Switching on to green tariffs for electric and gas

I've been doing a bit of research on "Green energy tariffs" provided by utility energy suppliers, as they always sounded a bit suspect to me. The idea is that you pay a little more for your energy which offsets your carbon foot print for the gas and electricity that you use as well as investment in to renewable energy generation.


Now I'm all up for being eco friendly and I think we do our bit in our house for the environment and importantly doing our best to keep our energy bills as low as possible, so I wanted to see how much our energy would be on an eco friendly  "green tariff" I found it hard to believe that if I switched to a green tariff it would cost us an massive £136 per year which works out to be 21%. 


I found a great site about our carbon footprint simply called carbonfootprint.com to do some calculations on the energy we use, Now the total energy that we use causes a carbon footprint of 1.43 tonnes of CO2 per year, I then looked at what I'd have to do to 'offset' this energy use (you can see the results here) and I was stunned to find that I could offset our use by donating between £9.98 - £28.52, I know there is more to green energy than just the offsetting but even if I double or triple that, what I could spend through carbonfootprint.com to 'give back' to the environment I'd still be saving money!


Surely if sourcing energy from green and renewable sources utility companies should be providing and working to that goal anyway and not charging the consumer more.
So I've decided I'm going to stay on the tariff I'm currently on and pay to have some trees planted every year so I know where my money is going also this helps wildlife too. This is of course just my opinion and results based on my home.


Paul

Home electrics - What to do if your lights are not working

Last post I spoke about what to do if your electric sockets aren't working today its the lights. This is a simple one to sort out first you need to establish if it's just the lamp (bulb) that has blown, or are all the lights off in which case it would be a fuse has blown or circuit breaker has tripped. to do this try lights in other rooms and/or replace the lamp.


Note: sometimes when a lamp blows it will trip a circuit breaker in modern consumer units.


Most houses have at least 2 circuits for lighting an upstairs and downstairs circuit as this helps minimise inconvenience when a fuse/circuit breaker blows also it splits up the load of all the lights.


If the fuse/ circuit breaker has blown then either replace the fuse wire with 5amp wire* and then check that the light now comes on if it doesn't and the fuse/circuit breaker blows again then you'll need to call an electrician if the fuse/circuit breaker are on but there are no lights then there is a problem with the wiring and you'll need to call an electrician to find the fault.




Keep safe
Paul






* replacing fuse wire with the incorrect size wire or any other material can cause a circuit to not be correctly protected if there is a fault, this is dangerous as the fuse is a protective device and can prevent fires and electric shocks.

Socket outlets not working?

If your sockets/power stops working in your home it can be very inconvenient, this post is all about getting to the bottom of the problem and potentially saving you money.


If it is just one appliance in your home that has stopped working then plug the appliance into another socket in your home and another appliance (a side lamp is usually best) into the original socket to establish if it is the appliance itself or the socket/series of sockets.


Check at the consumer unit/fuseboard if the circuit breaker has tripped or fuse has blown, or in the case of new boards that the Residual Current Device (RCD) has tripped.


If the the breaker of fuse has blown, unplug all appliances and then reset the breaker or rewire/replace the fuse, then one by one plug in all the appliances. If the breaker/RCD won't reset at all or the fuse blows you'll need to get an electrician in to have a look at the circuit, if it does reset you'll need to plug in the appliances one by one to find out which one caused the problem, then you'll either need to have it repaired or replaced.