mending things

I have been monitoring my electricity consumptions for a number of years on the basis that, in order to reduce it, i need to understand it first, i.e. where does it all go ? Initially I took a reading from the meter once a week , then subtracted the past reading from the current reading to get the weekly usage. I did this in a spreadsheet. Now I use The imeasure which is a web site run by Oxford University. It does this and many more things, including gas consumption and factoring in weather conditions. I also monitor my real  time using a current cost device, monitoring the whole house, plus a couple of individual appliance monitors (IAM) which provide me data about individual appliances. I can publish this data to the Internet via the current cost NetSmart unit. All these methods give me a better idea of what I'm using and where it's going. I should explain that my household uses gas central heating as the primary source of heat and hot water. My weekly electricity usage...

I am on an Economy 7 electricity tariff. E7 , as it's abbreviated, offers lower cost electricity at night, but with slightly higher day rate and standing charge. The original reason for E7 was so the Electricity providers to reduce the peak demand. In very general terms, the electricity we are using now is being generated now. This means that the grid has to anticipate peak demand, fro example the ad break in the middle of "Coronation Street" , when millions of viewers get up and switch electric kettles on. By encouraging people to use electricity during off-peak times i.e at night, less generators have to be bought online. Also the mix of generators determines the amount of CO2. For live CO2 data from the grid see http://realtimecarbon.org/ You can see that the mount of CO2 released in grams per unit is at it's lowest at night. Also lowering peak demand means less power stations needing to be built The biggest household use of electricity is heating water and space ...

I'd recently noticed that clothes were often still rather wet when I took them out of the machine. This started around November, but lately the fast spin cycle has been accompanied by a crackling noise from somewhere inside, like sparking or arcing. I had similar symptoms with an old Servis washing machine, and it meant that the brushes were worn down to the brass spring-cups. Finally last Monday the machine failed it's cycle displaying a C9 error code. I decided that it was worth replacing the brushes, and after a lot of searching (not all spares sites are easy to us) I got through to AEG/Electrolux spares department and ordered a new set (£16 per brush and you need 2 !). Today I'll fit them, using the approach taken in the companion blog on replacing bearings. Update All went well. I : 1) disconnected the washing machine from the electricity, water & waste 2) emptied any water from inside via the filter hatch (lower front left hand side) 3) Put some old towels on the...

We have had an AEG Lavamat washing machine for 9 years and it's given very good service, probably running on average, a wash load a day for a family of four, including two teenage boys. I'd started to notice that the spin was gradually getting louder , and recently some extra random bangs and knocks were introduced into the cacophony. It looked as if the main bearings were worn out, which was confirmed by some play in the drum when pushed up. I maintained an old Servis washing machine which we had before the AEG, and it was forever breaking down with either clogged filter (nicely placed underneath the machine for zero accessibility) or the brushes wore out in the motor. I had arrived at the opinion that a washing machines bearings were the equivalent of a cars "big end" i.e. something that when it goes is considered terminal and I had no experience of replacing them. But I decided it was worth it as a new set cost around £20 and the machine should go on for som...