Energy in my life

Hi again

This week is the last week of eco my flat, and so there a couple of things to wrap up.

ENERGY

Television

So there's a spectrum that describes people's approaches to energy use/conservation. On one hand, there's people who leave the lights on in full sunlight, heat pump at 23°C, or perhaps having a 30 minute shower everyday (which uses lots of water in addition to the energy to heat the water). There are also people who leave electrical/electronic appliances on when they are not in use. A good example is the “I’ll be back in 5 minutes, so I’ll leave the TV on” situation. More often than not, because of our lackadaisical nature, the person will be gone for an hour, and they TV will still be going with full sound and colour.

Hottie(s)

At the other end of the spectrum, there's some who switch off the lights when they leave the room, regardless of how brief/long they're gone for. Also, at this end of the spectrum, people do not use heaters at all. Instead, they go for the hot water bottle and blanket combination. Maybe they have cold showers too (I’m talking 12-15°C water here, in an ambient bathroom temperature of <10°C). And perhaps they’ll build a solar heater to heat up the water that feeds into the hot water cylinder.

 

I guess I fall somewhere along the spectrum in between those 2 extremes. I like to think I'm closer to the end of the spectrum that uses only that which is necessary.

Singing a 5 minute song in the shower

In the warmer months, I shower 4 minutes, using a shower timer to ensure I don’t go over the time. A couch surfer at our flat (that’s you, Holly) once told me something interesting about showering. When she was living alone in a shack, trying to finish some paper/thesis, she had this approach to short showers: Sing a song that would be of (approximately) 5 minutes in length, and when the song ended, so would the shower.

But I digress. It’s the peak of winter right now, and I’m having an (approximately) 8 minute hot water shower every 10 days. It’s not perfect, but it means that the power bill won’t be shocking. At the moment, our power bills are around $120-$140, for 4 guys who are fairly eco-minded. That says a lot to how we use energy around the flat. Also, I spend a lot of time the University, so it means I’m using energy that’s already been used to heat the space regardless of the presence of 5 or 50 students.

Incandescent light bulb

With regard to energy use in my room, I use an eco-bulb for my desk lamp. The room, as a whole, is illuminated with a single 100W incandescent light bulb. Yes, unfortunately there were at least 2 eco-bulbs(compact fluorescent light(CFL) bulbs) that blew in that particular lighting fixture over my 3 years at Hooker Ave. I suspect it has something to do with the wiring so perhaps I will let my dear landlord know about the situation.

As for electronics, there’s a radio/alarm clock that is quite old and should probably be replaced with a new one, but the fact is, where would the old one go when a new efficient one comes along? Should it be sent to the dump or Freecycle?  I think the latter would be more appropriate. However, this can be extrapolated to a bigger picture. When newer, more efficient models for computers/televisions/come along, where do the older, inefficient ones go?

Landfill

Vampire power!!!

There’s an important aside I want to state here. Vampire power, as standby power is sometimes called, can cost the nation money, even if it’s a meagre few cents a month. Tim got an energy meter, which plugs in between the appliance and the socket. It can measure the energy consumed by the appliance measured, among other things. I did some measurements and then some calculations, and found out that it costs $20 a year to leave our washing machine on standby 24 hours a day for a whole year. Sure, that’s not much, considering how much we spend a year, but this is just 1 machine, in 1 house, in a nation with 1.6 million households. Extrapolate the amount of potential vampire power, and compare the effort needed to reduce/eliminate it, and the choice is obvious. The next time there's a faint hum in the kitchen, it's probably a speaker or a washing machine that's been left on, draining some not insignificant amounts of power. Please turn it off. Thank you very much.

Laptops are more environmentally friendly

Anyway, back to my laptop's energy use. My computer is a laptop, so that’s points scored for energy efficiency compared to a similar desktop machine. My laptop is usually charged to full power, then immediately unplugged from the mains. So, the laptop runs off battery power until it's almost empty, then it's charged again. This usually takes 2-4 hours to happen, while the battery discharges fully in between. I use to leave the battery in the laptop while it was plugged in to the mains electricity, which is not the ideal method, as the battery may discharge and charge, but only in small amounts. This reduces the lifespan of the battery. Fortunately, I was talking to Laura of The Sign of The Prancing Pony flat, and she was using the method as I described before. The other way is to unplug the battery while the laptop is plugged into the mains electricity.

