Becoming Ever So Green

Meet the experts who can help you halve your electricity bills.
 
Husband and wife team John and Ginny Evans have had a long-standing interest in all things eco and, in particular, alternative energy, so when John was made redundant from his IT manager job in July 2011, they saw it as an opportunity to set up Ever So Green Limited.
The company is Northamptonshire based and aims to provide consultancy and energy saving advice; a number of free reports are available on the website at www.eversogreen.co.uk

One of the first tasks John and Ginny undertook was to address their own electricity consumption. They did not think they were wasteful of electricity but, once they started monitoring where electricity was being consumed, they soon realised how wrong they were. By the time they had finished, they had managed to halve their electricity bill! For this reason alone it is very worthwhile to monitor electricity consumption.

The hunt for wasted energy

In the course of their own energy-saving crusade, John and Ginny performed a lot of analysis on energy saving devices, bought some of the inexpensive ones and even created a calculator to predict energy costs and potential savings. Having successfully halved their bills they decided to turn what they had learnt into eBooks (PDF) to help others and these are available from the website: www.eversogreen.co.uk/saveelec

Whilst addressing their electricity consumption John and Ginny found that one of the most useful tools in the hunt for waste is a plug-in energy monitor, which allows one to measure the energy usage of any device with a 13A plug - this could be anything from a phone charger to a washing machine. After trialling several they decided that the favourite was the Efergy Monitoring Socket 2.0; this is made by a reputable manufacturer, is accurate and has a battery backup. John and Ginny now sell these on the website alongside their eBooks to help people monitor their electricity consumption.

John and Ginny’s improvements included installing solar Photo Voltaic (PV), although this accounted for only a fifth of their electricity savings. There has been a lot in the press about PV recently and you may have probably read that the Government has more than halved the Feed-in Tariff (FIT) that is paid for each kWh of electricity generated. The good news is that the cost of panels has fallen somewhat so it is still a good long-term investment, with a payback of 8-10 years. For a fuller analysis of the costs and benefits of PV, look on the website.

Energy assessments

Having looked at their electricity consumption, John and Ginny decided to turn their attention to the energy efficiency of their home. This is important as most householders use far more energy heating their homes than anything else, and a detailed assessment is required to determine how the house is constructed and how well it performs in terms of retaining heat. With this in mind, they have recently started to perform energy assessments for houses in the Northamptonshire (and nearby) area, with the aim of providing an impartial analysis of how efficient your home is, and making recommendations of what energysaving improvements should be considered.

John and Ginny’s services will be expanded later in the year to include energy assessments on commercial properties.

For more information

To find out more about the company and for their free reports please see the website
www.eversogreen.co.uk

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