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Since I've gotten quite a few compliments on this thought I'd post it here:

My Analogy:

Living in a subdivision, the house next door is identical to yours.
A new neighbor moves in.
You notice a few things about their odd behavior.

The first thing is all the lights are left on 24 hrs. He plants two 5K watt spotlights illuminating the front, another in his back yard but places a large container over it to stop the beam. You notice the light escaping from the bottom edge.
How strange, especially with the looming electricity shortage.

Your neighbor is a friendly one and invites you over.
You notice it's freezing cold inside for AC units in every room.
Faucets are left running, flowing down the drain.

He complains about the rising utility cost.

"This good sense home is costing me a fortune. I keep the lights on because they look nice and I don't want to look cheap. I know we have zero crime but lights are a deterrent.
Besides, I'm doing my reasonable part to conserve.
I keep a heater running in two of the air conditioned rooms to raise the temperature to 78.
I also keep the light in the back covered to hold the energy in.
I'm doing the all I can." He says.

We can agree the neighbor isn't making sense.
I continue:

A year later I moved to another location.
The first night I couldn't sleep for all the light.
Almost everyone had spotlights and house lights burning all night. Some had 6 10K watt lights in their front yard shining like great pillars into the sky. Larger. More powerful than the others.
Perplexed, I noticed only one dim spot in the whole city. My own house.
One day the neighbor invited me over to visit.

They doubted changing habits would save much, and they needed the lights on for one reason or another.
Besides, they felt it necessary to "Run with the pack, do the normal thing".

Going home and refusing to follow their error, you found more ways to save. You spend a little more on fluorescents, turned off appliances etc.
You compared notes with other people who lived just fine in the few dimmer houses.
YOUR energy bills went down substantially.

Next month the electricity cost rose and people began to complain more loudly.
To your dismay, more of those lights began to be covered.
Your neighbor complains he has already doing all he can but haven't seen much savings.
He can't understand why you continue to keep your house dim.
They think it's the house that's saving you money.
Some consider you "Extreme".

I explain that this parallels habits and attitude toward automobiles and fuel, and using the heaters and light covers represent an untrained driver.

Anything to add?
-Steve

A good laugh every time I see this. LMAO!!!!!

Hmmmm. That post looks familiar.

Same here. I am 100% compact flourescent. My electricity bills have never been lower, despite the heat. The compact flourescents also burn very cool so there is less AC load.

Great analogy Steve

The sad issue is, very few people today get the picture. When you talk FE, the majority think your strange. It's getting to the point that a group like this forms so we can find someone with the same interest to learn with.

Example is, a friend of the family comes over to brag about jacking up his 2WD Ranger, putting on monster tires and rims and low gears. He and I have little to talk about at this point! Now that he has spent all his money on so called improvements, he's complaining about gas prices!

GaryG

I really like the analogy! Thing is, it's not too hard to imagine that actually happening. I'm sure it does.

You guys put me and my inefficient apartment to shame. I really ought to go buy a few of these CFLs to try out.

If you guys saw my room with all the power it is consuming you would loose all respect you have for me. Some day I am going to put an effort in to lower my consumption drasticaly.

An excerpt from the "green driving for buttheads" document I'm
still trying to work on...
.
_ If you went through life like it was an athletic game -- running,
_ stopping, darting, dodging all the time -- you'd get TIRED! You know
_ that moving your own weight like that takes a lot of energy and
_ gatorade, so you don't do it all the time. Now consider that your
_ car weighs twenty times what you do, and if you force it to
_ operate in a similar "athletic" manner all the time, it IS going
_ to drink much more fuel on the way from here to there. Unless
_ you're actually in a competitive event, isn't it better to put
_ that extra money into your pocket instead of offshore weapons
_ budgets?
.
Is this along the same lines?
.
_H*

i can't believe people treat electricity that way! well... my folks do... but i try what i can to turn anything off.

i can't undo everyone's mistakes... my family claims 20 bucks a day on fuel is normal when you make 80 a day... chirst... how about I spend 1.74 a day and make enough to pay my gas bill for the whole month considering it took me over 25 days (yes driving everyday) to drain a gas tank!

its normal to use gas, just use it... i'm sure that's their mentally. They laugh when they see me saving gas... laugh as in , "WHAT A FOOL!".

