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Just in time for Earth Day and after 2 months of Kill-A-Watt'ing the electrical audit of our home is finally complete! There were many eye-opening findings which prompted me to make lots of changes, and the results on our electric bill have already been well worthwhile.

Here is an Open Document spreadsheet with all of my data (you can use OpenOffice (http://www.openoffice.org) to read it):

http://www.cyberarmor.net/data/downloads/other/electricity_usage.ods

Here is an OpenPDF version of it for you folks that are still using MS Office and can't work with Open Document formats:

http://www.cyberarmor.net/data/downloads/other/electricity_usage.pdf


Here is a list of the things I learned:

a) My old cabbage patch of server equipment was eating our lunch not just on electricity but on HVAC as well. The old units were consolidated onto one laptop which backs up pertinent data to one of the desktops for local redundancy. Net gain: 5.25kWh/day + 8F less heat upstairs

b) I've started using my laptop instead of my desktop for surfing, email and non-gaming entertainment as it uses just 12-16W while my desktop and its supporting equipment suck down 260W. We have also started shutting down the desktops when not in use. Net gain: ~10kWh/day

c) As soon as it warms up enough for things like caulking I'll be re-sealing every window, door. vent, attic access, etc. because heating and cooling takes so much energy. Even without being able to get a reading from the compressor (it's too cold... I couldn't get it to kick on - hehe) and even with the heat being produced by burning natural gas the HVAC system is still our largest electrical expenditure (the ventilation system sucks a ton of juice).

d) Our coffee maker uses more juice on two pots a day than the 32" LCD HDTV that gets turned on for a few hours every evening.

e) My pride and joy which I saved up for years for, the 50" plasma HDTV downstairs, is truly a luxury item. Not only did it cost a pretty penny up front but it is the largest non-infrastructure electricity user. Combined with its supporting equipment (AV receiver, subwoofer, HD-DVR satellite receiver, DVD player, power filter) it takes 600W to watch television, 610 to watch a DVD.

f) Our refrigerator works great, is the first one we've ever had that included an ice maker and filtered water dispenser and came with the home at purchase time, but it turns out it's one of the most inefficient models on the market. It is so inefficient that we'll basically pay for it again in electricity usage before it's retired/recycled.

g) The toaster oven uses the same amount of juice as the microwave.

h) The range light (part of the microwave - it's an under-cabinet mount) is the most inefficient bulb in the house now that everything other than appliances have been converted to CFLs. Despite covering less than 1m of visible space it sucks down 70W of juice. The refrigerator is close behind at 60W on the fridge side and 50W on the freezer side.

i) Thanks to CFLs, despite the microwave only being used for about 10 minutes per day it is sucking down more juice than the entirety of our general lighting in a 24-hour cycle.

j) Space heaters are evil little devices! They use just as much wattage as a hair dryer and some folks run them for 8-10 hours per day. You may as well just donate a percentage of your paycheck to your utility provider.

k) It takes juice to perform surge protection and power filtering. It never occurred to me but it does indeed require power to keep things like conditioning and load protection at the ready. All of the surge protectors in the house, despite being different brands and having different ratings, use about 1W constant while the power filter in our AV setup draws 10W constant.

l) Hair dryers, like all things heating and cooling, are so inefficient that despite being used for just 5 minutes per day it is taking more juice than a 24-hour cycle for our instant hot water recirculator. While my wife's flat iron is more efficient than the blow dryer it still uses more power in just 15 minutes than my laptop does in 4 hours.

m) DeWalt battery chargers use 2W even when there's no battery plugged in and they are showing no indicator lights.

n) Despite being another heating device "heating pads" are pretty doggone efficient. The larger one we have draws just 8W no matter which setting you have it on (it just draws longer to achieve higher temperatures for the higher settings). On this note it really is cheaper to use an electric blanket at night than it is to keep your entire home heated, even if your heat comes from natural gas (I never would have thought this).

o) Shredding paper doesn't take as much energy as I anticipated. I figured it'd be in the neighborhood with vacuum cleaners and blow dryers but ours uses just 77W when shredding 7 pages at once.

p) Glade Plug-Ins only cost about $0.50/year to operate despite running 24 hours a day for that time.

q) The Wii is an impressivley efficient computer! At 18W it uses less juice than my laptop-server. Too bad it's hooked to that 50" plasma and AV receiver. ;)

r) Yes, CFLs (Compact Fluorescent Lights) are that much more efficient than incandescent bulbs. Despite costing over $300 to change out every bulb in and around the house they will pay for themselves in less than 6 months.

s) With rare exception fans are much more efficient than air conditioning. Our meter tall vertical fan uses 31W on medium and while sweeping 90 degrees. You can't even look at a window AC unit for that kind of power, and just the central air's thermostat uses 5W (the central ventilation fan uses 600W - ouch!).

