Mrs Green’s electricity usage challenge.

As well as trying a vegan diet for a day, we’re taking part in a month-long challenge over at Reduce Footprints.

It’s all about reducing our carbon footprint in a tangible way; by reducing our electricity usage.

The idea is to take a meter reading then have a ‘normal’ week – go ahead and use all your appliances as normal.

Take a reading a week later, make a note of it, then for the next three weeks see if you can reduce your electricity usage by around 10%.

This is something I’ve done before and I’m continually amazed that there is always room for improvement.

I must admit, electricity consumption is where I can be pretty lazy. We leave lights on, the router on overnight, the printer on all day…

On the upside we only ever use the washing machine when full (it’s just it seems to become full pretty often!), we limit the number of baths we take and we’ve installed a tankless water heater in the kitchen so we no longer need to use the immersion for washing up.

One thing that will distort my reading slightly is that I’m using my dehydrator daily. Our apples trees are groaning under the weight of a magnificent crop this year and I’m determined not to waste any of our bounty. However, for the second week I will continue to use it, so any decrease in usage will be the usual day-to-day running of our home here at Chez Green.

Ok then – on Thursday morning (3rd Nov) our electricity meter reading was 6364. I’ll record it again this Thursday morning, report back and see what I can do over the next three weeks to lower our consumption.

What about you – would you join in the great electricity consumption reduction challenge? It could add up to great saving for you AND the environment.