Saving electricity

[clemsonfor]

Same problem here in Australia. Power is expected to increase 16% in July and that is just a start. Our quarterly bills were a regular $480+ and because we are near retirement we didn't want power bills so we bit the bullet and installed a 4 Kwh Solar system. It is grid connected so anything we don't use goes back in the grid and we get paid for it. We are shaded by trees from 2.30pm but will fix that shortly, but even so since the 16th March we have produced 722+ Kwh of electricity we don't have to pay for. Not sure how you guys fare for sunshine over there, but I would recommend solar to anyone.
I blame TVs, and light bulbs (that are left on) as being the main culprits. eg, leave five decent sized lights on and it works out the same as running a single bar heater for the evening. Fridges; well, we have to have them, but I don't find them to be as hungry as a few light bulbs.
Great to see so many concerned with their power bills. Have we become a blase' to energy usage until now? This has been a wakeup call worldwide and it has a long way to go yet before we fully utilise alternate energy, and not just in our homes.

Would it not be smarter to put your panels in the yard on a mount and leave your house shaded as it will help with the cooling in the hot Austrailia summer?

 

[clemsonfor]

I don't believe there is any lifespan estimate that can be definitive for all appliances.

It just depends how they are used and treated.

I believe in the saying - Look after it and it'll look after you.

How do you look after a dishwasher? There is no maintence on them? I think they may have something to run through it to help deteroriate food particles and kill odor/bacteria, but there just a timed water jet and heater.

As for an oven how? Just clean the crud. All that you do is hope the electronics dont go out as thats the pricy thing. Washer dryer. Dont wast overloaded loads and keep um balanced, but the bearing is not my fault, im meticulous about not overloading and balancing. The dryer gets lint cleaned each time and then once or twice a year i try and fish as much lint out of the inside as i can.

 

[Alien]

Would it not be smarter to put your panels in the yard on a mount and leave your house shaded as it will help with the cooling in the hot Austrailia summer?

Our house opens up pretty cool. I have thought of moving the panels off the roof onto a tracker but the panels keep the roof cooler too. (as my picture shows)
Apparently there is a gain of 30 - 40% in panel output if they are mounted on a tracker.
You can see the shade across the closest group of panels.

 

[dmccarty]

Its funny the fads. Its stainless everything now and about the last 10 years. Stainless is horrible, it shows every spot or handprint. Some of those newer ones are better than are not actually stainless but look like it and dont show the prints. NOw the new thing is those crazy bottom fridge things that you can see what you have and have to bend over while rumaging? Oh and the Gas thing yall all talk about. Folks like my sister n law HAD to have gas. She cant cook a thing if its not written down or not on a book. But they have gas because it "cooks" so much better??? Why so you can spend 3 grand on a special cooktop??


...

I never understood stainless steel either.....

We DO want a bottom freezer. It is save energy compared to a door freezer since you don't loose all of the cold air when opening the freezer. The door freezer just dumps the cold air out when opened. A bottom freezer with a pull out drawer is like a chest freezer. The ones we have looked at have nice drawers and organizers to help find things. Our side by side is a pain trying to find anything....

We would have bought a bottom freezer when we were getting the appliances but they were not in style back then. Now they are and I can remember when they used to be.

I think I mentioned in this thread that our expensive front loading washer has some many things wrong with it that it cost far more to fix than replace. We are running it to complete failure. Which has not happened yet. The dishwasher is failing. I have not idea why. It is Maytag and was quiet. We paid extra for quiet. Now it sounds like a jet taking off in the kitchen. It failed withing the first week of installation and was fixed under warranty. It has had a couple of internal basket pieces fail that I eventually fixed myself since we could not get parts and even if we could they would just break. We had a Maytag dish washer in the city house and it too failed after one use and was fixed under warranty. It worked fine after that fix.

The fridge failed right before the warranty was up. I caught it prior to complete failure but many were not so lucky.

My parents bought KitchenAide because of a family connection. They have had problems with the fridge and one other appliance. Can't remember if it was the oven or dishwasher.

They are just building these things with cheap, crappy parts.

If the Sunbeam fridges were bigger I would seriously consider buying them.

Later,
Dan

 

[NorTracNY]

How do you look after a dishwasher? There is no maintence on them? I think they may have something to run through it to help deteroriate food particles and kill odor/bacteria, but there just a timed water jet and heater.

As for an oven how? Just clean the crud. All that you do is hope the electronics dont go out as thats the pricy thing. Washer dryer. Dont wast overloaded loads and keep um balanced, but the bearing is not my fault, im meticulous about not overloading and balancing. The dryer gets lint cleaned each time and then once or twice a year i try and fish as much lint out of the inside as i can.

