Health-conscious households in South Africa are carefully counting the Ks. Not kilojoules — that’s so last season — but kilowatts. In the aftershock of Eskom’s heart-stopping price hike announcement, it makes sense to eye your appliances with the deepest suspicion.
Having identified a number of energy-bingeing appliances with a multimeter — a kilowatt counter — we have put our whole house on a strict diet.
The biggest culprit is the geyser. Suddenly all those leisurely baths at boiling temperatures seemed terribly indulgent — our household’s own little death by chocolate cake. Between the bathing habits of my husband, my one-year-old son and me, our geyser was responsible for about 62% of the electricity we used. Now we try to do a bath run — three for the price of one.
Our gas cooker and fireplace help to lower our kilowatt count considerably as electric cooking and heating is the triple caramel sundae of the kilowatt world.
The big question was whether my favourite appliance, the dishwasher, would be worth its watts. Our calculations showed it used up about 5% of our total consumption, but this became less of an energy burden when it didn’t dry the dishes itself or heat the water to a high temperature. And waiting for the dishwasher to fill up, which in a small family can take a couple of days, is just common sense.
Although we usually dry our washing outside, courtesy of sunny South Africa, rainy days call for that energy blob hiding in the scullery, the tumble drier. These appliances should come with a warning about their energy intensiveness. Running one for just an hour will bust any energy diet.
We also replaced all our light bulbs with low-energy globes, which, like a skinny cappuccino, supplies all the fun without the gain.
My hairdryer also swallowed some kilowatts, which made my husband raise his eyebrows. I merely shrugged. It is no use making all the savings if you look like a drowned duck.
Our fridge, a new model, promised all kinds of energy savings on its box. All of these promises evaporate if you stand dithering in front of an open fridge door deciding what to cook for dinner.
The swimming pool pump is a double cheeseburger and fries. This monster lurking in the garden demands constant kilowatts to be happy and if you don’t oblige it will turn the swimming pool green. The only solution is to put the pump on a low-carbon diet and feed it only when you absolutely have to.
We snacked happily on televisions, computers and even our overhead projector. Though we were counting the kilowatts, we were not overly suspicious of our home entertainers as they did not seem to be such a big waste in comparison with the other suspects.
Smartmeters, not yet widely available in this country, are the ultimate toy for kilowatt counters, and consumers in the United States tell of massive savings once they plug this meter into their breaker box and see how much electricity they use and how much it costs.
Google is also getting in on the action with a nifty software program that will show you just how you use energy and, if you ask nicely, will also tell you which appliances to throw out.
For now our household has switched to our own version of smartmetering — the prepaid meter. As the kilowatts tick by and you see your money running out, you start to think of what you can turn off. Do we really need clean clothes? Dinner by candlelight tonight darling?
But the biggest kick of our prepaid meter?
No nasty billing surprises at the end of the month from our local municipality.
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