Getting Your Priorities Right

This month we have traversed  the south coast helping organisations identify ways they can improve resource efficiency and reduce costs. We’ve been to an historic fortress in Eastbourne, a Victorian manor house on the Isle of Wight and a hairdressers in Lewes to name but a few! A couple of things we have learned on the way…

Identify the real issue

We were greatly impressed arriving at one organisation to be presented with weekly electricity and gas meter readings for the past year.

Plotting day and night rate electricity usage, we could see that whilst quite a lot of other electrical equipment is used on site during the day, electric plug-in and storage heaters turned on in winter months to supplement a gas central heating system contributed to around half the cost of their annual bill.

First we checked that the most was being made of the central heating and suggested that in the coldest periods the temperature of the water feeding the radiators is increased by using the dial on the front control panel. Whilst more gas will be used, the electric heaters shouldn’t be needed so often and with gas than electricity, cost savings should be realised.

We then examined electric heater timer and temperature settings to make sure that areas of the building were not being heated unnecessarily and room temperatures not rising above comfortable levels. The cumulative effect of making small changes should result in noticeable savings.

That chiller ain’t so cool

In a café in East Sussex we measured the operating power of the various fridges, freezers, water heaters and other electrical equipment. An innocuous sandwich chiller was found to be running at 800 Watts, therefore costing the business over £500 a year to run!

As no perishables were left in the chiller overnight, we suggested fitting a seven-day timer so that it would switch off automatically overnight. Annual savings of over £300 are expected!

Knowledge is power

Through monitoring and measuring both organisations were able to identify how worthwhile savings could be achieved with minimal investment. Money that could now be used for more exciting high-tech projects?

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Get in touch to find out how your organisation can reduce costs through resource efficiency: info@sustainablebusiness.org.uk or 07796 838592.