Our cheap GE dishwasher is from 2003. I've taken the bottom apart and cleaned it out 2-3x when it wasn't draining well and was leaving garbage on the dished. The rollers on the top rack broke and needed to be replaced ($20, and the door opens beyond parallel and closes hard. (little kids) I've also never used the drying feature. We just open the door and pull out the racks to let the dishes dry. Someday we'll need to replace it, but I know a lot of people would have replaced theirs at 3 years when I first opened up the bottom and removed some of the garbage that had wrapped around some type of moving grinder.

 

[Bird]

In 1997 we bought a new double wide mobile home with GE appliances. Almost exactly 3 years later, my wife noticed some water in the floor. The dishwasher pump was leaking. I took it out of the house, out to the shop, found the problem, but could not see a way to separate the pump from the motor. So I contacted GE and was told you don't separate them. In fact, you can only buy the pump/motor assembly as one piece and at that time (12 years ago) it cost $160+. We replaced it with a Maytag.

And a really weird coincidence was that I found the pump on the 5 year old Kenmore washing machine leaking the same day, but I went to Sears, got a new pump for $36.25 and fixed the washing machine.

 

[clemsonfor]

I. The dishwasher is failing. I have not idea why. It is Maytag and was quiet. We paid extra for quiet. Now it sounds like a jet taking off in the kitchen. It failed withing the first week of installation and was fixed under warranty. It has had a couple of internal basket pieces fail that I eventually fixed myself since we could not get parts and even if we could they would just break. We had a Maytag dish washer in the city house and it too failed after one use and was fixed under warranty. It worked fine after that fix.

The Dan

I think the reason for this, and if i remember right i think the sales lady told me at the appliance store. Is if i remember right (i think she said its in manual?? maybe i made all this up but seems like i remember something about this) i think she said when you install your dishwasher you have to put like an 8 oz cup of water in it to prime the pump or something like it burns up which would explain all our early failures? But what i just though about is would the first time you run it, as it fills with water not accomplish the same thing as filling with a glass?

 

[timster2]

Our utility energy supplier offered a deal last year, higher per kwhr rate, about a penny and a half, BUT free electricity on Saturdays. I figured why not give it a try. Well I have mixed results. I do save about fifteen dollars a month, however, the wife is not so happy. We shifted all laundry to Saturday and I have saved work for Saturday that involves higher power consuming power tools like the air compressor and welders. The wife would prefer to do the laundry as needed rather than wait till Saturday and I would rather work at my own pace and use tools as needed.

We do have electric heat as a backup to the wood stove which is backed up by propane heaters when the power goes out. When we go away for a few days the electric consumption in the house goes down to just under four kwhr per day (no electric heat). When we are home, just the wife and I, we use about twenty kwhr per day.

When I bought this house, a foreclosure, we replaced the all the appliances with energy efficiency in mind. All the appliances, fridge, washer, drier, chest freezer, window air conditioners, dish washer, hot water heater, are less than three years old. All the lights were replaced with energy efficient compact florescent ones, electronic thermostats, timers and motion detectors on outside lights. The house "idles" at about 120 watts. That includes all the clocks, security cameras, modems, routers, freezer and fridge(on standby not running) and everything else that remains plugged in.

So far my energy saving project house is working out to about $75 a month in electric usage. I'm looking into lower energy rates and dumping the Saturday free plan.

 

[3930dave]

Timster - maybe you can upscale this guy's UPS setup ?

KA1MDA WHOLE-HOUSE UPS

With a big enough battery bank, perhaps you can suck in enough power on a Saturday to last a few days ? :thumbsup:

Long ago, the marketing term in the ('puter) server world was TCO. Total Cost of Ownership.

The point of TCO was to look at ALL the costs incurred by a system - downtime, software maintenance, hardware repair times, remote diagnostic ability.....

At the failure rates recent appliances seem to be running at, I'm thinking they'd have to run on pretty near zero power to make $ sense in a TCO calculation.

I'll run my old Frigidaire as long as possible; I'm not in a big hurry to get a fridge with a touchscreen built in so that I can order my groceries online.

Got to admit though, if I won a big lottery, having a high end industrial fridge built that would auto-scan the contents and kanban auto order grocery replacements, NOW THAT I could use !

Such things dreams are made of....

Rgds, D.

 

[dmccarty]

I think the reason for this, and if i remember right i think the sales lady told me at the appliance store. Is if i remember right (i think she said its in manual?? maybe i made all this up but seems like i remember something about this) i think she said when you install your dishwasher you have to put like an 8 oz cup of water in it to prime the pump or something like it burns up which would explain all our early failures? But what i just though about is would the first time you run it, as it fills with water not accomplish the same thing as filling with a glass?

Both dishwashers failed because of the control board. The washer in the city house lost the board after one use. Roughly 10 years later in the new house with a new Maytag, the washer lost the control board in the first week. Not more then 3-5 washes. Both boards were replaced under warranty.

We bought both washers to be QUIET but within years they were very noisy. We never put food in them either. They just got noisy.

Later,
Dan