Review of our Energy Used

Like many, we look at the various costs in running a business.  Some of our costs are not within our “reach”, such as hosting, but that is run on Green Hosting, which is far more common place now.

This is more about our energy used within the office studio environment; lighting, heating etc.

Lighting

We are not fans of big bright lights.  They can be distracting, and just too intense.  So we prefer lower wattage lighting, and dimmable too!  But for so many years, you couldn’t getting dimmable low-wattage light bulbs – but now of course you can.  So we are swapping over dimmable Pearl type standard bulbs, for dimmable LEDs.  This lowers the usage from about 40-60watts down to just 2-5watts!

Some bulbs are odd though, like GU10s that might find in kitchens.  Tricky to get out at times, but they have been replaced.  Good to know that when they are on all day, they are using a fraction (and proper tiny fraction) of the energy used before.

Heating

With the costs issues around the world, and here in the UK, we were trying to reduce the cost of heating here.  Central Heating is great.  We have a brilliant condenser boiler that is the “best in class” for the ratings.  But, sometimes a room just will not heat up enough in a good time.  We tried a Ceramic Fan Heater.  These are instant heat, so switch it on and bang… you are warmed up on a cold morning.

The good thing about them is that instant heat.  The Thermo in the room rises to normal temp in about 30 mins.
The bad thing about them is that they use, over the course of an hour, about 10 times the energy, and once they are turned off, all heat is sort of gone.  They don’t “give off” any heat when they cut out.

We did try a small Oil Radiator, and they are good, but take a good while to warm up, but then hours to warm a room.  But, we are going to be sampling a much larger version, 7 fin, Oil Radiator, which should warm up quicker AND heat the room faster.  The main benefit is the watts they use.

We have a smart meter.  So can see when that Ceramic one is on, it’s up in the KWs.
With the Oil one, it is also in the KWs but much lower, but when the Oil is heated enough, it cuts out, but the oil heat then continues to heat the room.  It’s a bit like boiling a bowl of water to get heat.   Takes big energy to get it hot, but once it’s hot, the heat is turned off, but the water remains hot for a time.

Water

We even save water, but you’d be confused for thinking, how.  When you turn on a tap to get hot water, if you are a distance from the boiler, it can take time for the water to be heated, and then travel down the pipe to the tap.

So what we do is to run the tap and have it go into a kettle.  When the hot comes out, it is used for cooking or whatever purpose.
That water in the kettle is then poured into a jug, and used for other purposes – such as making tea, coffee, even cooking.

Basically, the least amount that goes down the drain, that isn’t “being used”, the better.

Smart Plugs

Finally, we have smart plugs.  These are the things you can say “Echo, lights off”, and it turns them off.  They use really tiny power to run, but can be on an App timer to shut down.  Such as if you want the TV to be off.  Rather than walking over and turning it off, then turning off a PC, a monitor etc etc….  you can say “Echo, All Off” and it all goes off (if you assign them all).

Effectively, we are trying to reduce the amount of energy we are using, with a small initial outlay (such as LED bulbs, radiators), to make a positive (if small) investment within the business, and the future.

As a UK Website Design company, we want to try and do our bit for the local area, as well as the environment as a whole.  We hope this puts us in a good position to do just that.