Oil heaters

For space heating, I have an awesome 2.4kW 12 fin oil heater I bought from Trade Me when I first moved in 3 years ago. I have very rarely used it this year, and the result is reflected in our lower power bills this year. I also have an electric blanket, which I turn on just 15 minutes prior to getting in bed to make the bed less of a cold grave and more of a sanctuary.

Curtains are opened during the day, and shut around dusk. Katie Nimmo from the energy workshop mentioned that the easiest way to heat up a room is if it has dry air. This can be expedited by leaving windows open (during the day) for around half an hour. The warm, but moist air leaves the room, leaving cold, dry air to fill the space. This may seem counter-intuitive, but I’ve done it to my room, and it makes the cold easier to bear.

Sunrise

Did I mention having a lifestyle such that you rise and retire with the sun saves heaps of energy? It’s not very practical, perhaps, when sunrise and sunset are 7.30am and 5.30 pm respectively at the depths of winter, as most of us are used to doing things up to at least 9pm at night. I have to say I’m not a morning person, so it’s something I’m working on. Seriously though, if everyone did more during the day and less at night, the lights would not be on for so long, as well as the space heaters. Result: a better lifestyle and a less consuming culture.

WASTE

This section is just included for completeness sake.

With paper waste, if it has an unused side, it goes into the scrap paper stack; if it has things written/printed on both sides, it goes into the recycling. Old receipts are also recycled. Batteries are taken to old battery bins at University, which are subsequently taken to some battery recycling facility. Metallic items are collected in a scrap metal container, to be sold later (hopefully).

p.s. Biking is as fast as driving in Christchurch (within reasonable distances), just ask Shanti or Gabby.

Bicycling

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!

Hey all,

In case you didn’t know, plastic is graded into seven types. However, not all of them are safe for reuse. Remember the motto-reduce, reuse, recycle? Well, here’s another one- 2, 4, 5, keep yourself alive. David Suzuki’s handy guide to reusable plastics can be found here. Essentially, the idea is to reuse plastics that are safe for you, and recycle ones that are not. There is a caveat though; some recycling facilities cannot manage some types of plastic, so you should refer to the local council recycling guide to see what can or cannot be recycled. (If in doubt, I just throw it in the recycling)

Reuse comes before recycle, although reduce comes before both of them. We’ve been trying to reduce our waste, by various methods. We tried to see if we could stop taking out the rubbish for the entire EMF competition, but it’s getting perilously close to the point where we have to sneak off rubbish bags into our neighbour’s bin. 

We have also been shopping at Bin Inn, which is a bulk food/household product shop. Basically, you take your containers there, get them weighed at the counter, fill it up with whatever you need, and then the weight of the container gets subtracted from the total weight when you are ready to pay.

Another way our flat reduces material consumption (is there a pun here?) is by using jars for preserving food. The ones with the pop up lids can be used to store beans (yes, no more beans in a can!) or tomatoes or whatever you like. Hopefully Emma will elucidate everyone on the exact process, because she does all the preserving. The beans (which are all she does and all we need in terms of preserved protein) that she uses come from Bin Inn. Great Idea ™, don’t you think?  

That’s all for now, ladies and gentlemen. Remember, first reduce, then reuse, lastly recycle.

Ning

A new beginning

So begins the journey of the tauawhi (pronounced tau-a-whi) quintet. And our flat this year has enchanting Emma, jazzy Jack, nimble Ning, talanted Tim and wonderful Will comprising the famous 5 ensemble.

Right now, it's 0 degrees outdoors, 9 degrees in my room, and probably 16 degrees in the kitchen (where I'm typing this post).

We choose to hang out in the kitchen, especially after cooking, so all the residual warmth in the kitchen gets put to good use---heating our bodies. There is, of course, the social aspect of being together in the same room at the same time, such as juggling (warms up the body so no additional heaters required), or having interesting discussions on various things (like our hot water cylinder pre-heater or rain water collection system). Or we could do more baking. Also, there’s talk about NOT filling up our red (rubbish) bin for the duration of the competition.

Of course, by choosing to stay in one room, there's less (no) heaters used, and less lights used, blablabla. I'm sure you've heard this all before, but I'll just repeat it, by drip feeding you so no one gets information overload.

Did I mention that our flat has started communal cooking this year? It saves on time, because you don’t need to slave away for ages to come up with a tasty, nutritious, and filling meal for one. When you cook for many people, there usually will be leftovers, so your lunch is probably sorted for the next day. Also, there will be less heating involved, both with cooking and washing up afterwards.

Anyway, many more blogs to go. Remember, heating is cheaper if you do it together.


Ning