Celebrating miniature bills

I’ve been describing (OK, boasting) to friends and colleagues how my utility bills are all now less than £100 a year.

I guess these savings have been easier for me than some others, as I live in a small house where it’s just me and my feline companion. I bought this house with my then partner in 2004; she’d organised the connection and tariffs for the gas, electricity and water, which were each around £30 per month. She was a pretty heavy energy user, so I was surprised to notice that after she moved out, my bills didn’t change much. That's when I knew there was something funny going on.

Electricity

After doing a bit of detective work, I realised that the standing charges in my energy tariff were to blame, as they’re based around the idea that every house has a family of energy gobblers in it. I found that two thirds of my electricity usage was on standing charges that bore no relation to my lifestyle. So I switched to a tariff which had a higher rate per kWh but had no standing charge.

The smart meter confirmed what I thought – that all the fuss about unplugging unused phone chargers was about nothing. Their standby consumption doesn’t even register.

My new tariff included a smart meter, which I used to measure how much each device used. I concentrated on getting what I call my "base usage” down. That’s how much electricity my house consumes when I’m either out, or asleep. Using the meter and selectively turning things off, I lowered this from 240W to 60W. I’d already changed all my normal incandescent bulbs to CFL, and moved on to replacing halogens with LEDs.

The room I use most is my kitchen, which needs good lighting. I replaced the three 50W halogen with three 3W LEDs. The trouble is that these are expensive still. So it’s now hard to justify replacing the rest of them. Based on what I paid for the last ones, it would cost £90 to switch the remaining halogens to LED, which is about what I currently pay for a year’s worth of electricity!

The meter threw up a couple of surprises, a big one was how much my induction hob consumed on standby (about 60W to do nothing!), and it confirmed what I thought, that all the fuss about unplugging unused phone chargers was about nothing. Their standby consumption doesn’t even register.

Gas

My old heating/hot water timer was making a horrid buzzing sound all the time, so I replaced it with a fairly smart electronic one. Because I take one quick shower each morning, don’t need much hot water otherwise, I tried halving how long I used to run the boiler for, successively until I found I didn’t have enough for my shower. Currently it runs for 20 minutes each day, just before I get up in the morning. I also turn my boiler down to the lowest temperature it will go to in summer, and turn it up a couple of notches in winter. If I have guests staying, I program the timer to produce more hot water during their stay, and set it back again when they leave.

None of this is particularly difficult, nor has it involved any hair-shirt wearing on my part.

None of this is particularly difficult, nor has it involved any hair-shirt wearing on my part. I live just as comfortably as before. My guiding principle has been to use only as much as I need, and paying a sensible price for it.

This year, I am planning to improve my fairly poor loft insulation, and will rid myself of halogens in the coming months, but this is as much for comfort and a sense of finishing the job, as anything else. I am more aware of the consumption of my appliances, and will prioritise their energy efficiency when I find replacements.