Summer’s finally arrived!

The first few months of 2011 have gone by so quickly we missed our spring blog entirely but now summer’s here and days are longer we’re beginning to catch up. So what have we been up to, well we’ve done spring cleaning making some lasting changes that we hope we’ll benefit from throughout the year - here’s a few things we’ve done:

• Sorted our lofts out – it’s a great time of year to think about loft insulation (and to do a boot fair to recycle and earn some extra cash)! There are some great schemes about (which may help with the cost) and most Contractors can fit work in quickly at this time of year. Try sourcing a Contractor in your area by utilising our Home Insulation search engine
• We’ve purchased an energy monitor so that we can see where we use most of our energy and adjust our habits and energy choices (e.g. should we invest in a solar chargers?) We’re measuring our energy use throughout the year to find our average usage – we’re trying to pay the right amount monthly to spread cost across a full 12 months, this should help to avoid unnecessary bill increases (where we haven’t banked enough credit to cover higher winter fuel consumption costs) – especially important with all the news of price rises in the media. We’re also keeping a record of meter reads which will allow us to do a price comparison switch before the end of the year
• In spring we turned our heating down a degree – and now it’s off. Remember though it’s cheaper to run hot water from a gas boiler (where you have one) as opposed to an electric immersion heater so keep the boiler on
• We’ve washed curtains/bedding/cushions (of course with an ecologically friendly washing powder – there are a few about) getting them dry on the line which is much cheaper than the tumble dryer. Before we put the curtains back up we lined them with thermal lining – thermal lining is great for keeping the cold out in winter and keeping rooms dark in the lighter mornings
• Gardening is well under way – most of the team have started growing their own vegetables and fruit. For those of us with little space we’re utilising containers – we’ve been talking about swapping fruit and veg when we have too many to give more variety. As well as saving money gardening is great exercise – and keeps the garden looking good for the BBQ season!

The money that we save from our energy reducing drive, growing our own veg and the loft tidy ups is being put to good use – shopping for eco gadgets to help reduce energy costs further - here’s a few internet sites we’ll be using:

• Energy monitors – good range stocked at www.amazon.co.uk - www.ethicalsuperstore.com and www.nigelsecostore.com
• Comparison web site – ours of course! www.greenenergyswitch.com
• Ethical cleaning goods – most major supermarkets - www.ethicalsuperstore.com and www.naturalcollection.com
• Garden seeds plus hints and tips etc - www.nigelsecostore.com and www.bbc.co.uk/gardening

Here’s wishing you all a great energy and money saving summer!