Monitoring the meters

As I sit typing this evening, we're having a very sudden and noisy thunderstorm accompanied by a deluge, yet it was beautiful earlier today.  Ah, the British weather, always keeps us on our toes.

Another of the national energy companies announced it's price increase today.  Anything between 8-10% seems to be the going rate; our energy provider has put it's prices up by 8.2%.  We wish our income had risen by that amount.

Gas meter, complete with webs - the spider  runs for cover every time I lift the lid to  the meter box

Since we left work, we have certainly become more aware of our energy consumption.  Our income is reduced and we need to make our money work for us.  It makes sense to us, therefore, to look at where the money goes and what, if anything, we can do to monitor our outgoings.  Some are fixed (council tax, TV licence, car tax etc) but we do have some influence over our utilities - electricity, gas and water.  Since July I have been reading the electricity and gas meters every Monday morning; they are both easily accessible.  The water meter is another matter.  It is set into the pavement outside the property, on a busy road.  The lid has to be levered open with a screwdriver, which is fine, but the actual meter it is sunk to a depth of about three feet and the numbers are very small.  I could do with a magnifying glass!  However, I will not be beaten (or embarrassed by passing motorists - this is my water meter, after all) and where there is a will there is also a way.  I just have to find it ;-)

How am I supposed to read that?!

However, back to the electricity and gas readings.  Through the summer we used almost a steady 30 units of electricity every week.  The gas worked out at just a little bit over 1 unit each week.  We expect these figures to go up during the winter when we will need lights on more, and the gas central heating will be running.  We are able to check both utilities online, so by entering our weekly figures we can see how much we owe.  Because we pay by monthly direct debit, we get into credit during the summer months when our consumption is low, and this is gradually clawed back during the winter months when our usage is greater.  it will be very interesting to see how the readings increase during the winter and what, if anything, we can do to reduce them.  

There are a number of websites giving 'average' energy consumption figures but I haven't trawled through many although I may do so another time.  I'm confident however that we use considerably less than the 'average' figures.  We are careful and certainly don't waste energy.  We have implemented many of the actions to save energy - turning off lights, full loads of washing, energy-saving light bulbs, turning the thermostat down etc, but it's always sensible to be open to new or different ways of doing things which might help.  For example, I don't leave the laptop on charge permanantly now.  We have been fortunate that autumn has been mild so far and we won't be putting the heating on till November.  When we had the boiler serviced earlier this year, the engineer suggested a way of getting a more even temperature throughout the flat - in past years the lounge has been warm but the rest of the flat has been decidedly cooler - so we will implement his idea and see if that makes a difference.