Saving electricity for 6 months is coming to an end – it went so well (or badly).

When I was asked if I would be interested in designing a concept for an energy blog, my first reaction was: “Me, of all people, who walks around with a bad conscience when it comes to energy conservation?” But then I thought why not? Maybe there are more people like me. People who know they should and would if they got the right kick for it.”

The concept was quickly clear: I will tell you honestly, broken down by topic, how things are going at my house — knowing that some things are pretty bad there — and have this situation assessed by experts at the Federal Office of Energy. And then try to do better according to their instructions.

Especially when you are confronted with figures, the incentive to save is great. At least as long as you remember them. An electrical appliance that is constantly on standby wastes up to 60 kW of energy per hour. With every degree that we turn down the heating, we save up to ten percent heating energy. For every degree warmer that we set the refrigerator, we save seven percent energy.

Baking without preheating saves up to 20 percent, while baking with convection instead of top and bottom heat saves up to 15 percent. The Eco program of the dishwasher uses only half as much energy as the normal program. Each wash that is not carried out in a washing machine saves up to one kWh at 40 degrees, cold washing and economy programs halve the power consumption. Tumblers consume up to 3 kWh of energy.

Showering instead of bathing reduces energy consumption by up to three times. And if you leave the light of a 15-watt LED lamp on unnecessarily for an hour, you use about the same amount of energy as working half an hour on a laptop.

As I said, the readiness in the first few days after the experts “washed their heads” was huge. Both the one who pulls me on the leash and the one who keeps pointing out the associated “imbalance” to my two teenage children. And now, half a year later?

Well, there are actually things that I’ve made a habit of that I’m happy about. For example, turning off the laptop in the evening instead of leaving it on standby. Because at the same time I turn off the work switch in my head. I wouldn’t want to miss being able to actually call it a day instead of being on constant standby in my subconscious. With my kids it’s a bit different: After some initial efforts, the laptop and Playstation are constantly working again, even when not in use. If I go into their rooms when they’re not there and see it, I’ll pull the plug. But I’ve given up constantly reminding her to do it myself. Might as well talk to the rabbits, that’s about as convenient.

I’ve also automatically turned the heating down as soon as I leave my bedroom in the morning – I don’t use it during the day so it doesn’t need to be heated. I also turned down the heating in the children’s rooms to a minimum acceptable to me, and so far no complaints. I couldn’t really break the habit of tilting the windows. So I just close them when I see it.

I set the refrigerator to seven degrees. What I’m very proud of: I think along with the storage. It is cooler at the bottom and back than at the top and front, so food that spoils gets to the designated areas faster. I often buy meat and fish on the same day we eat, which means firstly that we don’t eat as often, and secondly that I actually plan a little better than before.

I even stopped my kids from preheating the oven, and since they realized that for most dishes it doesn’t really matter whether you bake with convection or with top and bottom heat, they also choose the former for their beloved frozen dishes. The dishwasher is another small «construction site». Depending on who cooked how much, there are so many dishes lying around that one wash is not enough. Because the Eco program takes twice as long as the normal program, I use the normal program more often. Albeit with a bad conscience.

Also difficult in terms of energy: washing and tumbling. The mountains of laundry are constantly piling up so I was constantly washing and after initial attempts not to tumble so much, the habit/laziness has spread again. But there is hope: we are moving soon and in the new apartment we only have our own small washing machine and no more own bottlenose dolphin. That is only enough for emergencies, for the rest there is a washing day. That will greatly relieve my energy-saving conscience.

We also have a bathtub in the new apartment, so from now on I won’t be denied the pleasure of enjoying a hot bath every now and then. To me, bathing and showering are two different things – when I feel the need to relax, this cannot be solved with a shower.

One of my greatest successes is the fact that my daughter, who always left the light on everywhere, now turns it off when she leaves the room. Not always, but more often. I also ordered the furniture for the apartment I bought new, all in white, because dark colors absorb light. I might not have done that for Madame Energie.

I imagined some things would be harder (fridge, laptop), others easier (dishwasher, tumble dryer). And then there are the things that are really really easy that I just hadn’t thought of before (oven). All in all, we’ve changed things up a bit and I think a little pride in ourselves is in order.