Right now, I’m in a fairly bad mood. And here’s why.

Energy consumption within our house.

I can see this leading to a heated debate (no pun intended, although it was a good one) but I just need to get it out of my system.

Here’s some back-story:

Housemate1 was due to start work this morning at 5:30am. Housemate 2 was working late last night and didn’t get in until around 2am. Housemate 3 (that’s me!) went to bed at a decent time, but had no plans for the best part of this morning, so arranged with himself to spend most of it in bed*.

Housemate1 got up ready and left for work by what I can only imagine was about 5am. 5 hours later, when housemate3 (that’s me!) got up, he was to find the living room, kitchen and bathroom light and the electric heater in the bathroom left on.

By the power of housemate3′s brain, the fact that housemate2 was likely to be sleeping into the early-afternoon, lead him to the conclusion that housemate2 had left these electrical items on during her getting ready process FIVE HOURS previous.

Now I don’t know about you, but I earn £70 a week from a part-time job, I get the bare minimum in re-payable university loan, and have been living out of my overdraft for the best part of a 2 years. And when someone is in that financial situation, the last thing you want is an unnecessarily large electricity bill at the end of the month, on top of the £300 in rent and bills you are already failing to keep up with!

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Quick Poll: You have been at work all evening. When you return home, the living room light and the television are on, but upon entering the room, you find that there is no one in the room, and eventually discover that the last person to be in the room had in fact gone to bed 20 minutes ago. Do you:

A, think “Oh cool, PersonA left the TV on for me” ?
B, think “Where is everyone? Why is the TV on when no one is watching it? What a waste of electricity!” ?
or C, continue with what you were doing, paying no attention to anything around you?

If it’s not B, you need to be shot.

Quick Poll 2: You are in a room, it’s dark outside, but you have the light on. You decide to go into another room, with no plans to return to the first room. Do you:

A, leave the light on, someone else can turn it off
or B, turn the light off, because it’s a waste of electricity as no one else is using it.

Again, if it’s not B, you need to be shot.

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Energy Saving Light Bulbs

Recently, I was given a “reason” for why a light was left on, with the  light-leaver-oner accepting no responsibility of electricity wasting. It was “because it’s an energy saving light bulb”. So I thought I would post a few notes on the energy saving light bulb.

Everyone has heard that an energy saving light bulb can save up to £60 in electricity over it’s lifetime!

“Wow!” You might think…

But let’s break that down.

Energy Saving Light Bulbs can last up to TWELVE YEARS. Yes, Twelve. That means an “energy saving” light bulb saves you just £5 a year on your electricity bill. FIVE POUNDS.

Now, I know what you’re going to say now.. “An average household wont just swap one light bulb, they’ll change most, if not all of their bulbs!”

Okay, so in our house, we have lights in our:

- Hallway x2
- Bedrooms x 3
- Living room
- Kitchen
- Bathroom
- Lamp in living room.

The bathroom is a fluorescent bulb and is enclosed in a unit, but all the others are energy saving bulbs. So, eight bulbs.

Eight times five equals forty. So we save just £40 a year in electricity.

We pay our bills quarterly (every 3 months) which means our bills should be £10 less every time because of the energy saving light bulbs (have I said this phrase enough yet?) But because millions of people across the globe use the mentality that “it uses less energy, therefore it’s okay to use it more”, bills are never likely to drop!

Basically, I boils down to this: Using an energy saving light bulb HELPS you save money, but ONLY if you HELP YOURSELF save money!

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I haven’t even started on the electric heaters!

I don’t have much to say about them. Apart from DON’T USE THEM!!

Our house doesn’t have central heating. Instead, in the three bedrooms, living room and bathroom, there is an electric heater. They use a CONSIDERABLE amount of electricity! A MASSIVE amount! FOOKING LOADS! However you want to put it, they are so expensive to run, I am considering disconnecting them from the sockets to eliminate even the temptation of using them on a particularly cold night.

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Now, I think I’ve said enough on the subject. All I have left to say is, next time you’re leaving a light on in a room which you have left empty, think about turning it off, otherwise I’ll have to post yet another ranting and bitching blog about energy-wasters. And nobody wants that now, do they!?

*[Edit: No, I wasn't playing with myself!]