When Jeffrey Marchant and his wife, Brenda, power up their computer,turn on a light or put the kettle on to boil, they can just about watchtheir electric bill rise.

A small box hanging on the wall across from the vase of flowers inthe front hall of their tidy Victorian home displays a continuousdigital readout of their electricity use and tells them immediately howmuch it will cost, helping them save energy.

Turn on a computerand the device — a type of so-called smart meter — goes from 300 wattsto 400 watts. Turn off a light and it goes from 299 to 215. At 500, themeter is set to sound an alarm.

“I’ve become like one ofPavlov’s dogs,” Mrs. Marchant said. “Every time it bleeps I think I’mgoing to take one of those pans off the stove. I’d do anything to makeit stop. It helps you change your habits.”

Through a host ofsmall efforts like this, people like the Marchants have reduced theircarbon footprint by half in the last five years and turned Hove — alongwith neighboring Brighton, with which it shares a local government —from the archetype of a traditional British seaside town into theprototype of a green village. Their efforts are gaining traction here,and recognition around Britain, as a model of easily replicated ways tocut greenhouse gas emissions.

The British government isdebating a plan to put some version of smart metering on all 46 milliongas and electricity meters in the country’s homes.

In an era when movie stars build $5 million eco-mansions, families here have made their old Victorian houses eco-friendly, too.

Butthey have done it through inexpensive and nearly invisibleinterventions, like under-roof insulation, solar water heaters andhallway meters, that leave their homes still looking like old Victorianhouses.

“When people talk about an eco-house they picture asleek house in the countryside with solar panels and wind turbines.Well, good for them. But that’s not how the average person lives,” saidMischa Hewitt, of Britain’s Low Carbon Trust, a nonprofit group.

The trust helped organize a series of open houses on weekends to let residents of neighboring Brighton show what they had done.

“What’smore important, what we’re encouraging, is to take old properties thatwere not built for energy efficiency and turn them around to savecarbon, save energy and save money,” Ms. Hewitt said.

Brightonwas voted the most sustainable city in the country last year by theBritish research group Forum for the Future, and its politiciansrecently made reducing carbon emissions a high-profile priority.

Whilemost governments use the relatively high emission levels of the 1990sas a base line to measure emission reductions, Brighton is trying tomake a 20 percent reduction from 2006 levels by April 2012.

The city has taken measures like expanding bus services and promotinghousing developments that do not permit cars. But about 20 percent ofgreenhouse gas emissions come from private homes, and so everyhousehold is encouraged to do its bit to meet the ambitious targets.

That is why officials in Brighton decided to sponsor eco-open houses this year.

Mr.Marchant, a retired customer service representative for the local powercompany, admits to a lifelong obsession with household energy, born ofthrift rather than green consciousness.

“I’m like one of those fellows who stands at the station spotting trains, only what I do is electricity,” he says.

Eventoday a meticulous handwritten chart on his sitting-room wall documentsyearly electricity use since the 1960s, recording how the birth of eachchild from 1975 to 1982 — Phillip, Catherine and Helen — affected thehome’s average daily electricity consumption.

In addition toadding a smart meter, the Marchants made two structural modificationsto their home of 20 years, installing a solar water hea
www.nytimes.com/2008/07/20/world/europe/20greenhouse.html?hp