Saving electricity

[uglyboywith11fingers]

3930dave said:
Newer appliances.... hmmmm.... not always so straight forward, (total) cost wise.
A few years ago, we here in Ontario were encouraged to get rid of our old, power-hungry appliances... a couple of young fellas in a big truck came and for no charge, picked up my old beer fridge, and my wife's upright freezer. Both of these units dated from the 1940's or 1950's, rounded top, etc., we were told these were real energy hogs.
Anyway, wife soon decided she couldn't do without a sizable freezer, and who can do without a beer fridge, so we picked up new units.
Well, it didn't take long to notice that these new energy efficient appliances use more power than did the 60plus year-old machines. Now both these units are in the basement cold room, where the temp is about 50F in the winter and maybe 60F in the summer... shouldn't use much power, but the difference showed up on the power bill.
And I'm sure these new units won't be lasting anything close to 60 years.

I do have a timer on my electric water heater... that prob. saves $5 or so each month.

Pete

[3930dave]

I hear you Pete - you raise a great point.

While we'd all like to believe the propaganda around "New, Improved", um, well, the reality is often quite different - specifically what I'm referring to is the direct, immediate operating costs. Caveat Emptor is more applicable now, than ever.

And believe me, I'm a hard-core tech guy, who really wants to see new (truly) improved technology out there in the market.

A friend recently went through a similar problem with an On Demand water heater - at the end of a year, it was WAY more expensive to run than the conventional heater it replaced. This On Demand unit was installed by a guy who is seriously over qualified, so there were/are no installation issues.

Lifespan of products, well, I think we all know the story there - governments want to see the economy turning over faster, so if new white appliances last only 5-8 years instead of the 50+ they used to, well, so much the better.

GRS - couldn't agree more. The "penalty" these companies and utilities get for Inefficiency and chronic Mess-management is to be awarded immediate revenue rate increases. For that reason alone, I'm willing to pay to decouple from this lunacy.

Rgds, D.

[Looking4new]

Ever since Ontario Hydro/Hydro One or whatever you want to call that bunch of mismanaged misfits foisted the stupid smart meter on me I have watched what I use.

I heat with wood and use the oil furnace for when I leave for the day, which in winter isn't for very long or very often. My vehicle only gets the block heater plugged in when the temps will be down below 0F. The water heater is turned on at 7 P.M. on Friday evenings and shut off at 7 P.M. on Sunday evening. Do all the washing on the weekends or on statutory holidays. My dishwasher walks around on two legs and bitches because I don't have a newfangled electric one. I have always had a solar powered clothes dryer and prefer it that way. I buy my L.E.D. strips at Home Depot for under counter light and I will soon be having them all over the house. Most of the lights right now are compact flourescent bulbs except for the 4 yard lights.
Summer time I air condition with the blower fan on the furnace. The basement is like a huge walk in freezer all the time. My house is normally about 10 degrees cooler than it is outside in summer. The only time the basement is warm is in the winter. One woodstove down and one up. I burn 16 face cords/5 and a third bush cords of maple, beech and oak mixed every year. Every three years I refill the oil tank. (About 500 L a fill up). My hydro bill last month was 114$.

[KTurner]

We are pretty careful already here, about 10 kwh/day here, outside of AC season.

Sounds like you're doing good. Our "best" month since moving in about three years ago was 900kwh or 32kwh/day. That was in November, so AC was off and we used the woodstove for any needed heat. The bad thing about that was that our previous "best" month was the previous November with 977kwh. Why is that bad? Because the 977kwh cost us $96.89 and the 900kwh cost us $103.45. One year later and bout 7% higher cost for about 8% less power.

Replacing our 25 year old heat pump cut our summer bills by 500 - 1000 kwh per month. Funny thing about that was the still shiny "High Efficiency" emblem on the 25 year old, probably 7-8 SEER, heat pump we pulled out. Just goes to show that high efficiency today could be the worst power hog in your house tomorrow.

Keith

[Baby Grand]

3930dave said:
Newer appliances.... hmmmm.... not always so straight forward, (total) cost wise.
A few years ago, we here in Ontario were encouraged to get rid of our old, power-hungry appliances... a couple of young fellas in a big truck came and for no charge, picked up my old beer fridge, and my wife's upright freezer. Both of these units dated from the 1940's or 1950's, rounded top, etc., we were told these were real energy hogs.
Anyway, wife soon decided she couldn't do without a sizable freezer, and who can do without a beer fridge, so we picked up new units.
Well, it didn't take long to notice that these new energy efficient appliances use more power than did the 60plus year-old machines. Now both these units are in the basement cold room, where the temp is about 50F in the winter and maybe 60F in the summer... shouldn't use much power, but the difference showed up on the power bill.
And I'm sure these new units won't be lasting anything close to 60 years.

I do have a timer on my electric water heater... that prob. saves $5 or so each month.

