Monday 28th July

Not much going on..... the weather prevents us from doing anything around the house at the moment - GUTTED!

Speaking of the weather..... I'm sick of the bloody rain!
We had to take 5 (yes FIVE) loads of washing to the Laundrette yesterday to get dry.
They have those huge kick ass dryers that dry loads of stuff in one go....
I had two loads of sheets and two loads of towels in one dryer - and it "only" took half an hour.
If I had done that at home, it would have taken over an hour for each load!

I am being a power nazi at the moment in our house..
We had a $400 power bill last month, and a $360 one this month!!!
CRAZY!!!!!!!
We did a test on the meter and the TWO oil filled heaters that we were using 24/7 were more than quadrupling our power consumption!!!
I was always suspicious that they were the culprits, but now the proof is in the pudding.....

This is what we did:
Turned EVERYTHING off except the following:
Microwave, fridge, alarm clock, TV, SKY decoder, modem, one laptop & 2 lights.
The meter took 30 seconds to complete one full turn.
We then turned on the two oil filled heaters (and they are only small 5 fin ones) and the meter took 7 seconds to do a complete turn!!!!!
We then turned on the dryer as well, and it took 3 seconds to do a complete turn!!!!!!!
I worked it out (from our last power bill) that we were using around $11.50 in power per day (excluding the fixed daily charge).
Since I have been a power Nazi, in the last WEEK we have used just $10.70 of power.
Yes.... you read right.......... $11.50 per DAY, compared with $10.70 per WEEK!!!!!!!!!

So....... it has certainly paid off for us to turn off the non essentials!!!

Oh..... what are we doing for heating??
Well, instead of having the oil heaters on 24 hours a day, we have a couple of fan heaters on for an hour or two at night before bed, they heat it up nicely, and once you are under the covers, you don't notice the cold!!!!
And while having both of them going, the meter takes 10 seconds to do a complete turn.

Righto.... home time now!

I'm off to pick up Rhian from daycare and go home to make shepherds pie for dinner....... YUM!!!