Your household energy consumption and ways to save...

One of the most common complaints we hear from people in our industry is the price of electricity bills and the impact this is having on the consumer's hip pocket. This has become increasingly relevant with current increases in prices being passed down from energy retailers and all the attention it is gaining both in parliament and the media.

While all the debating in parliament may be useful in boosting politicians egos, the consumer yet again takes a back seat and the real issues get swept under the rug with band aid fixes. In this blog, we've made a list of just a few handy tips to help you, the consumer, save more on your power bills, and hopefully ease some of your financial pressures.

LED Lighting

Over the last 10 years LED lighting has been one significant advancement in technology that has continued to grow and develop into some of the amazing products we have available to us today. When LED technology first entered the market, it was some what expensive and not as reliable as you would expect for the investment. Today however, there is an abundance of products on the market that has created competition and driven prices down. Being that lighting is one thing in every household that would be hard to live without, it can account for a significant amount on our power bills. As an example, one single halogen downlight has an output of 50 Watts. The equivalent to this in an LED downlight is somewhere around the 10 Watt mark. This is 20% of the output and therefore an 80% decrease in the amount of energy used to power that light. If you were to add this up for your entire house, suddenly this can represent a significant saving in energy consumption.

As well as the decrease in consumption, LED's are also decreasing heat output. A halogen globe can get to 300 degrees celcius, whilst the equivalent LED will only get to a fraction of this. In fact, they will not get hot enough that they can't be touched. This lower heat production also represents a far lower risk of fire.

Heating and Cooling

Whilst electric floor heating may have sounded like a good idea years ago, it's definitely not considered a great heating option nowadays purely due to it's energy consumption.

Split system / reverse cycle air-conditioning has been given a bad name in years gone by as an expensive form of heating and cooling. This however is not necessarily still true, in fact with rising gas prices that are set to continue rising, split systems might become a more popular form of heating than gas ducted heaters. With the advancements in inverter technology, power consumption from these units has dramatically reduced, and with the added benefit that both your heating and cooling requirements are taken care of in one unit, split systems are definitely an option to consider.

Lowering your need for heating and cooling

As heating and cooling can account for a large percentage of your power bill, there are steps we can take to help lower the need to have our heating and cooling systems running for extended periods of time.

The orientation and design of a house can be very important when it comes to heating and cooling. Whilst it is a little hard to change this on an existing house, if you are planning a new build you should take careful consideration with this to utilise the environment to help heat and cool. For example, a north facing house where the main living areas are on that north side can utilise the sun in winter when it is lower on the horizon to help heat these rooms.

Inside the house there are also a few tips we can use to help keep our energy costs for heating and cooling down. One of these is using rubber seals and draft stoppers on external doors. In winter, for example this will help keep the warmth in and the cold out. The opposite is true for summer. Curtains with pelmets is also a good option for keeping the heat out in summer. With the curtains closed the radiant heat will be trapped on the window side and with the use of pelmets the rising heat will be trapped from entering your living space.

Unfortunately for us lowering our power bills often means an initial investment that over time will pay for itself and create savings. Hopefully these tips will help you in some way and if there is ever anything we can help you with please don’t hesitate to get in contact with us.