When I help someone save energy they generally dont keep all the savings but "use" some of the money saved to heat their home more often or to higher temperatures because they can afford to, is this common?





I was going to call this thread "Saving more using more?"

Yes I think it is common and in all sorts of ways. Better fuel economy in car = more miles driven, and so forth. Products consume less but we buy more and more devices, more efficient TV but end up with 3x on all of the time. I do sometimes feel that this only enables you to stand still rather than move forward.

Cheers, Mike up North

Leopards change their spots all the time. A company is just a brand name - not even that if taken over/rebranded. Or it's a list of assets. With new brooms at the top, a company can sell or write off much of what it currently does, and set off in a new direction. It's managing that change, using what they've got to do it with continuity, advantage even - 'leveraging' they'd call it.

It would be lovely to think that all the energy saving, and re-using, and frugality that many green issues espouse had altruism at its core. That it was all being done in order to preserve and eke things out for the unborn generations to come. Maybe that's the original altruistic intention, but all to often the core values get distorted at the indivdual level, and for us its to save money now in order to spend elsewhere, but spend we do. Why do we chase jobs and work so hard,- simply to buy more, use more, do more, consume more. Government and industry need us to do so, more growth, more tax, but always more, more, more, the individual and the collective. How many times have you heard government, chancellors, politicians say growth is the key to our success, it's a measure of our standing in the world. Like most I'm as guilty as the next. It does beg the question though, why bother at all with energy saving etc., if all it leads to is just another manufactured trinket to buy?

We humans are a restless lot, from the very first time we walked out of Africa.

Perhaps if you stopped trying to chat up social science students you'd be less biased towards them.

The key is values. There's no point in persuading people to save money on space heating if they then spend what they've saved on flying. If people are making changes to their houses in order to reduce CO2 emissions, rather than just save money, then they are less likely to have rebound effect I would have thought, because they will think through their actions in terms of their CO2 output.

Having said that, IME a total house renovation can easily become a complete festival of consumption. Some of it is justifiable (we've reused bedroom carpets, but the landing and stairs carpets were too trashed to reuse, so we plan to have these carpets http://wocc.squarespace.com/graphite-range/designer-graphite-stripe/ - 100% undyed wool from within 100 miles of manufacturer in Cumbria - green, green, green). Much of it is hard to justify in the cold light of day - a 'built in' wardrobe from IKEA, not really necessary. I've thrown out functioning radiators, because I wanted a radiator that fitted in a particular space, etc...etc..... Every day new 'stuff' arrives at the house, and it's not all insulation!

"Obsession"?

"We"?

Errr. Who is it running the stats side of... http://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/forum114/comments.php?DiscussionID=8966&page=9#Item_20 ?

Mind you, you're probably just stating a fact rather than offering an opinion.

ST said "Most people buy on price for a given quality/desirability. Push the price too high and then substitution takes place.
So the best and fastest way to cause domestic reduction is to put the price up and then show that by simple insulation and airtightness methods the overall price is the same.
Guess that is what the Green Bank is all about but without putting the price of energy up."

I totally agree with this. I have been pestering a friend to put some insulation into their bungalows loft. I have finally been given an answer to why they don,t get around to insulating he said "We can afford our current bills easily"

I suspect this is a common underlying attitude.

Thanks Gary but I think it flogging a dead horse trying to convince them. They know it would save them money but can't be bothered with the hassle.

> How does affordability influence how much we use?

Surely it would be quite odd if it didn't.
There are surely plenty of cases of the other way around.
ie. people not daring to use any because it's so expensie they don't think they can afford it.
It was that way where I grew up and was still common amongst friends when I was a student.

There was little cost driven to our project. It was done for the engineering "fun", a new thing to play with, and for the satisfaction of independence from oil and oil boilers. It will certainly use less that had we not gone eco with it but still I expect we may well now heat everything all the time just because we can. If i got it right it will mostly genuinely be free though (apart from install cost) so like was said earlier we're all probably not typical.

Me! It's basically my current policy, though not "modest" by the standards of much the the world, I admit.

Still, my effective gross salary for this year so far currently works out at about £17k for the entire year!

Rgds

Damon

As a child Sellotape was strictly rationed "don't you know how much that stuff costs!" was my parents' refrain. Nowadays I frequently use more than is necessary. Easy come, easy go sums it up for me.

Unfair that the current belt tightening has not really affected me financially, but my sister is going through a second or maybe third round of reapplying for her existing job which has been re-graded to a lower grade and for lower pay. I'm very vexed and sad that the pain is not shared. (even though she grassed me up to mum and dad when I wasted the Sellotape).

I will have run up a massive debt to have created the house we want to retire to (and live in until we retire) - whole house insulation and extension with all the (sunpipe, heat-recovery ventilation, nice finishes) trimmings. If we didn't have a decent income (and reasonably secure jobs, and middle-class professional backgrounds that give confidence of weathering employment storms) we would not have felt able to rack up an additional £60k debt on top of our mortgage (having burnt through £50k savings pretty quick). I'm sure when things settle down and paying it off becomes just one of our regular outgoings it will feel fine. While the work is still ongoing, and there remain potential areas of more spending ('your rear chimney stack needs rebuilt/repointing otherwise it might collapse") it's pretty anxiety inducing. And that's without spending money on foreign holidays or plasma TVs. On the other hand, this afternoon I have already spent in excess of £400 on water butts, wall mounted laundry airer, bike racks and hot composter - all virtuous in their own way, but probably could get the same utility from reused/existing items or other - less fancy - solutions.

Oophill both ways to and from school ... lived in a 'ole in ground (when we could afford one) ... couldn't get rid of the awful brass-band tinnitus even with a loaf of 'ovis jammed in me lug'ole! Them was the days!

Rgds

Damon (a well-disguised northern lad)