t) Subwoofers designed for the home seem to be much more efficient than the ones made for cars. The last setup I had in a car had a 900W amplifier, but the one that's part of my surround sound system uses just 9W and will rattle every surface in the house if I let it. Maybe all of the ricers should get an inverter instead of an amp...

u) Despite being different brands and being purchased 4 years apart both of our vacuum cleaners pull exactly 1150W.

v) Analog AV equipment requires much less power. Our 15-year-old analog 27" television pulls 50W while our 32" LCD pulls 155, and our analog satellite receiver pulls 9W while the HD one pulls 19.

w) Satellite receivers run at full power even when in "standby" or "sleep" mode. As long as they are locked on to a satellite they are pulling 100% of their juice. This makes me mad... why does my HD-DVR need to pull 52W when I'm dead asleep? However, if you fully turn off the receiver then it will take up to 10 minutes to reacquire the satellite once you power it back up, which is quite inconvenient.

x) The Linksys WRT54G wireless router requires 4W out of the box but only 3W once you re-flash it to run on the Linux firmware, despite the Linux firmware offering 2 extra options over the default one.

y) The Kill-A-Watt (http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/electronic/7657/) is a wonderful, useful, worthwhile device that paid for itself in the first month I got it.

z) As I learned from a fellow that runs the State Legislature's Environmental Protection unit for northern Nevada at Thursday's Green Summit in Reno, if everyone in my area would make the same changes that we have, which required very little investment and no sacrifice, then there would be no talk of building a new coal-burning electricity plant.



With all of the things I learned by reading, researching and measuring I was able to make both physical and mental changes throughout our home and family that have resulted in cutting our daily power usage by more than half (December's average was 43kWh/day while March's was 22kWh/day and I am expecting April's to be around 17kWh/day).

This puts the option of going with a grid-tied solar array within much closer reach as a 3kW system would run about $20k installed (before rebates, etc.) vs. the $38k needed for a 6kW system. I need to wait for warmer weather to see just how much juice the AC compressor draws and then calculate in the cost of converting the hot water and HVAC systems to 100% electricity to get a better idea of exactly how much solar energy we would need, but I'm tempted to wait until I see what my future PHEV will need every day as I'd rather pay off one home improvement loan than two.

Hi Brian:

___Absolutely brilliant report! I am going to have to buy a Kill-A-Watt in the near future and start on my own. What do you call this activity anyway, Hyperwatting or is it Hypercuting :D

___The Electric blanket was surprising as was the Wireless router. I have read the large screen CRT’s suck 80 + when off. How does your LCD and Plasma perform while turned off? Should be zip but just wondering? Those d@mn SAT boxes anyway!

___Our March bill was 860 kWh and I hope to bring that down even more. Until it heats up and the wife has to have the A/C cranked … I won’t let the kids run their power pig Gaming boxes other then for homework or gaming and the lights stay off except for those needed. Still only have 1/4 of the house on CFL’s and many more to go :(

___Good Luck and thank you for the great post. With Earth Day 07 here, you have made a great contribution for all our sakes!

___Wayne

Thanks for that, Brian.
My wife and I are starting to look at houses. For us, the electrical efficiencies of the house are equally or more important than any other factor. I know that as soon as we move, the first thing I will do is address leaks and drafts before everything is moved in. The second - after moved in and settled - is perform an audit.

Great write-up and tons of useful information. I'm going to print it out as a reminder.

Thank you both for the compliments and I'm glad that other folks find this information useful.


Wayne,

lol - I don't know what to call it, either, but I like "hyperwatting". :)

The LCD monitors pull about 0.5W while asleep and the LCD and plasma televisions use about 0.2W. I'm pretty sure the reason they need some power while "off" is that they are constantly polling for remote control signals and/or ACPI/APIC signals from the desktops, which in turn requires keeping things like input and infrared ports spun up.

The one CRT television that we still have, a 27" model, draws 2W when "off".

Great report - I would love to go to some type of renewable energy source, just haven't found a way to make it happen.

I am checking out http://renu.citizenre.com/index.php
Sounds too good to be true, but I'll see if they can back up their claims on the web site.

Cutting back usage is one thing we can all do.

Today the local Baton Rouge area Home Depot's are giving 1 free 14W CFL to each customer, at 11:00 this morning there were still a few left.

That's an awesome writeup. I've been thinking of an audit for some time, if for no other reason than just to educate myself about "hyperwatting" :).

It's interesting how technology makes going green less associated with "sacrifice" and more with just making informed decisions.

