Proof of the pudding...

It's December, and time I blogged again. The last seven months of occupancy have been intense at ECF, not only with moving in but also just catching up with 'normal' family and work life. Despite the festive season being just round the corner, we at least feel we're getting there!

On the energy front, seven months of occupancy means we've got some data on energy consumption to compare with what we specified and predicted...and the results are quite a relief!

The bottom line is that we're using 25% less energy than we expected; and that's in a house already designed to use less than a quarter of the energy of the average new housing stock. In general hot water and space heating energy use are on target, although these account for less than half of our predicted energy use. The big savings have thus been made in other energy use, namely lighting and appliances. In particular the use of LED and CFL light fittings, coupled with A and A+ energy rated kitchen appliances has paid dividends.

Whilst in most houses heating and hot water use accounts for up 80% of domestic energy demand, our experience just shows that real savings can be made with little effort by replacing lighting and appliances (when worn out of course!) with more energy efficient equivalents.