Turning Up The Cool...

Today in our town it is 38 degrees, and will be for the next three days. I have resisted turning on the air conditioner up until today, but this morning the beast went on, and will probably stay on (during the day) until Saturday. If it was just one high temp day, I probably wouldn't have bothered, but three hot days in a row means that the house doesn't cool down again in between, and as we are in a thin-walled, uninsulated fibro house, the rooms heat up so quickly and cool down so slowly. I set our air conditioner to 25 degrees, close all unnecessary doors, keep the windows and curtains shut, and turn it on early so it uses less energy to get down to its set temp.

As if to alleviate my guilt, our power bill arrived today. It's our first one since we started making changes to our energy usage, and I was keen to see the results. While we are far from 'low' electricity users, we have definitely made progress. Last year in the same billing period, we used a staggering 1800 units. That averages to 30 units a day. This year, we have halved that for this billing period, to 15 units a day. This will increase again soon if we make no other changes, due to warmer weather and the use of the air conditioner. But I am still fairly pleased with that. I just need to now train the rest of the family to turn off lights when they leave the room (Nath), decide what they want from the fridge BEFORE opening the door (Miya) and remember to take the next night's dinner out of the freezer to defrost rather than using the microwave (ahem, me). Does anyone else have some electricity saving tips they have found to have made a difference that they can share with a beginner like me?