Steve, I really enjoyed reading your analogy, Hobbit's too! I think it really brings things into perspective for people who just don't get it. Speaking of compact fluorescents... do you guys have any recommendations? I understand that the newer ones come on more quickly and have a better light frequency. I'm planning on making the switch, but want to choose wisely. Thanks, in advance.

Hmm. Hyperwatting. I love it.

Now, I gotta get the wife to follow along.

If you guys saw my room with all the power it is consuming you would loose all respect you have for me. Some day I am going to put an effort in to lower my consumption drasticaly.

Then see My Air Conditioner Sucks (http://www.cleanmpg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1469) :o

Steve, I really enjoyed reading your analogy, Hobbit's too! I think it really brings things into perspective for people who just don't get it. Speaking of compact fluorescents... do you guys have any recommendations? I understand that the newer ones come on more quickly and have a better light frequency. I'm planning on making the switch, but want to choose wisely. Thanks, in advance.

I use CF Lighting in some but not in all places at this time.

Some useful information about CF Lighting at the following web sites:
http://www.eartheasy.com/live_energyeff_lighting.htm
http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=cfls.pr_cfls

All of mine have the delay before lighting up but after about two days, it stopped bothering me. I got 20 of the 23W (100W equivalent) and 28 of the 13W(60W equivalent) for $74 shipped off of ebay. That was enough to convert my whole home with many bulbs to spare. My outside lantern bulb used to burn out regular bulbs about one per month. It has been about a year now and my 13W CFL is still ticking. In fact, none of the CFL's have died yet.

We have 3 kids in the family and SO hard to keep their energy usage in check.
I'm tempted to put a timer on the wall for our youngest!

Almost all of our lights are CFL's, but the bases keep burning out at the base. You can hear it arching then later it quits. Our incandescents last mulitple times longer in our experience.
They come with a warranty but up until recent we've tossed the original package. The last ones we bought have kept it to send them back when they burn out.
I think the warranty is 5 years based on 8hr usage per day. We use them much less than 8hrs/day and go bad within 1-3 months to 2 years.

We have a flagpole in our front yard and keep a flood on it at night.
Earlier this week my wife bought come CFL floodlights so I replaced the incandescent.
The CFL appears to be a sealed beam with all the lenses on the front but has no focus. :(
The idea of the light is for the flag which kinda defeats its purpose.
It just lights the entire area so I'll probably put the incandescent back in. :(

I hope they improve over the next few years.

I just punched in the numbers at the "Truth" website and in spite of being a hybrid owning hypermiler with 100% CF the website says I'm way above average in the pollution department. This is mostly due to a fairly high electric bill, plus lots of gas use in the boat and truck.

I've decided to be more pro-active and purchased a window air unit for the bedroom. Now the rest of the house can be kept warmer to save electricity. The bedroom will be kept cooler (in summer) so I can sleep.

When winter comes I'll get a space heater for the bedroom and keep the majority of the house cooler to save energy.


After installing a new "Energy Star" rear door I'm hoping to cut my electric bill in half.

When winter comes I'll get a space heater for the bedroom and keep the majority of the house cooler to save energy.

I bought four 1500W space heaters last fall for $15 each. I had one in each of the bedrooms and one in the fazmily room. I had the house thermostat at 65F during the day and 60F at night while we used the space heaters to keep the bedrooms and family room warmer as needed. Since we changed to CFL's at the same time, the additional energy used by the space heaters was offset by the savings from the CFL's. No net change in the electric bill. My gas bill went down in spite of the 50% rate increase that went into effect in September. So I spent $134 on CFL's and space heaters and actually saved more than that on the gas bill, in spite of the rate increase.:D

The challenge that I have had this summer is keeping the front door closed.:mad: The thermostat is set at a constant 74F. I wouldn't mind it at 76F but my wife has drawn a line in the sand at 74F. I dare not cross it.:p

The window unit is set to 70 but the rest of the house is set for the low 80ies. The upstairs gets uncomfortable but the basement still feels ok. The central air barely runs now. I'd been keeping the whole house at around 72 so this should be a huge savings.