Just finished caulking the shower to fix a leak that was corroding the baseboards/sheetrock right next to it. It's a shame that energy leaks can't display some kind of similar visual unpleasantness.

We have CFLs in bulk and are using them when conventionals burn out. Up to around 15% of the house so far. Hopefully we'll be 100% CFL by the time we sell the house in a couple of years.

Great writeup Brian! There's a bunch of things there I never would have thought of. Right now I'm replacing incandescents with CFLs as they burn out, and I use my laptop about 90% of the time instead of my desktop, but its just peanuts compared to your house-wide audit. :) Bookmarked for when I get ambitious. :D

Hi Brian:

___When I get home early tomorrow morning, I think I am going to move all the environmental posts to this forum. CleanMPG will always focus on fuel-efficient automobiles and ways to reduce our consumption/emissions of whatever we currently drive but with the heavy environmental discussions as of late and your audit as a template, I think we can help each other quite a bit with similar audits of our own homes.

___Great job on the audit and its now a sticky.

___Good Luck

___Wayne

Wayne,

That's a great idea, thank you for the compliment, and I'm more than glad to be helping everyone with this. :)

On a side note, the 2 documents linked in the original post have been updated to reflect some readings on some of the 240V devices (I was able to use a multimeter for some things) and a few smaller, missed appliances.

The inventory is now as complete as I know how to make it, and the only electrical device I am aware of that is missing is the a/c compressor. I assume it's the worst culprit of them all and I'm hoping to be able to extrapolate its energy usage once warmer weather is here and it is in use.

Great writeup, Brian! Thanks for taking the time to put it on paper and sharing it.

A question: You've made references to energy used by devices that have no AC plugin (e.g., range light, HVAC). Since the Kill-a-Watt is designed for plugin devices, how are you measuring the others?

Great writeup, Brian! Thanks for taking the time to put it on paper and sharing it.

A question: You've made references to energy used by devices that have no AC plugin (e.g., range light, HVAC). Since the Kill-a-Watt is designed for plugin devices, how are you measuring the others?

You're welcome, Jim. :)

Our range top setup has the microwave mounted directly above it and contains the range light and exhaust fan on its underside. This way I was able to get readings for all 3 devices (microwave, range light, fan) through one plug. I bet most homes in the U.S. have a cord plugging in somewhere right above the range light/fan. Just grab a step ladder and start rooting through the cabinets.

Our central air ventilation system has a 120V wall plug as well. It even has its own outlet for it.

The dishwasher plugs in under the kitchen sink and shares an outlet with the garbage disposal.

The dryer was a bit trickier, being 240V (the Kill-A-Watt is only rated for 120V). I used a combination of multimeters from my own collection and my neighbor's to very uncomfortably hang over the back of the dryer and pull its plug out from the wall far enough to get the leads onto the prongs and then stay like that for a while (yes, I'm still sore - hehe).

What a great analysis this is, and a big thanks from me also. Data like this gives me so much inspiration. A question -- have you added up this cost per year for everything and compared it with your actual annual electricity cost? Is it fairly close?

w) Satellite receivers run at full power even when in "standby" or "sleep" mode. As long as they are locked on to a satellite they are pulling 100% of their juice. This makes me mad... why does my HD-DVR need to pull 52W when I'm dead asleep? However, if you fully turn off the receiver then it will take up to 10 minutes to reacquire the satellite once you power it back up, which is quite inconvenient.

This is where a timer might work wonders. Turn off the receiver at say midnight, and start it up again at noon would save 50%. It might even work for weekends too.

OK, I just assumed these devices were hard-wired. There I go assuming again! :o

And I've assumed the same about some of the same devices in my (or more accurately, my fiancee's) house. You've inspired me to check it out further. I've thought about the Kill-a-Watt, but have held off because I figured that many of the hungriest energy eaters are hard-wired.

Can I assume (there I go again!) overhead lights were calculated based on bulb wattage and duration of use?

A question -- have you added up this cost per year for everything and compared it with your actual annual electricity cost? Is it fairly close?
We've only lived in the home since mid-October last year so I will fine-tune it as we go, especially the estimated running time of the central heat and a/c. So far it's pretty doggone close, though.

This is where a timer might work wonders. Turn off the receiver at say midnight, and start it up again at noon would save 50%. It might even work for weekends too.
I hadn't even thought of that for this application... thank you! I'll pick one of those up tonight and experiment with it.



Can I assume (there I go again!) overhead lights were calculated based on bulb wattage and duration of use?
That's exactly how I did it. It's rare - especially in modern homes - for a lighting fixture to pull more wattage than the bulb requires, so once you know your bulb wattages and make the effort to track light usage you can easily calculate a kWh/day rating for your general and specific lighting.

