Cutting the Cost of Household Bills?

schlumpf_louise asks: "I'm in the UK, and I'm about to move out of university accommodation and live in a house, for the first time. When we move, we will have to pay for water, electricity and gas. We'll still be students renting from a landlord, so we can't make any major physical changes to the property. The house has gas central heating and a gas cooker. Four computers will be running pretty much all the time, in addition to the usual general household appliances. What tips do any of you have for (legally) saving on bills? Are there any technologies that are worth buying for long term savings? What should we not do, or not use?" What other saving tips, and frugal suggestions might you have for a house full of college students?

Comments

remember the first law

[rcpitt]

You can change energy from one form to another but can't create or destroy it.

If you MUST have 4 computers running - they will eat something like 500-800+ watts - so you need to use or get rid of that amount of energy. (note that CRTs use similar amounts - use LCDs!)

Most refrigerators use something less than 500-800 watts to cool their interiors - but many (most) use motors to compress coolant and dump the heat out to cooling coils on the back (heating the surrounding room). Why not instead use a 'fridge that uses an absorption cycle (like the ones you find in a camper that use either electricity or gas to provide heat but don't use a motor) and run it off the heat of the computers?

Note that you'll have to provide some dump for the heat - so you'll probably want to put the computers (and some part of the fridge) near an outside wall so you can dump heat outside (choose the side away from the sun) - use long monitor cables etc. to bring the video/keyboard/mouse connections to where you want them.

In Summer - open the windows near the computers to let the heat out

In Winter - put a fan there and blow the excess heat into the rest of the house.

Of course you might want to run some copper tubing from the water supply near these heat sources to pre-heat the water prior to running it into the normal water heater too. You can also plumb them into solar panels on the roof in Summer (and even in Winter in some areas) to preheat water. A little bit of electronics might be necessary to ensure you don't overheat the water - I've almost burned my hand off the panels I have on the roof for my pool :)

Lots of ways of (re)using the energy you take into the house before letting it out - and taking advantage of the energy that is freely available from the sun when it shines.