Sustainable Saturday

Last 2 months our household used 73% of energy less compared to the last year, and approximately 20% less compared to the summer months. How did we do that?

Most of these savings came from the space heating:

1. We did not turn on the heat unless it was below 0 degrees (and the winter in BC so far has been very warm – we needed to turn on the heat just for a few days)
2. If we turned on the heat, we did it only in the living room during the day (where all the family would be) and in the bedrooms during the night.
3. Close all the doors to all the rooms, specially the ones we do not use or use very little and never turn on the heat in those rooms
4. We kept the temperature in the rooms no higher than 18C
5. Get everybody dressed up with sweaters
6. Buy some thermal undergarments (those the skiers use)
7. Buy a nice thick blanket
8. During the summer we added extra insulation to the attic.
9. In September we weatherstripped all windows and doors
10. Use the heat from cooking to heat up the house – e.g. bake a bread or some muffins in the morning to start the day with a warm house

The rest (20%) of the energy savings came from simple things:

1. turning off and unplugging all the appliances when not in use
2. Turning off all the computers for the night or when not needed longer than 1 hour
3. Replacing the old computers with new energy efficient iMacs
4. Making sure all lights were turned off when leaving the room (kids do forget often, so you need to train them quite a while)
5. Makings sure everybody turns off the TV when they are not  watching it
6. Sustainable Saturday – keeping off all entertainment electronics at least 1 day per week

You can do it too !

According to BC Hydro, most of the energy is generated from hydro – so it’s clean. Approximately 12-15% is imported from Alberta – dirty coal energy – so all we need to do is decrease our energy usage at least 15% and we’ll be using clean energy only. And if we use even less, maybe we’ll start exporting clean energy to Alberta instead !?