This effort will have the added effects of making you immediately want to:

1) Change every bulb out to a CFL regardless of whether or not the incandescent you have still work. Incandescent bulbs are another thing that just wastes wattage like you would not believe... not only do they require 4x the energy of a CFL to produce the same amount of light but they also put off a lot of heat which causes your central cooling to work harder, or can even create "hot spots" in the home that lead you to run the central air systems harder to compensate in that spot. This means it's not worth keeping them until they burn out just for the sake of trying to maximize their usage, and they'll start to bug you anyway when you realize that every time you flip the switch on one of your remaining incandescents it's costing 4x more than it has to. hehe

2) Turn off the lights when not in use - religiously.


Our incandescent lighting was costing us $20-$30 more per month than it had to, not including the short lifespan of most incandescent bulbs. $20 buys 6 or 7 CFLs. Those CFLs will only take on average 3-4 months to pay for themselves, so changing out even the bulbs that are less frequently used (i.e. guest rooms) will be paid for in just a few months by the savings of the lights that you use more frequently.

Now that we've begun to pay close attention to our lighting use we've managed to shave another $6/month off the bill, even with the CFLs in place (if we were still using incandescents the impact would be 4x greater).

Aside from the monetary savings the total reductions we have made so far represent a real-world drop of 1,500kWh/month or 1.8mWh/year that our electricity provider does not have to produce. If everyone in my city of 200,000 and region of 400,000 did the same there would be no talk of building a coal burning plant.



Wayne,

I'm curious... What would be the reality - both good and bad - at your plant if, over the course of 1 year, every one of your end-point customers dropped their electricity usage by 50%?

Hi Brian:

___If everyone dropped their consumption by 50%, the gas plants would drop off first, then the coal plants given they are so much more expensive “all-in” to run then a Nuke. Think $0.04 +/kWh for the gas turbines, $0.02 - $0.03/kWh for the dirt burners and $0.01/kWh for the nukes here in IL.

___Good Luck

___Wayne

You know it's tempting when you look at this data to do like Ms. Irony and say "well I can afford that". Especially the low numbers on pg 2. But everybody's got some low-hanging fruit -- stuff that could make a big difference at little sacrifice. This is a great map to it.

If my wife see's this. My fish tanks, computers, TV's, Audio Eq. will be gone. :eek:

There is a good kill-a-watt story in today's NYTimes. May need to register to see it though.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/14/technology/14basics.html?em&ex=1181966400&en=3e1939192b5f2028&ei=5087%0A

My TiVo digital video recorder was sucking down about 30 watts when it was not playing or recording a show. A Comcast digital cable set-top box made by Motorola that I tested was drawing about 40 watts. My DVD player was drawing 26 watts while idle, and my audio system — which I rarely turned off — was using 47 watts. This was in addition to the numerous power adapters and chargers, each drawing 1 or 2 watts, not to mention several other devices sipping energy to keep clocks running or to be ready to turn on at the push of a button.

I’m partly to blame for the audio system and DVD player. They do have on/off switches that I was failing to use. I had falsely assumed they were using relatively little power. But I tested DVR’s from Comcast, Dish Network and TiVo, and none went into a low-power mode. All of this wasted power was costing me money and pumping unnecessary CO2 into the atmosphere. My PC alone was contributing 2,000 pounds of CO2 annually. The DVR. was adding another 543 pounds.

Indeed, the Department of Energy estimates that in the average home, 40 percent of all electricity used to power home electronics is consumed while the products are turned off. Add that all up, and it equals the annual output of 17 power plants, the government says. In an effort to address that, a consortium of Intel, Google, PC makers and other technology companies this week announced their intent to increase the PC’s overall energy efficiency to 90 percent.

I'm very happy to see that this site will allow discussion about home energy use. I started with the house before I got to the cars. It was the biggest offender. Net results were a 50% drop in KWH used. Our house is totally electric and as such was a good candidate for improvements. We now average 44 KWH a day instead of 88 KWH.

As you would expect, the most expensive items were the biggest inprovements. However, the house is so much more comfortable that before. If anyone is interested I can give you a run down of what I did.

Louis B

Please do! I'm all ears.

If anyone is interested I can give you a run down of what I did.

I'm all ears. :)

We live in South Florida, and as such not everything will apply to my Northern friends.

The first year that we kept records was 2004. We used 31,411 KWH. Bear in mind that everything is electrical. We started with an energy audit from the power company. It was well worth the money. $30 I think. Bottom line is that my house was built in 1969 and is the house equivalent of a 71 Eldorado.

We did buy 2 Kill A Watts and they confirmed our suspicions. The major energy pigs are the devices that make heat and remove heat. Tosaters and hair dryer don't stay on long enough to make a big impact when you have a grossly wasteful house. So have your bagels and leave the women alone about their hair!

