Two of the most obvious things to look at when trying to live more sustainably are your usage of electricity and water. We had to record these in the first Super Challenge survey to set a baseline starting point, and I was actually pretty shocked at how much of each we use.
For the past quarter, on average we used about 40 kWh/day of electricity and about 850 L/day of water. The electricity is split between about 25 kWh/day of normal usage and 15 kWh/day of off-peak (i.e. hot water). Where the hell does all that go?!
We’re a family of five, with three young children, so I guess you’d expect us to use a lot of water and electricity cleaning clothes, bathing kids, leaving lights on, running computers and TVs, keeping a spare fridge running, etc. But still, those figures were a lot higher than I’d expected.
I’m going to start breaking the numbers down more and trying to find out what we can do to reduce them. At least we’re starting from a very high baseline, so there must be a lot of low-hanging fruit! 🙂
Hi Darren, Its a really good idea to break your bill down to a daily use. I did my figures for the super challenge but im not that good with figures and could not work out the daily usage. Will have to get hubby to figure it all out.. Your Blog is looking really good. Keep it up. Its great to read.
Cheers Donna.
Thanks Donna! I’ve got to confess I’m a bit of a cheat though – our bills had a section on them that said what your daily usage is. I just copied it down. 🙂
I’ve started taking readings from the electricity and water meters every few days, and trying to keep track of what we’re using. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to see the daily usages go down as we implement different strategies. I’m too impatient to wait for the next round of bills!