St Clair couple reduce their annual water and energy bills by almost $1000 with simple changes!

Have you ever wondered what effect all those little things you could be doing at home would have on the environment and your wallet? Sure they say all those little things add up, but how much? A couple from St Clair recently wondered this, and what they’ve achieved is outstanding!

Zuzana Cernak-Frketic and Robert Frketic of St Clair became inspired after attending one of Penrith City Council’s recent Sustainable Living workshops. “The workshop we attended ‘Home sustainability basics’ gave us the motivation and inspiration to do something about reducing our water and energy use” explains Zuzana.

“The first thing I did was to determine what our daily usage was by calculating the average of past water and electricity usage bills (this was based on 12 months) using a spreadsheet. Our average daily usage was 471 litres of water and 19.5 kWh of energy. The next thing I did was an itemised water audit to determine how much water each water activity uses. I did this by doing a water meter reading before and after each activity. Then I did an audit of what we used”. By doing this, they were able to track their energy and water usage and work out exactly how much they were saving.

So what did they achieve?
Zuzana and Robert were able to achieve a massive 68% reduction in their water use, and a 52% reduction in their energy use – this equates to saving a total of $985 a year! “The results blew us away. We are so pleased that we are doing something for the environment and our wallets”.

Their energy and water usage and what they were able to save is outlined in the table below.




How did they do it?
Saving almost $1,000 on your annual energy and water bills is an amazing achievement in itself – not to mention the positive outcomes for the environment. So we asked Zuzana what they did to get such fantastic results. We’ve outlined their top tips below, and we challenge you to take on some of them in your own home and see what you save!

Zuzana and Robert’s top tips for saving energy:
• Turn off all electrical appliances/services at the power point when not is use
• Cook in bulk (make 4-6 servings per dish)
• Cook more than one item when using the oven
• Trade your rechargeable cordless phone for a phone with a cord – this means there’s no need to charge your batteries all the time
• Use hot water bottles and multiple layers of clothing to heat up and stay warm
• Use the torch to move around the house at night instead of flicking on light switches
• Have two 24 hour TV/computer/radio free days
• For parties use a wood fire oven and wood fire pot to cook for your guests
• Once a week eat only raw food. Have a competition of who can make the tastiest and most creative salad made from either vegetables or fruit, and use herbs from the garden

Zuzana and Robert’s top tips for saving water:
• Shower for 4 minutes (use a shower timer)
• Only use the washing machine when it’s full, and use cold water only
• Use a bucket in the shower to collect the initial 30 seconds of cold water until it heats up and use this water to fill up the washing machine
• Wash vegetables and fruit under a bucket and use it to water the garden
• Mulch your garden (this cuts down on watering and improves the soil health)
• Use a broom instead of vacuuming tiles and floorboards
• When rinsing dishes, turn off the tap between dishes
• Use several buckets to collect water for the garden
• Wash your car in the rain
• Flush your toilet only when it’s needed (we have the motto “if it’s yellow let it mellow, if its brown, flush it down” attached on our bathroom wall for all to see)

Where to from here for our sustainability champions?
You’d think that they’d be pretty happy with what they’ve achieved, but Zuzana and Robert have even more goals that they want to achieve. In the short term this includes buying a more water efficient washing machine, borrowing a power mate meter from the library to determine the energy being used by each of their appliances, installing rain water tanks, and reusing grey water from the washing machine.

Within 6 months, their aim is to reduce their water consumption to less than 100 litres a day and their energy use to less than 5kwh per day. Using our energy and water costs from before, that equates to:
• An annual energy bill of $361 – that’s $90 a quarter!
• An annual water bill of $76 – that’s $19 a quarter!
We can’t wait to catch up with them at the end of the year and see how they are doing.