Air Conditioning

The biggest fish to fry was the AC. We used 146 KWH per day in July 2004, and 50 KWH per day in February 2007. We replaced the 11 year old 11 SEER AC with a 17 SEER lennox unit. They are 5 ton units. The cost diffence was 100% between a cheap 13 SEER and a top of the line Lennox 17 SEER unit. $3800 vs $7800.

We bought it for energy savings, but the best part was the comfort that it gave us. The unit keeps a constant temp, and does such a good job removing himidity that we run it a degree or two warmmer that the old unit.

Solar water

We had a solar water heater, but it was lacking a lot of maintenance. I gave that a tune up and I think it is working better. I put temp probes on it and enjoy seeing the temp of the water coming down from the roof as opposed to the temp going up. It comes down above 160F on a sunny day.

Pool pump

I replaced the pool pump from a two horse motor to a one horse motor. I can't tell the difference in the pool.

Refrigarator

We bought a Energy Star unit and went from 27 cu feet to 25 cu feet. The old unit was 12 years old.

Cleaning

We replaced the dish washer and clothes washer to units that have time delays to take advantage of the solar water. We set them to wash at noon.

LightingWe replaced every light to compact florescent. These are wonderful little lights. The don't put off any heat. This keeps the house from getting hot spots.

There are other minor details but I won't bore you with these, but here is the run down of the past few years.
2004 31,411 KWH
2005 28,612 KWH (lights and pool pump, solar tune up)
2006 19,134 KWH (this is the year of the AC,fridge, washing machines)
2007 14,710 KWH (should be opening windows soon, hoping for 17,00 KWH)

Sorry folks. the ac part said "We used 146 KWH per day in July 2004, and 50 KWH per day in February 2007" That should be February 2004

That's awesome, southerncannuck! Your usage in 2004 was downright scary but you've made one heck of a turnaround.

The Kill-A-Watt is, IMHO, one of the very few electronic devices that pays for itself in the first month you have it. It would be great if every new resident anywhere in the developed world were issued one the day they move in, ;)

You must have a large house, too, to require a 5 ton unit. Even in Texas we got by with a 1.5 ton unit for a 1,400 square foot ranch style home, although at the peak of the summer (110F, 95% humidity) it just couldn't get the temp inside the house below 85F.

Have you done the math on the break-even difference between the 11 SEER and 17 SEER units? I'm curious how long it will take before you "start putting money back in your pocket". I hope your family enjoys year after year of cheaper, more efficient cooling!

Efficient appliances are something I certainly plan to get into when the time comes but I can't run out and do it right now. This house, and its appliances, are just 3 years old. I need to make use of what we have for a while or the wife will be very upset, especially since I've been working with her (picking at her) over the last 6 months to conserve both electricity and natural gas.

Our current home is 1,800 square feet and 2 stories. Last month our combined power bill was $99.77, representing 452kWh (15.6/day) and 24 therms (0.8/day). This the first time in 2 States, 3 homes and our 9 years together that our power bill was less than $100. :woot:

Thank you for the kind words. You know the phrase " lies, big lies and statistics"? Any payback figure will be a statistic. The truth is I never really added it up until today. And today's math is off the cuff at best. However, based on my utility charging 11.48 cents per KWH I figure that I'm saving about $1,700 dollars annually.

The non money benefit is that when I look at the smoke stacks at Port Everglades I know that a little less is there because of my wife and I.

By the way. How can I get my mileage banner at the bottom of my posts?
On an added note, As your wife ages (say near 50) you need to know that 85F won't work. Don't wait for her to tell you. Trust me, this WILL be held against you!

Great write, Brian. Did you look into heat pumps for your heating system? I would have thought they would be more efficient than natural gas? Eye opener artical, I bet it was to you as well. H

Heat pumps only work for mild heating. Once it gets below 40 degrees or so, the outside unit turns into a block of ice. It's (simplified) taking cold from inside and pumping it to the condenser outside. If that colder-than-ambient condenser is below freezing, it develops a frost. Then it just doesn't work.

I'd only use a heat pump if you have a gas backup. Below 40, you have to use the backup instead. Our backup is electric, and our highest bills are always Jan and Feb. I'm talking $300 vs $160 in August. And this is in Texas, with 100 degrees in August! Lots of KWH = EXPENSIVE!

By the way. How can I get my mileage banner at the bottom of my posts?

We really need to make a sticky for this one. :)

1) Go to your mileage log and copy the image location for your graphic.