Moved a computer with a All in Wonder video card into the bedroom for internet and TV. The bedroom is my new home till it cools off....

Side note:

The window unit is really "cool". For only $98 it has a real digital thermostat, a remote control, 2 fan speeds and 4 modes of operation. An install kit was included as well. I use the "cool" option at night which runs the fan all the time. During the day I switch it over to econ. In econ mode the fan comes on slow for 10 seconds every 2 minutes. If the is senses that the temp has gone up it kicks on the compresser and bumps the fans speed to high until the room is cool again. Pretty darn nice for $98! I figure it will pay for itself in 2 months (this cooling season).

Do you have a model number?

Do you have a model number?
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=7016178&productCategoryId=pcmcat28600050012&type=product&tab=1&id=1099394137514

Is this an in window one? Do they make room A/C units that don't need to be put into a window?

So in that sense, it was A/C without a window, but you still need someplace to exhaust the hot air.

One of the units I saw earlier this summer was being sold with what looked like a dryer vent hose. You mounted the vent in a window or storm door to vent the heat outside. The largest one I saw was around 17,000 btu or so.

One of the units I saw earlier this summer was being sold with what looked like a dryer vent hose. You mounted the vent in a window or storm door to vent the heat outside. The largest one I saw was around 17,000 btu or so.

I saw one of these at Pep Boys last weekend. They are selling them for $288 or $399. I dont remember which. They had it set up by the front door blowing toward the cash registers. I went behind it and felt the hot air blowing out of the tube in the back. What a waste of energy. They could just plug in a space heater and get the same effect.

Update

I'm loving the window unit. Turned the central unit off completely. Swapped computers around and reloaded software on the old 1.3Ghz, RD ram, Dell. The old computer is working great for internet and TV. Somehow my oldest computer system has become the most used and most useful?

Strange, after playing a couple of really cool games my best system (3.2 w 7800GT and a 10,000 rpm Raptor drive) almost never gets used???

We started using compact flourescents (CFLs) 15 years ago or so, and they usually last 3 to 5 years, with some lasting 10 years. A couple have lasted only months, but others of the same brand bought at the same time have lasted years. In the last few years we replaced most incandescents in the house, all the ones that are on for more than a few minutes, with CFLs, and noticed a significant drop in energy used.

I'm reminded of an article I read in the Denver Post last month. How is this for an energy efficient home?

http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_4094687

In fact, Avenson, who works for Lucent Technologies Inc., is sending electricity back to Xcel under a program that gives the homeowner a credit.

In June he got a $2.83 electricity credit on his bill.

Well the new sliding glass back door is installed and the first thing I noticed was how much quieter the house is. The old door leaked air and let sound in as well. I'm hoping for much lower heating bills in the winter.

I figure the $98 dollar window AC unit will pay for itself in just a couple of months. The new Pella sliding door is going to take a lot longer. The door cost $800 installed so at perhaps $200 a year in savings it will take 4 years before I'm in the black on the door. Still I feel good about using less....

If you guys saw my room with all the power it is consuming you would loose all respect you have for me. Some day I am going to put an effort in to lower my consumption drasticaly.

I fear I fall in Tom's class.

Alot of computers, alot of fish tanks, alot of A/C. Better stop there! :rolleyes:

Wouldn't you know....I was just talking about how the new window AC unit makes a good spare in case the central unit goes out and guess what happened....






You guessed it! The stinking heat pump died on me! The blower fan rusted loose and fell down cattywampus. The AC guy got the thing rigged back up and working. While he was working I started asking him about my unit and how old and efficient it might be. I also asked about a geothermal replacement. It turns out that the old Rheem unit is around 26 years old with a likely seer of around 8. The geo unit would have 3 times that efficiency but would cost around $16,000.00 dollars. Yikes! I ended up ordering an EnergyStar listed, air cooled heat pump rated at 15 seer, almost double the old one....