This is a text-only version of an article first published on Monday, 20 June 2016. Information shown on this page may no longer be current.
Shrinking the Footprint, the CofE's national environmental campaign is calling on parishes across the country to mark Earth Day, this Monday April 22, by signing up to the national energy audit.
The audit is already being used to help churches reduce energy and save money.
St Michael's Church in Cumnor, Oxford, made critical savings when the meter readings helped reveal that the heater ni the organ blower had faulty wiring and was not turning off.
The church could have faced an electricity bill of up to £1,500 if the fault had gone undetected. Every year on April 22, more than one billion people mark Earth Day to celebrate the planet and renew their commitment to protect it for future generations.
The Shrinking the Footprint energy audit is already being used by churches to reduce energy and save money. St Michael's a medieval church with around 100 regular weekly communicants.
Gas consumption depends on how many services or events take place each week and what the outside temperature is, which is displayed on the energy audit tool for easy analysis. No gas is used in the summer months.
Electricity consumption is fairly constant at 50Kwh per week except in the summer when it runs at 25Kwh per week.
The results are recorded here. Monitoring began about four years ago with regular recordings of the temperature in the church to ensure it was a comfortable level.
This highlighted sudden increases in temperature and it became apparent that the heating was being turned on unnecessarily.
Addressing this and programming the heating controls led to a reduction in gas as well as cost savings. Energy monitoring also enabled the identification of very high electricity consumption around Christmas 2012, over 400Kwh a week, which is 8 times the normal of 50Kwh.
The increase in activity around Christmas time, lighting decorations and cold weather all contributed to higher energy use however when compared to the Christmas before it still appeared high.
When consumption didn't resort back to normal levels following Christmas the cause was investigated.
It was discovered that the heater in the organ blower was not turning off when switched off because it had been incorrectly rewired when serviced by engineers before Christmas, meaning that it was on all the time.
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