2) Go to your User CP -> Edit Signature and add that URL between image tags, like this but removing the spaces:
[ IMG ]http://www.cleanmpg.com/garage/images/334.png[ /IMG ]

3) If you would like to hyperlink the graphic back to your mileage log then wrap the image tags inside URL tags, like this but removing the spaces:
[ URL=http://www.cleanmpg.com/index.php?page=garage&displayunits=MPG(US)&viewcar=334 ][ IMG ]http://www.cleanmpg.com/garage/images/334.png[ /IMG ][ /URL ]



On an added note, As your wife ages (say near 50) you need to know that 85F won't work. Don't wait for her to tell you. Trust me, this WILL be held against you!

You speak the truth! She just started going through menopause about 2 months ago and temperatures are already an issue. The heat isn't nearly as much a problem since we moved to Reno from Dallas/Fort Worth but I had to turn the heating cycle up from 64F to 68F (and sometimes she still manually turns it up to 69F) and the cooling cycle down to 76F from 78F (and sometimes she manually drops it to 74F) to accommodate her.

Menopause is not efficient! :p

Thanks Brian, but I'm going to give up on the signayure. I can't seem to make it work

All the best
Louis B

Hi Louis:

___I will take care of your mileage sig for you the manual way. Give me a few minutes ...

___Good Luck

___Wayne

Thank you very much. I couldn't seem to make it work. I think that the little tag will encourage me to do better. My results will there for everyone to see.

Louis B

Hi Louis:

___No problem! Your sig is setup as the basic right now with a linkable option later on if you want it? You were using the url tag vs. the img tag to wrap is all.

___Good Luck and you have a great start albeit using 08 FE numbers for your 07 Fit.

___Wayne

If my wife see's this. My fish tanks, computers, TV's, Audio Eq. will be gone. :eek:

I don't know about the fish tanks. But if you have PC lights (aka compact florescents) you probably are doing ok. (These are very efficient.) I have 92 watts of light on my tank on a timer. A benefit I got from these is no more seasonal depression. The lighting is at a range that is close to natural sunlight. There are some pumps but unless you are a reef geek with metal halides and some calcium generators or something like that you are probably not too bad on these. I don't even notice a water bill difference for my tank and when I first started the tank I didn't see any change in my electric bill.

Now the audio equipment and the HD Tv are probably a different creature.


--des

Ok, this is another sort of post so I am posting again.

A couple points of argument are these:
A toaster oven may be very wasteful in terms of its use (as is a microwave) but in the summer it is much better than heating the whole house up. Also your Mr. Coffee is less wasteful than going to Starbucks, and you can chose your coffee which in my case is Fair Trade.

Anyway, I am pretty concerned about this as I am very cold blooded (though otoh, I tend not to turn on the swamp cooler til August in a typical year). Still sometimes quite cold even with sweatshirt, polar fleece, blanket, etc. This seems strange to me as I don't think I would be cold outside. Two years ago I did the windows, which helped. But maybe I have some drafts somewhere and I don't think the house is well-insulated as they aren't generally in around here. They are built on a concrete slab (no basement), stucco, and a flat roof. They can have a pitched roof as an add on. Good things are that stucco tends to keep its coolness and also its heat to some extent.

We mentioned space heaters in another post. I do understand they are not efficient but if I could keep the heat a LOT lower and have one just where I am it might help.
Another thing I have thought of is thermal solar. It is a lot cheaper to install than photovoltaic, and no it is not as good. But one thing it could do is warm the house up during the day (a typical year here is 310 days of sunshine). They don't work at night, but if the house is warmed up in the day it could use less heat to keep it at a certain point. I have heard they do pay for themselves and are currently about $2000 to put up, which I might be able to do next year.

We do get some breaks here for solar but not as good as CA. Too bad!



--des

Cutting an electric bill in half is truly an amazing feat. That sure sets an example for others to follow.

The statement that all heat pumps are for mild climates is not quite accurate. Geothermal heat pumps systems are very efficient heating and cooling systems. Our system provides 3 times the BTUs per kilowatt as electric resistance heating would. We have had our open loop ground water system since 1993. Interestingly the rates have about doubled since then. Some utilities have programs to assist with the system cost and perhaps rate programs.

For heating, the well water comes into the system at about 50 degrees. The system removes about 10 degrees worth of heat discharging at about 40 degrees. In the summer we use the water for irrigation and for animals. In the winter it becomes an expensive bird bath. Since everything else is frozen for quite some distance we are visited by all the wildlife in the area. It is not uncommon to see deer drinking the water.

So if anyone is thinking about replacing a furnace or planning new construction regardless of the location a geothermal heat pump should not be ruled out just because air to air heat pumps do not work well below 40 degrees.

Des, you really should look into the possibilities of solar heating with the amount of sun light you have. A few south facing panels could make a significant difference especially if you had some thermal mass to capture the heat during the day. We are somewhat limited as what we can do to the hundred year old farm house surrounded by trees. The web sites of Home Power and Mother Earth News magazines would be a good resource for more information.

