This may not sound much compared with, for example, long-haul flights, but we haven't taken any of those in the last five years either!

The extreme winter of 2010 meant everyone had to use more gas, with scare stories of "just seven days supply" held in Britain. This year's milder temperatures have enabled my family to keep our home warm with much less gas: our 2011 total is down more than 30% on 2010.

But even though we can't take credit for the big gas saving, I have worked hard to keep bringing down our electricity usage.

The right lights

A couple of years ago I tried out some LEDs to replace the under-cabinet lights in my kitchen, but was still left with overhead halogens totalling 350 watts. These days they're starting to make LEDs good enough to replace these more powerful halogens, and I have fitted two Edison GU10 bulbs above the kitchen sink. Even these are not quite as bright as the old halogens they replaced, however, so I am holding off on replacing the ones above the oven and kitchen table until the technology improves a bit.

The room's other main light is a mirrored cluster of 10 watt and 20 watt halogen bulbs, totalling 150 watts. The power supply in this lamp recently burned out, giving me the opportunity to replace it with a suitable LED driver and to fit warm white LED lamps and G4 bulbs in place of the halogens. I purchased these from ledcentre.uk.com and they were delivered the next day - in the middle of the pre-Christmas rush.

LEDs in the bathroom

The chrome lamp units have a really high quality feel and I am amazed that the light they provide is simply better than the illumination we got from the halogen bulbs they have replaced. What is more surprising is the feeling of warmth that this bright light creates.

The mirrored cluster has 12 light fittings and the whole thing now uses the same amount of electricity that a single one of the halogen bulbs used to consume!

I've started LED-ifying the bathroom too, with new cabinet lights that are nearly 10 times more efficient than the old ones.  

Keeping costs down

I've been keeping track of my home energy usage since 2006, and the graphs show how our energy-saving efforts have helped us beat the price rises everyone has seen over the last couple of years. Despite increases in the amount we pay for each unit of energy over this period, our total energy bill for 2011 was nearly 40% lower it was in 2006.

These figures don't tell the whole story, of course, but they do illustrate how individual efforts and investments to use energy more efficiently can have a real impact on our energy bills. If we had used as much energy in 2011 as we did in 2006, our bills would have risen significantly over this period, despite switching to a cheaper supplier at the end of 2008.

This post is exerpted from Peter's blog – read more at archipet.blogspot.com