11 Oct 21
Since the UK Government instructed the Lockdown millions of people would have started to work from home, there would have been a sharp increase in their energy consumption. In previous articles I have written about ‘Best Practice’ ways to reduce your energy but now I want to take this one step further and introduce ‘Home Automation’
Now do not think this is an expensive process, because it does not need to be done all at once. I have been slowly building my own ‘Home Automation’ over the last 8 Years. It is now fully automated and I believe I have made some staggering savings of 80% savings on my energy costs. This has been complimented with gradually upgrading my house with LEDs and other technologies.
The important strategy here is to find systems you can build on and slowly start to implement the system gradually. The first thing I did was look at all my problem areas:
- I would forget to turn my front lights off.
- My garden lights would be on during the day.
- I would come home at night and Lights would be on where my sons had left them on when they went to school.
- The TV was always in Stand-by
- All the Stand-by electrical systems were still on washing machine, dishwasher and dryer.
- I would have to turn lights on at 09.00 if I was going out for the day for security at night.
- The Heating would be on from the timer even if we was not here.
- Heating on in my sons rooms when they were not there.
There is some significant over spend here and waste. So once I understood this I then broke the energy areas down into Essential and Non-Essential. This is actually obvious once you see the list:
Essential Power:
- Heating
- Fridge
- CCTV
- Burglar Alarm
- Immersion Heater
- Telephone System
Non- Essential Power:
- Washing Machine
- Dishwasher
- All Lighting
- Non Essential Sockets
- TV
- Some Computers
- Printers
I took these Non-Essential Items and then started to enable ‘Smart’ Control. Now there are quite a few systems on the market but my particular choice I made was based on the following criteria:
- Robust Design
- Looks
- Respectable Costs
- Links via the wifi Hub to enable remote switching anywhere in the World
- Easy to program
- App available on my Iphone, Ipad and Web Access
- Timer capacity and Calendars
- Links with Amazon Alexa
Then over the years I have started to build my system of Smart Home Control with CCTV to just oversee if everything is working ok. So when I look back at my issues from day 1 these are how I have addressed them:
- I would forget to turn my front lights off.
- These are now switched with a Smart Switch which is programmed with Dusk to Dawn Control. At Dusk they come on and at Dawn they go off. In addition I have programmed GPS Co-ordinates so it follows the Sun and is linked with GMT and BST – I never have to worry about leaving them on ever again.
- My garden lights would be on during the day.
- These have their own Smart Switch with the exact same control as No. 1.
- I would come home at night and Lights would be on where my sons had left them on when they went to school.
- All Lighting are switched off automatically at 10.00 am Monday to Friday to double check that the lighting has been turned off.
- The TV was always in Stand-by
- The TV has its own Smart Socket whereby they are turned off at Midnight every night. (this time could be changed to 02.00 if you were a late person)
- All the Stand-by electrical systems were still on washing machine, dishwasher and dryer.
- As per No.4
- I would have to turn lights on at 09.00 if I was going out for the day for security at night.
- All the Security lighting has been programmed in coming on at Dusk and shutting off at midnight. In Fact now I never turn lights on any more as these all come on automatically (or via instruction of Alexia)
- The Heating would be on from the timer even if we was not here.
- The heating is controlled by a Smart Hub which is linked to our phones and if no one is here the heating is on a night setback.
- Heating on in my sons rooms when they were not there.
- I have installed and programmed Thermostatic Regulating Valves on the Radiators which enable us to shut rooms down when not in use. These link with the Smart System
In addition to these Smart Systems, I have installed flow restrictions on the Taps, the Shower , Water displacement on my toilet systems, I have added organic additives to my heating system and some additional roof insulation.
I have purposely withheld the products from this article as I would need to seek permission to share their names with you and it is not fair I do this. However, if you send me a DM I’m happy to share the details with you.
Please note that this is Home Automation – But I think this strategy can be developed for a commercial building.