Des, you really should look into the possibilities of solar heating with the amount of sun light you have. A few south facing panels could make a significant difference especially if you had some thermal mass to capture the heat during the day. We are somewhat limited as what we can do to the hundred year old farm house surrounded by trees. The web sites of Home Power and Mother Earth News magazines would be a good resource for more information.

Thank you for the references. Trees are not much of an issue. I have a fairly large tree on the left side of my property (and that's basically it). I think solar is expensive, but there are options like solar thermal that are not so bad. BTW, I think that what I am considering is called a solar collector and not solar thermal (or they may be the same thing, though I think the later is for hot water). Anyway, what it does is collect heat thru water or antifreeze and then there is some kind of fan that takes the temp floor level. I am not a diy person, but here are some plans and also materials that someone might be able to use: http://www.jc-solarhomes.com/MTD/mtd_solar_collector_kit.htm

BTW, I just realized that the cold all the time might be a medical, not an environmental thing. There seems to be a lot of references on this that I am going to look into. I've also thought of dealing with this a little bit more close in. I had an electric blanket like shawl at one time that was very helpful. I have also found I am warmer after jogging, which I just started.

I dont' think I could do any kind of solar thing til next year.

--des

Des, this is what they use in Japan:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kotatsu
Putting a small space heater under your kitchen table with a long tablecloth might also work, as long as you're very careful about fire, and turning it off.

Yikes that scares the beegeebees out of me! Looks very flammable. Anything with cloth and fire (or even electricity).

OTOH, I'm thinking of a space heater and also some more local things like use of electric blanket, electric shawl, electric mattress pad (I know some people will not use those either.)
Also trying to figure out why I might be so cold blooded. IF there is a reason for it that has a solution...


--des

Des, this is what they use in Japan:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kotatsu
Putting a small space heater under your kitchen table with a long tablecloth might also work, as long as you're very careful about fire, and turning it off.

Hey I found the perfect device!!
Sort of the reverse of the ICE vest.
http://cozywinters.com/shop/heated-vest-555.html
Looks very efficient and warms the torso which is the most determinate of how warm or cold you are.

--des

Cutting an electric bill in half is truly an amazing feat. That sure sets an example for others to follow.

The statement that all heat pumps are for mild climates is not quite accurate. Geothermal heat pumps systems are very efficient heating and cooling systems. Our system provides 3 times the BTUs per kilowatt as electric resistance heating would. We have had our open loop ground water system since 1993. Interestingly the rates have about doubled since then. Some utilities have programs to assist with the system cost and perhaps rate programs.

For heating, the well water comes into the system at about 50 degrees. The system removes about 10 degrees worth of heat discharging at about 40 degrees. In the summer we use the water for irrigation and for animals. In the winter it becomes an expensive bird bath. Since everything else is frozen for quite some distance we are visited by all the wildlife in the area. It is not uncommon to see deer drinking the water.

So if anyone is thinking about replacing a furnace or planning new construction regardless of the location a geothermal heat pump should not be ruled out just because air to air heat pumps do not work well below 40 degrees.

Des, you really should look into the possibilities of solar heating with the amount of sun light you have. A few south facing panels could make a significant difference especially if you had some thermal mass to capture the heat during the day. We are somewhat limited as what we can do to the hundred year old farm house surrounded by trees. The web sites of Home Power and Mother Earth News magazines would be a good resource for more information.

True. I was not considering geothermal heat pumps. I agree that they're a wonderful system. I will probably include geothermal in my comparison when this system needs to be replaced.

I believe the newer more efficent air source heat pumps put out heat until -15. So they have really improved in this area. The only problem is, is to find somebody to install one! H

I have been reading up on a lot of really cool things one can do who is handy with his/her hands esp. with solar. Given I have a couple left thumbs, I am envious.

Anyway, this is an interesting video (not for its video qualities at all).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLSARSw2JUQ

--des

re: Kotatsu. The modern Kotatsu used in Japan are no more of a fire hazard than electric blankets. They don't get anywhere near warm enough to start a fire.

re: Heat pumps. We had a an AC/heatpump (Trane XE 1100) on the condo we sold earlier this year. It had a circuit that would cause it to run briefly in reverse to melt things off when it detected ice buildup. Worked well down to the mid 20s, which is about as cold as it gets most of the time in Western OR.

This wastes some energy, but is way more efficient than resistive electric heat. At one point the ice-removal circuit went bad on ours, causing it to ice up anytime the temps dropped into the 30s. This forced us to use resistive heat for a couple months before we got around to getting it fixed. Our heat bill doubled.

re: Kotatsu. The modern Kotatsu used in Japan are no more of a fire hazard than electric blankets. They don't get anywhere near warm enough to start a fire.


