The Ebenezer Scrooge Guide to Energy Saving

Without trying to sound like the stingy character in the Charles Dickens novel most people can relate to the need to reduce our energy costs, especially those with teenagers addicted to the latest gadgets and being born without the ability to switch a light off when leaving a room.

With the almost constant rise in energy prices the vast majority of us in the UK are starting to question even switching on an electric light until it’s really dark, either that or we spend our entire day following the kids around the house switching things off all the time trying not to say “Bah Humbug”


Quick Ways to Save on Energy Bills
Remove all the bulbs from the light fittings and use the candles that are at the bottom of the kitchen draw left over from a birthday cake 10 years earlier. Okay maybe a little extreme and I’m not sure I could sleep very well knowing the kids are walking around the house with lit candles.

A safer option If you’ve not already done so is to swap all your light bulbs for the low energy counterparts, low energy light bulbs when they first came on the market where a little pricey but today even the spot light type GU10 and similar have come down to an acceptable price, shop around though as prices vary wildly. If you really want to cut down further then consider the light fittings themselves, do you need 5 bulbs in your living room, even though they all might only be 5 watts individually the total adds up to 25 watts, this could be reduced if you only had one 5 watt bulb, so either change the light fitting or remove a couple of bulbs from the lamp.

If you have an open fire then burning your kitchen packaging waste rather than buying logs or coal is a thought, the amount of heat may not be much though and many people either don’t have open fires or if they do they live in an area restricting the smoke output.

Put an extra layer of clothing on, this could be a jumper or a base layer, ladies can put tights on whilst the men could do the same a set of thermals might be seen as slightly more manly, but who’s going to know, your secret is safe with us!

Keeping doors and windows shut helps a great deal, costs nothing (Scrooge would approve) once a room is warm the last thing you want to do is let the heat escape through an open window, doors on the other hand are a little more tricky as teenagers do struggle with these, closing doors seems to be beyond comprehension, even after spending time training your teenagers they still cannot soak in the complexities of closing a door, what do they teach at school these days?


Is there a Solution to Cheap Energy Bills?
Yes and no, wrap up warm and eat cold food, remove all electrical gadgets from your house, these are all choices that could be made, doubtful as they may sound, for some people they are already heading this way. There is an alternative solution for long term low energy bills in the way of solar energy, here in the UK the government has pledged to buy back any energy you produce for the next 25 years at the current rate of 41.3p per Kw. Whilst initial setup costs of installing Solar energy systems for your home are never going to be cheap this government backed “Feed in Tariff” really does make it a long term investment worth considering.
Energy Efficient Homes

What to do With Grey squirrels in Your Garden

Many people think the grey squirrel is an attractive little animal and often they try to encourage them to visit their gardens.

The trouble is grey Squirrels are destructive little fellows and they have a tendency to chew everything and anything that gets in their way. So be warned if you encourage squirrels to visit your garden you run the risk of damage, another favourite pastime of squirrels is to try and get into house roofs were they while away the hours chewing through electric cables.

Ways to Deter Grey Squirrels

Deterring the grey squirrel from stealing all your bird food is going to be challenging as they are highly intelligent animals but you could also see this as a fun pastime, a kind of game maybe?

Try to place bird feeders at least 8 feet from any vegetation such as trees were they squirrel could jump from.

Have a look at squirrel proof feeders which either have a built in design that makes life difficult for the squirrel, things like upturned plastic cones as these prevent the squirrel from climbing up the pole to the bird feeder. A quick fix would be to grease the pole, this may stop some squirrels from climbing the pole, well worth a try if you have some grease lying around in the shed or garage at home.

Cages around the bird feeder often work well as they allow small birds in or larger birds can access food with their beaks, squirrels either can’t get in or their escape route is awkward and thus they feel trapped so tend to look for easier pickings. Always ensure though you buy metal feeders as the plastic ones can get gnawed through by squirrels.

Squirrel Deterrent Devises

There are of course alternative methods of deterring squirrels from your house or garden, popular ones would include an ultra-sonic or sonic device to repel the pests or live squirrel traps, humane spring loaded trap door cages made from galvanised steel to prevent rusting, these cages can be used outside or in your loft space. Bear in mind what would you do with the squirrels you might capture.

Feeding the Grey Squirrel

Feel like you’re fighting a losing battle trying to prevent the grey squirrel from eating all your expensive wild bird food, well why not change tact and invest in a special squirrel feeder for your garden, these special squirrel feeders can be loaded up with cheaper seeds, the little blighters are then less likely to eat your more expensive bird food or destroy your bird feeders in the process.

Vine House Farm, the online bird food shop which sells Squirrel Proof Feeders, bird food and accessories, and all supplied direct from our farm at low prices. We support the Wildlife Trusts, and grow as much of our wild bird food on our conservation award winning farm as possible.

Electric Travel

There are so many concepts out there for solar, water and electric vehicles, some are just a dream and some are now reality.

