Your best electricity saving tips please!

[Trillian]

We made a rule that we don't use the air conditioner unless it is 40degrees and we don't turn the heater on till 4pm in the afternoon. When DH is on night shift (which is for 4 nights in a row every 8 days) during winter I always turn the heater off after I put the kids to bed and if I get cold I get a blanket to put over me. We onl have reverse cycle heating/cooling so we have to minimise it's use. We also build an insulated shed around the hot water system as well. And we only heat and cool the loungeroom, but that is really out of our hands because our house design means it's nearly impossible to heat and cool the rest of the house anyway.

[Gigi]

Marydean, i went to a savings workshop this week, and the suggestion there was for all participants to get "energy audits" done of our homes, to reduce power bills. I found out about a REES (acronoym) scheme, which is operated by various power suppliers. My supplier for e.g is AGL, so i rang them, they took my details, when enough people in that area request an Energy Audit, i will be contacted and they will come out and do an Energy Audit in my home. (a few weeks they said). APparently they put some kind of meter on all your appliances, so that you can be aware WHICH ones are the high energy consumers, and which are actually low energy users (and adapt your usage accordingly).

the person running the workshop, gave an example, of one workshop participant, who had bought a $15 heater, and each quarter, it was costing her $720 in electricity, to run the $15 blow heater! So once she had the Energy Audit, apart from being shocked at this, she changed how she heated her home.

I have just changed from having EVERYTHING on standby (what my ex insisted on), to living in my own place, where i turn some things off now - like you, with a powerboard with multiple things plugged in, and all with individual switches. I turn the powerboard off at the wall, so for eg when i go to bed, i turn off EVERYTHING in the living room for the night.

i think the house you live in has alot to do with it too. i feel very fortunate to live in a place with gas for water, heat and cooking. I know if i lived in an all electric home, my bills would be much higher. i've been told it's too exxy to retrofit gas, the home is either built WITH the gas in it, or the home never has it.

I have met homeowners who installed enough solar panels, that they stopped receiving electricity accounts and actually sell their excess power to "the grid". not applicable to many, but wouldn't it be great to be able to do that?

as a renter, i am pro-active with the things i CAN do, like using extra clothing and blankets BEFORE switching on heating.

[emc2]

I worked for Energex over a decade ago, in Qld. I used to take a lot of calls involving people's bills increasing or being higher than they thought they should be, that was when the price per kWh didn't change so often. So back then it was things like extra freezers and fridges, dryer use amongst other things.

I am lucky in the past few years I have saved up and paid cash for a new fridge-freezer and new air conditioner, so both of those are very efficient ones. I have a larger capacity fridge which runs at half the cost of my old one; and my air conditioner in my unit is a 3.5kw inverter, so it slowly ramps the power up and down as required. I also run the air con at higher temperatures and dress for that. So on a very humid 35 degree Brisbane day, I might run the air con at 26-28 degrees and just keep that room closed.