Maybe not. I went to wikipedia which you know is not always entirely accurate. It sounded like a fire or space heater with a blanket over it.

As for electric blankets, I have one. But I have to be careful not to mention the blanket to a friend of mine as he gets all worried and says it will electrocute me or catch fire.

--des

Just a quick note. A co-worker spoke with our mechanical engineers about which A/C unit to get for his house, and he pointed out that R22 is being phased out, so it would be wise to invest in a unit that does not use R22.

Read this for more information:
http://www.epa.gov/ozone/title6/phaseout/22phaseout.html

This is similar to the removal of R12 from car a/c systems, which is now replaced with newer 134a.

Some have mentioned waiting until light bulbs burn out before replacing them with CFLs. Perhaps you should replace them now with CFLs, then replace the CFLs with the old bulbs when you sell the house. That way you can take the CFLs to your new house.

I gave all of my incandescents to a friend that has a lot of rental houses. Most of the time that people move out, several bulbs are either burned out or missing.

We use natural gas for heating and warm water. Electricity takes up only 9% of our annual energy usage (~20000 kWh gas, ~2000 kWh electricity).

Our house is very old (~100 years) and badly insulated. Especially the windows are drafty. To save energy I bought about 40m of tesa moll (http://www.tesa.com/consumer/solutions/tesamoll) to fix the windows. It's rather expensive (0,8€/m) but lasts very long (8 years they say). I expect big savings.

I've got a 60 year-old house that had no insulation whatsoever and old single pane, double-hungs. This past summer I resided and put insulation in the walls, blew insulation in the attic and installed new double-hungs and my gas usage declined by 50% over last winter, plus the temperature in the house is much more pleasant since it's not dropping so fast.

With a big enough incentive, how much could we reduce our consumption?

Avalanches earlier this month knocked down transmission lines and cut off Juneau's source of low-cost hydroelectric power. Threatened with a fivefold increase in utility bills, Juneau quickly powered down.

Stores, though open, went partially dark. Neon signs were switched off and vending machines unplugged. At home, residents of this former Gold Rush town began living a little bit like pioneers, dusting the snow off the grill, stringing clotheslines in the backyard and flicking off their TV sets. Within a week, electrical usage across town was down as much as 30 percent.

Energy conservation is a hard sell in much of the U.S., but Juneau has proved that people will change their ways if the financial incentives are big enough.

http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/rural/southeast/story/391190.html

Our attempts to reduce energy consumption are really paying off big time. We've pretty much finished off all the low hanging fruit, as CFLing, weatherization, and religious attention to usage are peaking. With that in mind:

May 2007 - 1,192 kwh
May 2008 - 747 kwh

We are down 37%, and getting close to our 50% goal.

That's excellent, Marc! Quite a reduction indeed.

I got real low once, and they charged me at a higher rate!!!

Congratulations on your achievement.

Didn't one of you post about a tiny house? If so, what was it called?

KWJ, that was Brian (Bailout) who posted about those. You can see what he was talking about here:

http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/

An 11 SEER unit would cost $471 a year to run. A 17 SEER, $305. This is based on Middle of the US (where official ratings are set for) and use energy cost from the 1990s. The ratios should be right in line though.

P.S. Thanks for plugging Lennox. Check out a Heat Pump if you have an all electric house. It is much better than using straight heat strips like in a hair dryer.

There are clothes dryers that use heat pumps to recover a significant amount of the heat while extracting moisture, which means they use less than half the energy of a regular dryer. Note that the newer ones use semiconductor heat pumps instead of HCFCs.

There is a new, more efficient heat pump in development that is more efficient at heating as it uses a much more efficient defrost system. Instead of melting the frost like most heat pumps do, it uses a wire embedded in the coils but insulated from them. It connects to a high frequency power supply that supplies 800v at 915MHz during defrost. The intense alternating electric field causes the frost to flash to steam almost instantly, blowing the rest of the frost out of the coils. I'm not aware of any production unit on the market that does that, however.

Digital and hybrid audio amplifiers are much more efficient than analog audio amplifiers. They both use digital amplification, which involves converting the input signal to a digital stream, amplifying the stream, and using a passive filter to reconstruct the analog signal at a very high efficiency. (Note that digital audio amplifiers accept a PCM stream while hybrid audio amplifiers accept an analog signal.)

LED DLP TVs are some of the most efficient big screens available. For smaller screens, high efficiency LCDs are also good.

Note that in cold climates, the inefficiency of most items is much less than you would think. The lost energy simply becomes useful heat. Of course, that means the losses would be greater in hot climates.