Energy Saving Week is over, but that doesn’t mean the Good Energy low-carbon challenge is. Day 6's task is to give the kitchen an energy audit. Having managed the Good Energy shop for the past three years, our Dawn was intrigued to see how her kitchen stacked up in the carbon stakes.

by Dawn

Managing the Good Energy Shop has meant giving advice to all our electricity customers on how they could save energy in their home, and finding new solutions to help customers enjoy a low carbon lifestyle and adding them to our virtual shelves. At the time it was very important to me to practise what I preached. And in the midst of a recession the thought of saving lots of money on my energy bills was very appealing. So every time I found out something new, I applied it in my home too.

Three years later and I am really reaping the benefits of my hard work. All my curtains have been lined, all my bulbs are either CFL or LED, all my radiators have reflective panels installed and I religiously defrost my freezer and bleed my radiators every six months.  Now when the quarterly bill comes, I compare it to the last year’s bill and I smile because I can see how much energy I've saved. My average energy consumption has dropped almost a quarter between 2008 and 2011 so I imagine my wallet smiles a little too!

Taking all this into consideration, you can probably imagine that finding room for improvement is getting tough. However, I have managed to think of a few actions I could take, which just goes to show there are always new things to try.

• Clean my oven door. That’s because even though I use a timer, with baking it gets a little tricky and sometimes I have to peak. However, if I cleaned the oven door I could probably see without opening the door, which would prevent me wasting all that heat energy that flows out while I'm taking a look.
• Make a draught excluder. I saw some really nice draught excluder snakes online once made from vintage clothes, but I never got round to buying them. However, the other day I found some very dodgy 70’s clothes left over from a rather embarrassing fancy dress party so I might try making one myself. How hard can it be? And what good timing too as I am just starting to feel the cold air creeping under the front door at night.
• Make a load of soup and freeze it. It's harvest time so there is a lot of yummy veg about. My plan is to use them to make lots of soups and then freeze it in the ice cream tubs I've got leftover from the summer. This way my freezer can stay nice and full (which reduces the dip in cold temperature when you open the freezer door), and when I need a nice bowl of soup to warm me up on a cold day, I can just pop some in the microwave (which uses less energy than the hob) and voila!

I’m not sure yet exactly how much energy I'll save, but I know that it will be one more step in the right direction and that can’t be bad.

If you’re looking for ways to reduce your energy consumption at home, then why not spend a few minutes completing the online energy audit I have created. It’s very quick and it could help you save a little on your energy bill this winter. Why not let us know how you get on by leaving a comment below or on our Facebook or Twitter pages. Head to the Energy Saving section of our website for more information. Alternatively, give our industry leading Customer Care team a call on 0845 456 1640. Their energy efficiency advice is endorsed by the Energy Saving Trust so they're great people to about cutting your consumption.

Good luck!
Dawn