Winter Draws On

According to figures in a recent Guardian article “Since January 2004, average household energy bills have risen by 69% or £407.” We all need to try and cut our energy consumption.

We recently had thermostatic valves put on to the individual radiators in our house. Prior to this we were controlling the heat by turning the main thermostat in the hall up or down as required.

Take a tip from us. If you get the chance, make sure you get the main thermostat sited in the living room, not in the hall. Nobody stays in the hall, you only ever pass through it. It is absolutely crazy allowing the ouput of your central heating system to be governed by the ambient temperature in a room that nobody ever uses. In our case the biggest rad in the house was bang opposite the thermostat. Net result being the thermostat got lovely and warm and switched the heating off. Downstairs on the hard concrete floor we were slowly freezing.

Thankfully we can now adjust the individual rads, and get the heat just right in each room. We have actually managed to turn the main thermostat down by six degrees and still feel warmer. Our bank balances should feel healthier too, especially as gas has gone up in price so many times recently.

We all need to make more efforts to save on energy consumption (and I don’t mean get up later). Just switching off unneeded electrical items will save a considerable amount. I was talking to the senior I.T. technician at my college this morning. His department have worked out that by just shutting down all the PCs in the college at night and at weekends they will make a saving of £15,000 a month on the energy bill.
That’s enough to buy an awful lot of books for the students.