Finding the chase and cutting to it

We’ve been looking at insulation, and during the winter, one of the biggest influences on how much energy you need to heat your house is how many mammals are living in it.

A human being raises the temperature in a room by around 1°C, so having two people… It’s why we run many living spaces at a lower temperature: a dinning room run at 20°C (without a thermostat) is way too hot if you have six people round the table. It may be why both gas and electricity usage is much lower than you’d expect for Christmas Day (as seen in the analysis The power of Christmas ).

There are other benefits, as mostly you cook food together. Food takes heat to get warm – the more food there is, the more energy it needs to get hot. But in an oven, that is largely hidden from view. The microwave makes it much more obvious.

Why are you talking about this?

After two years, our son is moving back in with us. Which is going to change our power and water usage dramatically.

There are some definite benefits – less heat required for the communal areas, but that sits alongside downsides. Water usage is a clear one. It’s hard enough letting it mellow when there are two people in the house!

We’re geared up to charging things during the day, when the solar panels are generating meaningful electricity. We also keep sockets off when the chargers are not required. When I first got our ‘smart plugs’ and bulbs, a good friend of ours thought we’d burn more on running the wifi sockets than we’d save killing the power to the TV, for example. Actually, the 17 plugs and 19 bulbs (36 devices in total) use very little energy, our minimal draw is less than 100W an hour. Our TV alone would use 25W on standby, and as we only watch the TV for four hours a day, it costs in to do that.

At the beginning of my work day, a switch ensures the bedroom lights are turned off, my monitor is powered up and, during the winter, the desk lamp is on until the sun rises. My office uses around 100W of power an hour, so 100Wh of energy. I have a solar powered keyboard which I charge up while I have lunch, further saving power.

I see you use it other ways too…

I can get quite deep into my work. In the end, having the desk lamp turn off but leaving my monitor on at the “end of the day” subtly tells me to wrap things up without leaving me without the ability to save the work and shutdown the computer properly.

I then turn off the monitor and put on the desk lamp for two minutes, allowing me to close the door on my office without the need to go back and fetch my water bottle and mug.

A change of pace.

Of course, Tuesday was power on day for the heat pump’s heating circuit. Using thermostats means we only make use of it when needed, yet that single step should ensure the house doesn’t get cold. The insulation and triple glazing should keep that investment in energy as low as can be. I can’t believe it’s nearly been a year since we installed the new glazing.

The chores and cooking should be shared. Which should make things a bit easier. Of course, the company is more than welcome. There’s more money coming into the household too. Having got our water usage down to 97l per person per day, I wonder if that will stay the same?