Eco-living

To help you reduce your energy consumption a few simple steps can be followed:

• Switch off lights in areas that are not in use.
• A PC left on overnight for a week uses enough energy to produce 4000 pages of laser printed text! If you must leave your PC on in the day then switch off the screen when out as this saves more than 50% of the energy. (remember, even when switched off a PC still plugged in at the mains is using electricity.
• Maximise the use of natural daylight and switch off lights when daylight is adequate.
• A full load of washing uses less water than two half loads so you'll be able to save money on energy and water.
• Turn the tap of whilst brushing your teeth, a running tap wastes over 6 litres per minute.
• Mending your dripping tap washer could stop you wasting up to 5,500 litres of water.
• Cut your flush volume! Put a hippo, save-a-flush or other displacement device, which your water company can provide for free, into the cistern.
• A bath can use over 100 litres of water, while a shower only uses a third of that amount. But be aware that many power-showers will use more water than a bath if you shower for more than five minutes.
• Check out where your main stop valve is and make sure that you can turn it on and off. If ever a pipe bursts, you'll know how to cut off the flow.