Electric motorcycles have come a long way since the first use of electricity in vehicles, the prices are cheap and the Fuel is even cheaper. An electric motorcycle costing £9000 can travel at 63mph and cover a distance of 60 miles. Costing only 14p a day to fill up 70p a week to get to work and £36.40 a year (52 weeks). If you fill up £30 a week in your car to get to work that will cost you £1560 a Year so using an electric motorcycle instead of buying a new car can save you £1523.60. Over 6 years you have paid of the bike and maybe even less than 6 years if the price of fuel keeps rising, There will still be a need for a car as the bike cannot last for a long distance and can only seat 2 people but using it can cut the cost of your fuels bills by a huge amount.

 Investing in an electric car

Costing the same price as the Diesel version the Renault Zoe really is one to look forward to, due for release in autumn 2012 this car has a top speed of 84mph, 100 miles range and with the easy change stations for long distance travel you can stop for an hour or two have a rest and charge your car. Other impressive electric cars like the Mitsubishi i-MiEV show the costs of using an electric car, the car costs £24,000 with the £5000 government plug in car grant.

Testing the i-MiEV against typical UK urban usage has proved the benefits are real:

•          Costs just £270 to charge for 12,000 miles driving (£2.09 per full charge based on an average of 10p per kWh). If you are using the Economy7 tariff then the cost for 12,000 miles could be as little as £135 (£1.05 per full charge based on an average of 5p per kWh)
•          Low servicing costs and downtime – only 4 major working parts compared to over 300 in a typical internal combustion engine
•   The i-MiEV Mitsubishi Service Plan (MSP) covers the first three years servicing at a cost of just £300
•  Servicing carried out by any one of Mitsubishi’s 133 service dealers
•  Exempt from road tax
•  First year capital allowances for fleet vehicles
•  Zero benefit-in-kind company car tax
•  Exempt from London Congestion Charge
•  Free parking in some London boroughs and cities such as Milton Keynes
•  5 year battery warranty and 3 year vehicle warranty

After looking at these cars you can really see that the future is electric.

Quick tips to save money

Here are a few quick and easy tips on how to save money and be eco-friendly.

1. Turn your heating down
There are many other ways to keep warm at home and can save you money, by turning your heating down by a few degrees can save you about £20 a month on heating bills. Using a blanket instead of turning the heating up is a good place to start. Your home heating system should be the last choice to keep warm. You could also replace your Gas, oil or electric heating with an Air conditioning unit as these units use a low amount of energy and take affect faster than normal boiler heating systems.

2. Use less water
This is not only good for the environment but if you are on a meter then it also saves you money. When you have a shower use the water to get your body wet the turn it off, apply any washing items that you use and then turn the shower back on to wash it off. You can also add a water regulator to the shower that restricts the amount of water that flows out the shower head. Turn the tap off when brushing your teeth, fix leaking taps can save up to 15 litres of water a day. Installing a water butt in the garden to collect the rain water can be used for watering your plants instead of using fresh water from your hose.

3. Saving Electric
There are many ways that you can cut the cost of your electric bills and even have no bills at all. The easiest but no the cheapest way to do this is install solar panels they can be used to power most items or all in your home and can also help you make money due to government schemes (This post shows more detail Power Saver. Health eating and using low electricity by using the microwave, I don’t mean by having microwave meals as they are not as health as most meals are. I had discovered a recipe for a negative calorie cake it substitutes butter for a ripe banana and can be done in the microwave in 5 Minutes. You save money from heating up the oven, mixing by hand helps burn calories and so do some of the other steps.
Turning off your electric item by the main socket, this does not save a lot but it’s a start and can show over the year, every little helps and the more of these steps you take the more you save on your bills.

4. Wall Cavity filling
This is almost a standard feature in home that are built by Eco Development Companies, your home loses up to 35% of its heat through the walls and a cavity willing that costs around £100 can save you up to £130 a year.

5. Recycling
Most homes should be recycling plastics and metals but there are still a lot that don’t. Saving money by reusing materials and sending materials off for recycling helps the environment, using your old newspapers to make heating blocks for a log fire can save you money on buying wood to fuel it. There are simple log makers that you can buy Online that help this process. Recycling plastic so that it can be used again in other products, there are many companies out there that recycle plastics one of the main products recycled are wheelie bins. (Here is an article that explains this The Wheelie Bin Lifecycle)

6. Stop the memberships
We all have had a GYM membership at some point or have considered it, but why did we do it in the first place. Memberships can cost you anything from £10 - £80 a month depending on the package you want, and can cost you even more in the protein bars and health drinks that are sold in the Gym.

Let’s work out two different packages

£10 membership and £15 a month on protein bars and health drinks that is £25 a month, £300 a year on a gym membership, a good multi GYM system costs you £100 pound. So buy going your weights at home and going for a run you save £200 a year.

£80 membership would normally give you access to weights, spar, trainers, etc. £80 plus your £20 in the Gym shop £1200 a year on average. For this money you could by yourself a multi gym (£230), Inflatable hot tub (£350) and a 12 x10 shed (£600) to turn in to your own home GYM still saving you £20 left over.
Use the gym whenever you want at home with no cost for travel or to use you equipment, you could also half the cost by getting a friend or few to join in and help by this setup for all of you to use.

By following all of these steps you could save anything from £200-£600 a year.