“Things I have switched off and got in trouble for"
Our guest blogger this month is Jeremy Carter. I first met Jeremy when he was energy manager at a famous biosciences research institute (for which, he won an award) and we hit it off immediately over our passions for running, electric guitar and saving the planet. Below, he explains in his irrreverent style his hands-on approach to energy management:
“Before I start talking about that title, I think I should talk about the reasons behind my actions that have often landed me in trouble. But what is trouble anyway? And, why have I found myself in trouble for switching things off?
Firstly, I should tell the story of the arse kicking room. A place I often found myself in and a place I shall be referring to from time to time. When I worked for a local authority, the department I worked in had a meeting room situated along our corridor.
The meeting room was of course used for meetings. However, I spent so much time in this meeting room having my arse kicked it became known as “the Arse Kicking room”. Well to me in any case.
“Where is Jeremy?”
“He’s in the arse kicking room”
“What’s he done this time?”
“Been switching stuff off again, hasn’t he!”
When I was working in the leisure industry, I was constantly looking for ways to reduce our power consumption. One idea I came up with was to put timers on the vending machines that would switch them off when the leisure centre was closed and bring them back on when the centre opened. Writing this now, this seems like a good common-sense way of saving energy.
However, I remember coming in (the morning after the evening we installed the timers on the vending machines) to find one of the vending machines making an awful noise. The compressor didn’t like being switched off. So much so the vending machine refused to work.
In the Managers office (The Arse Kicking room, the early years). I was asked if I had contacted the supplier and asked them about switching the vending machine off.
My response was to confirm that we hadn’t travelled back in time and that we were still in the 21st century. And that as we were still in the 21st century my expectation was that we should be able to switch a vending machine off and on again without it breaking down.
My response was not met with enthusiasm
If you can’t turn a vending machine off and on again without it breaking down, then maybe the fault lies with the vending machine? The vending supplier replaced the machine and thankfully my timers stayed.
I say thankfully, because turning off those 5 vending machines whilst the leisure centre was closed reduced the leisure centre’s night time consumption by 8%. Needless to say, I wasn’t called into the managers office to discuss that.
Another story that springs to mind involves a hot water boiler. The kind you find in corporate kitchens that saves staff waiting for a kettle to boil. Christmas was approaching and realising that the building would be closed for 6 days, I had identified that boiler as one of many items to be switched off.
The last day before the Christmas break came and went, but before I left for home, I switched the water boiler off. When we returned after Christmas, I made sure I was in early to switch the boiler back on. Only to find it refused to work. Are you seeing a pattern here? Was that an alarm going off?
“Yes it’s the alarm for The Arse Kicking Room”
I checked the fuse. I took the boiler apart. But no joy. Other staff were now in and out of the kitchen asking why the boiler wasn’t working. I called out our heating engineer who condemned the boiler and said it would need replacing at a cost of £800.
The next thing I knew I was in The Arse Kicking room having my head torn off. My head of department was hungry for blood and possibly a little thirsty for his morning cup of tea. My standard defence of being in the 21st century went down about as well as the titanic.
“Jeremy! You have saved us thirty pence but cost us £800!!!”
I still maintain I was harshly treated, but that may have been something to do with the fact that I was a lone cockney working in deepest darkest North Yorkshire. But, let’s just think about this situation for a while.
The boilers in our homes switch themselves off and on again all the time and they don’t stop working. So, wasn’t it a just a tad unfair to blame me for the fault in this boiler?
What my action’s highlighted was that the water boiler probably hadn’t been switched off in ten years. This building operated 9 to 5, Monday to Friday. Think about that level of waste!!! But of course, that wasn’t mentioned. Certainly not in the arse kicking room.
Act without hesitation
One of my best qualities that rushes to the surface whenever I discover energy waste is, I act without hesitation. When I see energy waste, I am taking it down. This blog tells the story of two occasions when my actions have landed me in trouble. What I have kept out, is all the other things that I have switched off that have gone unnoticed.
The savings I have generated through switching things off, may have landed me in trouble from time to time. But those actions have operated like a secret assassin literally wiping consumption from the face of the energy invoices.
To hear more about Jeremy’s experiences and ideas, head to https://jeremycarter6.wixsite.com/carterenergyblog/feed