Electric Saving Tips

[mjarrels]

Looking for tips on saving electric bills! Virginia Dominion is going to rase rates 18% in July... I am total electric, Trane heat pump (good)... but not the best, dryer will probably go except for bad weather (I have the best clothes line in the area but the wife won't ues it).

mark

 

[ragkar]

You might get one of those kilowatt hour calculators that go between the wall socket and your appliance so that you can check on the big electric hogs. Like this one
Amazon.com: P3 International P4400 Kill A Watt Electricity Usage Monitor: Electronics

Also develop the habit of turning off the lights that you're not using. My electric bill has a 14 month histogram of average electric use and it's interesting to compare last months use with a year ago.
Summers I use a lot running the air conditioner. Many years ago I had an average consumption of less than 50 KWH per month. I sure wish that I knew how I did that. It was probably because I was seldom home.

 

[RedDirt]

Yeah, I hear PG&E is going to go up 10%-15% later this year too.

How's your solar exposure? There are several low-tech, build yourself items that don't cost much to build, buildable by the average handyman, that can put a nice dent in the electric bill.

Two I like:
Bread-Box water heater. An insulated ply box with a glass lid. Inside is a discarded gas water heater laid horizontally. We ran one every summer for 9 years in Oregon and the unit supplied us with 100% of our hot water for a good 7 months out of the year and per-heated during the other months. My bread box was souped up. Had foil faced rigid insulation interior that reflected light all around the two 30 gal tanks in the box. Also had same insulation on a hinged lid that I could set at an angle to reflect more sun rays toward the tank and helped heat loss at night. 25 years ago it cost about $150 to build.

Next is a room heater on a southern exposed wall. Another "box" concept. This time a shallow box with a glass lid. Inside is a heat collector, expanded metal lath works good. The box is set at an angle facing the sun outside a southern operable window. Cool room air is channeled into the bottom of the box, raises as it is heated by flowing through the lath, and is vented into the room. This concept can go as big as you like and whole houses have been heated this way.

I much prefer passive system since they require no $ power to operate. Convection powers most of them. My current site has a too limited solar exposure so my solar upgrades will likely need to be active systems. I want to try a parabolic water heater using solar reflective film on a discarded satellite dish. If I had more time I'd build a bunch of gadgets and get back to the days when my annual utility bill was $300 - $500.

 

[MossRoad]

Looking for tips on saving electric bills! Virginia Dominion is going to rase rates 18% in July... I am total electric, Trane heat pump (good)... but not the best, dryer will probably go except for bad weather (I have the best clothes line in the area but the wife won't ues it).

mark

Turn off your computer! Just kidding.

Some simple things to do are:
Turn off your lights.
Switch to compact fluorescent bulbs.
Unplug your electronics and wall warts (little transformers) when not in use.
Insulate your home.
Get a wind up clock.
Get super efficient appliances.
Get rid of your air conditioner and open your windows (we didn't have air conditioning when we were kids and survived just fine).
Clean your dryer and vents so the air flows freely.
Better yet, use that clothes line.

 

[Knotbored]

Its a waste of time to turn off lights in a room if you don't also turn down the thermostat (assuming electric heat.) The light bulb and a heater make exactly the same contribution to the room temperature (dollar for dollar or BTU per watt)
I spent the last couple days cutting firewood. I have huge maple trees and the winds supply me with branches and downed trees adequate to supply a small neighborhood. The county south of me dictates no woodstoves most cold or overcast nights, I sure hope that super-environmental attitude doesn't move north.

 

[Highbeam]

Come'on now Knot, King county is part of the same clean air agency as the county I live in and they do not ban woodstoves most nights at all. A few times a year they have stage one bans which means no outdoor burning, fireplaces, or UNCERTIFIED wood stoves. You can still burn certified stoves and pellet stoves. If you have an old non cert stove (pre 1992)then you should upgrade anyway and it is illegal to install anything other than certified stoves. The stage two bans are for all solid fuel and they haven't had a stage two in at least the last several years.

I currently have a nice soapstone EPA woodstove and about 12 cords of firewood drying in the backyard. Heat is the biggest part of our energy consumption so I heat with wood.

Just this week I replaced my single pane windows with new energy star vinyl windows to keep the heat in.

Insulation is next on the radar since I have none under foot, 1.5" in the walls and only 2-3 inches in the attic. The best way to save money is to stop it from leaking out.

 

[Bird]

The Dallas Morning News this morning has a story titled New TXU thermostat can be programmed via Internet. If the link should not work for you, the story says our electric company, TXU, "will give away thermostats that allow customers to set their home temperatures via the Internet and allow TXU to cycle air conditioners off during some summer afternoons.

TXU Energy's new thermostat would allow the company to cycle air conditioners on and off when demand peaks, typically between 1 and 7 p.m. May through September. The company would stagger air-conditioner cutoffs in 10-minute increments, dropping total usage among the customers in the program."

I'm not sure I'd want them to be able to cycle my air-conditioner, although the story says customers can override the cycling via the Internet or by calling TXU.

 

[Podunkadunk]

I visited my 9th grade biology teacher this past Sunday.

He's done several things to cut his electric bill. He has a clothesline and he uses it. He also has a large pipe on top of his house. It's black pvc, 3" in diameter and it's ran all over the top northwest side of his house. He uses a water hose to fill the pipe (water hose is ran up and attached to the black pvc) and has a spigot at the end that hangs down by his back deck. He said it holds 25 gallons of water. Gentlemen, that water is HOT and amazed me that it got that hot! He uses the water to fill his washer when hot water is called for when washing certain items. He says when he washes dishes, he uses the hot water from the roof to wash, but his wife won't bother with the hassle. He's also planted shade trees on the east, west and north side of his house to break up the sun that hits his house. He planted deciduous trees that allow the sun to come through in the winter.

It's a start I reckon.

Podunk

 

[RobJ]

The Dallas Morning News this morning has a story titled New TXU thermostat can be programmed via Internet. If the link should not work for you, the story says our electric company, TXU, "will give away thermostats that allow customers to set their home temperatures via the Internet and allow TXU to cycle air conditioners off during some summer afternoons.

TXU Energy's new thermostat would allow the company to cycle air conditioners on and off when demand peaks, typically between 1 and 7 p.m. May through September. The company would stagger air-conditioner cutoffs in 10-minute increments, dropping total usage among the customers in the program."

I'm not sure I'd want them to be able to cycle my air-conditioner, although the story says customers can override the cycling via the Internet or by calling TXU.

HL&P now Reliant did this years ago. They put it on for free and gave the user a $20 montly credit. My neighbor put it on, I was about to replace the AC and didn't have it done. I'm not even sure if that program is still going on.

To save power, look at the big things, AC, Heat, Waterheater. Our water heater, dryer and heat is nat gas. "Usually" cheaper. I know the gas dryer dries clothes much faster, we'll never buy another electric.

 

[Bird]

These thermostats are something I'd never heard of until today, Rob. And our previous homes from '68 to '89 had gas heat, gas cooking, gas water heater, etc., even a gas starter in the fireplace. But our current home is total electric. In fact, there aren't even any natural gas lines in the whole neighborhood. I just did a quick check and found that so far in 2008, my electricity cost is up 11.72% over the same time period in 2007.