Pete

Running a refrig unit in a cool/cold environment kills it's efficiency. They need a significantly higher ambient temperature to exchange heat efficiently. May sound strange, but then that's thermodynamics for you.

[uglyboywith11fingers]

Running a refrig unit in a cool/cold environment kills it's efficiency. They need a significantly higher ambient temperature to exchange heat efficiently. May sound strange, but then that's thermodynamics for you.

I may not have been clear... the old appliances also lived in that cold room, so if what you're saying is true, it didn't seem to bother the old fridge & freezer. Maybe thermodynamic designs were better 60 years ago.

At the risk of further de-railing this thread, I have a question about electric power production planning... We read in the media that several times a year when Ontario has a surplus of power, we have to pay big bucks ($millions$) to Quebec or Ohio or where-ever to take our surplus power off our hands, lest we damage components of our grid. I'm assuming that Quebec or Ohio would have had sufficient power for their needs without taking our surplus, so, what do they do to turn down their own supply so they can take ours and our $millions$ as well ??? And why can't the Ontario Power authority do the same thing here and save us a few bucks ? Isn't that why we pay these bozos the $million salaries ?, so they can figure out how to save us some money ?
End of Rant !

Pete

[kiotiken]

I may not have been clear... the old appliances also lived in that cold room, so if what you're saying is true, it didn't seem to bother the old fridge & freezer. Maybe thermodynamic designs were better 60 years ago.

At the risk of further de-railing this thread, I have a question about electric power production planning... We read in the media that several times a year when Ontario has a surplus of power, we have to pay big bucks ($) to Quebec or Ohio or where-ever to take our surplus power off our hands, lest we damage components of our grid. I'm assuming that Quebec or Ohio would have had sufficient power for their needs without taking our surplus, so, what do they do to turn down their own supply so they can take ours and our $ as well ??? And why can't the Ontario Power authority do the same thing here and save us a few bucks ? Isn't that why we pay these bozos the salaries ?, so they can figure out how to save us some money ?
End of Rant !

Pete

Hydro electric generation can be turned on and off and throttled up and down very quickly. That is the bulk of generation in Quebec, so I could see that being possible. Ontario is heavy in nukes, and those have a long cycle to power up and down and can't be switched off.

My question is why can't the power just be grounded? I'd rather it be used by somebody who can use it, but if they don't want it for free, I'd rather my rate drop to 0 (not a problem with a smart meter) and the rest dumped into a mountain somewhere. This could be a huge competitive advantage for industry, tell them the power is free for the next 4 hours and watch production soar and costs plummet.

[uglyboywith11fingers]

Hydro electric generation can be turned on and off and throttled up and down very quickly. That is the bulk of generation in Quebec, so I could see that being possible. Ontario is heavy in nukes, and those have a long cycle to power up and down and can't be switched off.

Okay... but isn't the nuke just heating water and the steam used to run the turbine ??? So just open a valve & vent the steam if you don't need the power.
Just a few miles (sorry, kms) down the road from me at Hwy401 & Trafalgar Road is a natural gas generation facility put up by TransCanada. It is supposedly just a 'backup' facility, for when demand is high. Well, you can see the vapors from the stacks pretty much every day, so I suppose they're burning gas to keep the water boiling, and venting the steam until they need to run the generators ?
Why not do it with nukes ? Maybe it's not as simple as that.

Pete

[wjmst]

I'll add my 2 cents to what has been said.

1. I calculated the cost to run my hot water tank and it comes out to a little more than $1 per day. To me that isn't worth messing around with a timer to save maybe 25 cents a day and risk having cold water.

2. I have a programmable thermostat for the oil furnace. I have found that it actually costs MORE if I program it to reduce the temperature when we leave the house at 7AM and then kick back up at 4PM. So the furnace stays set at a constant temperature.

3. Insulation does help but only if installed properly. If it isn't installed properly you are just wasting money.

4. Replacing OLD (read ancient) appliances does help.

5. Replacing incandescent light bulbs with CFL's helps mainly for those night/security lights that are on for extended hours at night.

6. Unplugging those phantom loads helps as well.

7. The best advice is to just be conservative. Turn stuff off if it isn't being used.

[uglyboywith11fingers]

I'll add my 2 cents to what has been said.

2. I have a programmable thermostat for the oil furnace. I have found that it actually costs MORE if I program it to reduce the temperature when we leave the house at 7AM and then kick back up at 4PM. So the furnace stays set at a constant temperature.
.

Wes, I could argue a few of your points, but I'm with you on # 2.

Our house has plaster walls, the plaster is close to 1 inch thick. Consider all that mass, and furniture, etc. in the house, to warm up.
When I tried a set-back thermostat, it would take over an hour of the furnace running non-stop to bring the house temp up just a few degrees.
Seemed to take away all the savings of reducing the temp.
If we go away for a weekend, I'll set it back manually, but for day-to-day, for me it ain't worth it.

Pete