whether you will benefit sufficiently from the FIT’s. Double check this yourself as well, by doing some research online.
Inverter goes wrong (apparently they only last 10-15 years)	Could potentially take out an insurance policy or put some money aside to pay for this eventuality. Or you could potentially look for a second hand one later down the line.
Government changes their minds about FIT’s for existing customers	Hopefully this is unlikely. This might be one where you have to take the risk if you choose to invest in solar panels.
We may want to sell our house before we have made our money back on our investment	This is a long term investment and is not really worth making if you don’t plan to be in your house for the long term. However if you do have to sell, you may be able to take account of it in the asking price.
Solar panels may put buyers off our house.	There are different coloured and sized panels available. Some may be viewed as more attractive than others.
Solar panels may put buyers off our house.	Given the generous FIT’s anyone purchasing the house would receive a source of income along with it, which is likely to be attractive.

DIY Solar panel systems?

If you can’t afford to invest and you aren’t able to get free solar panels, you could look into making them yourself. You won’t however be able to qualify for FIT’s, as you have to use MCS registered installers and the panels have to be MCS approved.

There are various solar panel diy instruction packages being sold on-line, with the claim that anyone can make cheap solar panels themselves for a cost of around £100 – £200. See this blog for more details:
http://howtobuildownsolarpanels.blogspot.com/ Some of the sites that come up do look a little dodgy though, so be careful!

Further information about free solar panels/ investing in solar panels can be found on this website:

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/free-solar-panels This gives an overview of free and bought solar panels with lots of good links.

What do you think about solar panels? Would you consider getting them for free, investing in them yourself or even having a go at making them? If anyone has any comments/ advice /contributions on this subject areas they would all be greatly appreciated.

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