An Eco-meter at Home

An eco-meter measures your electricity consumption every 4 seconds. Give one to a gadget geek who fills in spreadsheets as a stress buster and you have a recipe for endless data! Sticking only to the killer facts (hyperbole – nothing earth shattering really, but helpful) here is a taster of what I found out. (Do try this at home – it focused my attention on waste and, even if it won’t save the planet, I prefer doing something, to doing nothing.)

1. Every £7 I spend on electricity dumps 1 kg of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. (I’ve given my results in financial terms – this allows you to translate.)
2. The computer, printer, hard disk combo, left on for 10 hours a day soaks up £47 a year – put it into sleep mode when not in use would save well over half of this. I get similar results for switching off the TV/free sat/DVD player.
3. Don’t bother unplugging all your Apple charging kit – they don’t use any power for not charging and stop consumption when the device is fully charged.
4. I also looked at my gas consumption and much to our relief, 1 bath costs about 20p.
5. The eco-meter also tracked down an old-style light bulb which had been missed in the upgrade to the new low-energy variety.
6. Don’t bother giving up your electric kettle – the gas variety is a little bit cheaper but not as much as you might think as it takes so much longer to boil.
7. Use gas to heat your house rather than electricity (assuming the carbon dioxide released the kilowatt-hour produced by gas is the same as that produced by electricity.) It cost a third of the price per unit (KwHrs).

Okay, so nothing that you might not have known already but a useful reminder to switch off and cool down – every £10 saved is 3lb less CO2 in the atmosphere. (Roughly!)

For anyone who wants the figures, I am happy to email my spreadsheet – contact info@transitiontynedale.org

Eco-meters available from Claire at 28 Derwent Road, Hexham

Posted on behalf of Jonathan Ewen