Inauguration

First post, now that I am about to finally automate the reading of the utility meters, and collected plenty of energy consumption data for the house, I thought it was the time to share a bit.

Also I finally seem to have caught up with 10 finger typing so I need some regular typing to keep it active.

So here goes some background. We bought the house where we currently live a bit more than 2 years ago, and having always been interested in energy efficiency I started measuring our energy consumption. I did this on a daily basis, (almost) every day, at 20:00, recorded the values on the electricity and gas meters - the water meter is not so accessible and I had less ideas to save water.

After the first year, using the standard basic manual Honeywell thermostat, I automated the central heating, implementing independent zone control for living room, sleeping room and kitchen, by means of some electronic controls and a server supervising the whole thing.

Either by using the system or by lowering the general set point, we saved about 40% on the energy bill!

I'll elaborate on the setup later on.

Plan for this summer: insulate the attic and possibly the floor, and, for saving water, use rain water for the toilets! It's been on my mind since we moved and it's about to happen...I hope.

But the closest goal is to do the data collection automatically, and we're almost there for electricity and gas. I hope to be ready by the weekend. I'll keep posting.