18-21C - just right for most people?

Local MSP Sarah Boyack put on an Energy Advice event last week in a community centre in Dalry, in partnership with the 'green support service company' Eaga. The event was aimed at encouraging people to think about how much energy they were consuming, and letting them know about assistance they could get if their bills were too high and if they wanted to reduce their consumption. So there were stalls for the Home Heat Helpline, the Citizens Advice Bureau, Age Concern, the Energy Saving Trust plus a number of others including Eaga themselves. Picked up this handy little room temperature monitor which the EST give away. Compare it to the one that we found somewhere in this house, which like the first layer of insulation in the roof, must date from the late 1970's. It was issued by the Scottish Energy Efficiency Office. The messages haven't changed much, just the way they are delivered.

Sum total of costs so far

Here is a breakdown of what I have spent so far on this work.

New lightbulbs - £59
Bubble wrap for cupola - £44
Loft insulation - £49
Thermometer - £15
Double-glazing window film - £8
Door seal - £14
Energy Monitor - £33

TOTAL £222

More action on the cold windows

Used a spare roll of insulation to fill up the gap between the kitchen window and the back of the cupboards in front of it to ‘kill’ that block of cold air before it comes further into the room. It does feel warmer in there now, but think this window might be the first one to lok at in terms of draught-proofing and double or secondary glazing.

Still chasing the Energy Saving Advice people

Rang the Energy Saving Scotland advice centre again – does their not ringing me back mean that they have already looked down on my roof via satellite and found I’m not worth even visiting. I wish they would tell me.

Energy Saving Advice - where are you?

The Energy Saving Scotland Advice Centre and me kept leaving messages for each other since I called them again two weeks ago to find out why they had never called me back since November. Funny how hard it is to get to speak to someone about wanting to do what they encourage and install your own energy-saving equipment.

Yes - I do now have a Power Monitor

Finally spurred into getting my own power monitor by reading in February Prospect how Brian Eno claimed to have reduced his electricity use by 30% using one. Found the Good Energy Shop had the best information about available models and went for The Owl. Cost - £33. This one has the advantage over the ENVI that you can take the monitor round the house with you to see how much consumption goes down by switching off items. Minor difficulties with set up but Owl customer services extremely quick to respond and get me monitoring. While on the subject of electricity, I discovered that Scottish Power (whom I am about to change as supplier) provide historical daily averages of your energy usage in kWh.

Cutting out cold in the kitchen

One of the coldest rooms in our house is the kitchen which has a whopping window on one side and a tiny radiator on the other that we hang towels in front of. Thought that a Radiator Booster might get some of this heat up over the towels and into the room and bought one from the Good Energy Shop. Neat little device but found that it blew the heat along the wall in the direction of either the fridge or the door rather than directly into the room. The Good Energy people were good enough to allow me to send it back.