Reducing the carbon footprint of a small victorian terraced house

In 2005, we installed solar panels (photovoltaic cells) on our roof. In addition to generating electricity, this was the trigger to see how much we could reduce our energy consumption and carbon footprint.

Since then, we've done various things to make the house more energy efficient and checked our progress against energy consumption for the year before we started on improvements.

• Starting point - description of the house in 2005 including electricity and gas consumption for benchmark year

• Solar PV and Solar Water - details of installations

• Insulation - measures to insulate roofs, walls, windows, doors, etc.

• Energy efficiency and energy saving - things we've tried to reduce our
  energy consumption, including heating, ventilation, lighting, kitchen
  gadgets, water heating

• Costs - how much we've spent
  

• Tools and gadgets – some stuff we've found useful for monitoring and
  measuring

• Experiments - measuring draughts and thermal imaging
  

• Things we still want to investigate and do

• Energy results - details of our gas and electricity consumption since 2004-5 and CO2

• Pictures
  

Financial benefits - Although saving money has not been our objective, this is something that a lot of people ask about. It's difficult to make year on year comparisons of energy bills because the standing orders get adjusted, rebates arrive erratically and prices do not rise at a consistent rate. Even so, in the 3 years from March 2005, our average total energy bill (for gas and electricity) was around £260 per year, of which only £10 per year on average was for electricity.

Perhaps it is worth noting that improved insulation meant that our gas bills dropped from £290 in 2005/6 to £220 in 2007/8 even though gas prices rose in this period.