My Story On Cutting Energy Costs…

March 29th, 2015

domestic electrician sydney

Bill Shock is definitely the crook in this story and most of the people at the recent Woollahra Council sponsored workshop said they’d had a run-in with ‘him’.

No, no… Bill Shock is not a person… it’s what happens when you open your power bill.

Reminds me of the story my mother used to tell. Picture it: Sydney 1951, a 19 year old country girl has just moved to the big smoke, she wonders who Bill Posters is and why he is such a wanted man, everywhere she looked… plastered on buildings was “Bill Posters will be prosecuted” poor old Flo, God rest her soul.

But I digress….it was also great to see people attending the workshop because they care about the environment and I need all the help I can get to offset the carbon footprint of my V8, yes, yes that’s part of the reason I just bought a motorbike, but I digress again, sorry.

Gavin Gilchrist and Warren Li Yung from Big Switch Projects launched into some familiar energy saving tactics like… LED lighting, solar panels, air conditioning, hot water settings, insulation and time of use metering and tariffs.

Then we moved into the new technology…Personalised Home Energy Monitoring to your PC screen. It allows you to actively monitor and manage your energy consumption as well as identify any problem areas.

Big Switch’s system is easily installed and will actually let you log in remotely to your switchboard and see your live power usage. From there it generates reports showing your energy consumption and where you’re wasting energy. It can even alert you via email when you reach a certain preset level.

Every day I can see that energy bills are the result of years of buying decisions about certain appliances, the type of lights installed, heating and cooling systems, irrigation and pool filters and basically the way we live.

Some decisions may have been good, some not so good, and sometimes it’s just that the technology has come ahead in leaps and bounds… but, the owner hasn’t needed to upgrade because there’ve been no problems… yet.

So Personalised Home Energy Monitors are certainly a great use of technology but like all things in life, it’s all about what you do with the knowledge and that’s pretty much where we come into the story.

I’ve already had questions from the last email asking whether David Jones – The Electrician is getting into the business of helping people cut their energy bills?

The answer is yes, simply because the reality of high electricity bills is here to stay unless we take action.

What’s the starting point? Well, I think Gavin Gilchrist’s approach makes a lot of sense… do an energy audit and then you can make decisions based on facts and forecasts.

Your other option is that you can start to do small things yourself. You can save a lot of money by just being aware of what’s being used and adjust habits accordingly.

I promised that I’d take notes on the night and some I’ve already mentioned but you can get my additional notes by Clicking Here.

Cheers,

David

PS. I mention Smart Meters in my notes and If you’re not sure if you have a smart meter, email or text me a photo or two of your meter/switchboard to
0418 674 170 and I’ll let you know.

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