12 months of greening - April - Saving power

Rhonda over at Down to Earth posted today about Solar Power, so I thought I would follow on from her post and write about our April challenge in our 12 months of Greening, which was to cut our power use.

EcoSwitch

We've always tried to keep our power use down, heating and cooling only when really needed (and installing energy efficient options such as ceiling fans), keeping out draughts (including installing double glazed windows in one room that was a particular problem), adding extra ceiling insulation, using low power light globes and always washing with cold water.  But in a house that is 100% electric, it hasn't always been easy, and some of the power bills we've received over the years have been downright scary!  So in March and April we made some changes.  We installed an EcoSwitch for our TV/DVD/PVR/Wii/Stereo which is great and very user friendly, and we made the big decision to finally get our Solar hot water.  It had been a very big decision that we've toyed with for years, as our electric hot water service was still working fine, and it is very hard to throw away a perfectly working appliance and replace it with a very expensive new appliance.  But we decided to bite the bullet and just do it and decided just in time - handing over our deposit the day before the federal government axed the $1000 rebate!  (we have just received the rebate back - one of the last families to get it)

So having purchased the system, we excitedly awaited its arrival and installation, but it came with some serious drama.  The courier came with our system (3 solar panels and a 300L tank) on the back of a large truck, but he was on his own and had no means of getting it off the truck (?!?).  He asked me to help him (again ?!?), and to cut a long story short, ended up with the entire system falling off the truck onto him!  The courier got an ambulance ride, 2 broken ribs, a very serious broken nose and 8 stitches in his leg and our hot water service ended up smashed on the ground.

Our SHWS literally fell off the back of a truck :(

Eventually, a new hot water service arrived and with more drama from the plumber and electrician, it was finally installed.  So was it worth it?

We get our electricity bills monthly, and so have had two arrive since we got the system installed.  And the difference is A-Mazing!  In our April bill (which for the record was also a "no heating and cooling" month) our average daily use dropped from 24kWh for the same time in 2011 to 9kWh!!  And then again in the May we saw a drop from 28kWh per day to 12kWh!!  Of course this is brilliant for the environment (think of all those carbon emissions or black balloons!) but it also significantly reduces our power bills, and at this rate, we expect to have re-couped the cost of the solar hot water service in about 18months to 2years.

At the moment we can't afford to put on solar panels for power, but it is something that we will definitely be looking at doing in the future and keeping an eye out for good government incentives.  But for right now, I would declare April a successfully Green month!