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A lot of energy and water consumed around the house is wasted – often out of sight therefore out of mind!
Simple monitors and timers around the home can help you stay on top of any unnecessary energy use and water use.
To help improve the use and uptake of monitors around the house we have put together two initiatives.
Appliance energy meter and soil moisture meter library
As you only need to use these meters every now and again we thought the most efficient way for The New Rouse Hill residents to access these handy tools would be through a ‘library’ arrangement where you can borrow them for a week or two at a time. Come up to the Sales Office in Bellcast Rd (with an energy or water bill as proof of residence) and take out a loan!
The two meters we have available are: |
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Steplight plug in appliance energy meter
Simply plug this into the power point and then the appliance into the meter. The meter provides an accurate reading on the instantaneous electricity use of the appliance (in watts) and keeps a track of the total energy use for the time the appliance is monitored (in kWhs). And yes – it comes with instructions!
Find out what the actual energy consumption of major appliances around the house is – useful to keep an eye on standby power, second refrigerators, electric bedroom heaters and any other appliances that plug into a wall socket. |
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Soil moisture meter
Get to know what parts of your garden need more or less water than others. For the majority of native plants used in your landscape low to moderate levels of moisture is all that is required. Saturating your garden with recycled water is not necessary for healthy plant growth and not beneficial to the soil given the slight salty and chlorinated nature of recycled water.
Soil moisture meters allow you to work out accurately what parts of your garden retain or lose moisture faster than others. It is likely that you will identify some garden beds that seldom require watering allowing you to save water and money and improve the health of your plants.
The meter is easy to use – simply insert the probe into the soil and register the reading on the dial which has standard measurements of dry through wet soil conditions. The meter works equally well in pots – most people find that pots need more frequent watering while many garden beds require less frequent watering than anticipated. |
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Household electricity monitor and shower timer deals
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The Steplight Current Cost wireless electricity usage monitor
Do you want to understand when and how much energy is consumed around the house? See when appliances are left turned on unnecessarily? See how much energy the lights and air conditioner really use? Work out where you can cut out wasted energy?
The Steplight Current Cost wireless energy monitor, currently $138, will uncover this, and more. This energy monitor shows you how much electricity you are using, and how much you are spending, in real-time (across your entire home).
Reduce your total energy usage by 5 to 15%. UK research shows “The norm is for savings from direct feedback to range from 5-15%” – this means that the monitor will pay itself off in about a year.
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This is how it works:
- Intuitive and easy to understand.
- Enter you own electricity tariffs (two can be entered).
- Works with single or three-phase power supply.
- It responds to small load changes (~25 watts) and is very accurate.
- The display screen is mains powered (using 1 watt – it costs less than $1 a year to run).
- The transmitter is powered by two D-size batteries (included) which will last seven years.
- Data can be downloaded to your computer via USB.
- It stores 90 days for daily kWh – suitable for bill monitoring.
The purchase cost of this meter is currently $138 available at the Steplight website.
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Shower timers
Do you look at your gas and water bill and wonder where all of those resources and money are going? Chances are that the average length of showers in the house has crept up to average close to 8 minutes (the Sydney average) rather than 4 minutes!
A tried and tested device to raise awareness of showering times is to keep a waterproof timer with you in the shower – try and get the average shower time down to 4 minutes and see what a difference it will make to your gas and water consumption.
This is especially relevant at The New Rouse Hill as the great majority of dwellings have gas boosted solar hot water – by lowering your demand for water from showers a greater proportion of the hot water you use will be from your solar panels rather than gas boosted.
Any shower timer should work - they generally cost less than $20. The Australian Geographic store in the Rouse Hill Town Centre has stocked shower timers (similar to the timer pictured from Ripple Products). They are also available from other retailers online such as the Origin Eco Store.
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