Saving electricity

[Larry Caldwell]

I happen to know a little bit about thermodynamics and I disagree with the above theory that a warmer ambient temp makes a more efficient freezer. That's just totally silly.

Right information, wrong reason. The compressor works fine, but the control circuitry doesn't. If the ambient temperature drops too low, it won't turn on the compressor, and the freezer warms up. Older freezers didn't have this problem. My parents bought their first chest freezer in the '50s, and it worked fine on an unheated porch. My new Sears Energy Star chest freezer stops working if the temperature in the garage drops too low.

 

[chopped]

A CLOTHS LINE is a great idea. I have to use softners in the wash to keep the towels from being stiff.
But its a great saver for me here.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

Things I have done to reduce electricity use:

Install a solar water heater. They are much cheaper than solar electric, and pay back much quicker. Coils on the back of the wood stove provide hot water in the winter when the sun doesn't shine.

Put timers on lights that kept getting left on, like the garage lights.

Replaced old CRT televisions and computer monitors with flat panel units. The new LED TVs are particularly efficient.

My new desktop computer uses less than half the power of my old one, but laptops are the best at conserving power. Set the computer to hibernate when not used.

CFLs throughout the house, with dimmers on conventional bulbs that can't be replaced.

New doors, windows and insulation. When we remodeled and had the walls open, all the plate penetrations got foamed. Exterior walls are well insulated, but when I replace the siding I'm going to add a layer of foam-core for a thermal break insulation system.

Install an attic fan.

Solar tube in the dark central hallway, and a skylight in the bathroom in the middle of the house. The solar tubes are very efficient, the skylight not so much, but the bathroom is one room where CFLs just won't work and daylight does.

Task lighting in the shop. Low hung high intensity fluorescents over the work benches rather than lighting the whole place bright as day. Timers on the lights in all outbuildings. I have two goose neck fluorescents with big magnifying glasses that are a big help to old eyes.

Clean the dryer duct. It's no wonder the dryer was taking forever to dry clothes, it couldn't push any air through the vent. Lowes sells a duct cleaner kit.

 

[chkntrktr]

A fellow at work was grousing about his elec bill a while back. I asked him if he wanted to carry water in or draw it out of his well, or use kerosene lamps and candles. My point to him was yes it's high sometimes, but for all we do with it for now it is still a bargain. Just like gas, when my outgo on it gets more than I like, I cut back as much as I can.
3930Dave, in post #48 you mentioned new growth and how the infrastructure can't always handle it. How true. The local leaders try to lure businesses around here by giving tax breaks but tell us that the new businesses will increase the tax base. I don't know how that works if they don't pay any for x amount of years and then pay lower rates for another x amount of years. In post #46 you mentioned execs and their pay. Their overhead in exec. pay and packages is a monster that the consumer has to feed, and this is true in many goods and services we buy (just look at healthcare). These execs are also some of the people that come with the ideas such as those meters.
dmccarty Post #49 you mentioned Duke and Progress merger. I am not on Duke, we are served by Blue Ridge ( a co-op), but whatever happens will have an effect on us as we buy power from Duke. It will be interesting but I am afraid the consumer won't gain anything from it.
Having said all this, I still remember my parent's words "TURN THAT LIGHT OFF!!!"

 

[bearhawk]

Natural gas generators don't use steam, they feed the gas directly into turbines and use the turbines to turn the generator. Boiling water to make steam wastes a huge amount of energy, and is only practical if the energy is nearly free, like nuclear or coal.

Huh?

Natural Gas

Almost all of the natural gas used in America comes from America, where it is extracted from natural resources right here on our own soil. Once extracted, it痴 delivered to power plants via pipelines. The natural gas is used to boil water into steam which turns a turbine and powers a generator. Voila! Electricity! Natural gas offers benefits over other energy sources like coal and oil it burns clean, without soot, smoke or undesirable byproducts like ash that must be buried or hauled away. And, recent advances in technology have unlocked vast supplies of natural gas enough to fuel our nation for generations. To put that in perspective, America is now seen as having more natural gas than Saudi Arabia has oil.

 

[uglyboywith11fingers]

Natural gas generators don't use steam, they feed the gas directly into turbines and use the turbines to turn the generator. Boiling water to make steam wastes a huge amount of energy, and is only practical if the energy is nearly free, like nuclear or coal.

Am I going to have to raise my question about loose screws again ???

Pete

 

[techman]

Actually some older power plants have been converted to NG, and they do boil water to steam and use conventional steam turbines. Newer plants do use gas turbines to to burn NG directly in the turbine. No water is boiled. The newest large scale power plants are combined cycle operations. They burn NG in a gas turbine. The exhaust from the turbine is used to boil water which drives a steam turbine on the same shaft as the gas turbine. This effectively captures a lot of the waste heat in the gas turbine's exhaust. A gas turbine has an efficiency of 35-40%, compared to about 30% for a steam driven plant. A combined cycle plant can operate close to 60% efficiency.

paul

 

[uglyboywith11fingers]

Actually some older power plants have been converted to NG, and they do boil water to steam and use conventional steam turbines. Newer plants do use gas turbines to to burn NG directly in the turbine. No water is boiled. The newest large scale power plants are combined cycle operations. They burn NG in a gas turbine. The exhaust from the turbine is used to boil water which drives a steam turbine on the same shaft as the gas turbine. This effectively captures a lot of the waste heat in the gas turbine's exhaust. A gas turbine has an efficiency of 35-40%, compared to about 30% for a steam driven plant. A combined cycle plant can operate close to 60% efficiency.

paul

Larry Caldwell, I owe you an apology... the following is from the Ontario Power Authority website:

Halton Hills Generating Station is a natural gas-fired combined cycle electricity generating facility with a contract capacity of 641.5 MW built along the Highway 401-407 Industrial Corridor in the Town of Halton Hills.

The facility is based on a 2x1 configuration consisting of two 擢 class combustion turbine generators (CTG), each exhausting into its respective heat recovery steam generator (HRSG) with the combined steam supplying a single steam turbine generator.

Each CTG/HRSG can operate separately. An air cooled condenser has been selected for steam cycle cooling. The HRSGs incorporate natural gas fuelled duct burners which can be used to increase steam production for additional output from the steam turbine generator.

The plant is connected to Hydro One 230 kV circuits T38B and T39B between Halton Transformer Station and Hornby Junction to feed into the Ontario electricity market administrated by the Independent Electricity System Operator.

Location: Halton Hills, Ontario

OPA Contracted Capacity: 641.5 MW

Developer: TransCanada Corporation

Technology: Natural gas-fired, combined cycle

Turbines: Two 擢 Class combustion turbine generators with dry low NOx combustors, One steam turbine generator

Commercial Operation Date: September 1, 2010

 

[3930dave]

Nat Gas gets a vote from me. It is a pretty good choice, as both Canada and the USA have quite a bit, and it is much easier to burn cleanly, than coal.

The Germans have done a pretty good job cleaning up coal emissions, possibly because they don't have the same easy access to Nat Gas, but most jurisdictions here don't want to spend that kind of $ cleaning up coal. So, mostly our coal here is worse than Nat Gas.

NIMBY issues often come up, regardless of the generating source.

Global News | Huge transformer arrives at cancelled natural gas plant in Mississauga, Ont.

I'd actually forgotten that TWO Natural Gas plants in the Greater Toronto area were recently cancelled by our provincial Gubmint. Same "leaders" that shut down coal plants, then wussy out when a couple of nimby groups start whining.

(Hmmmm.... any chance we are creating a crisis, to drive an agenda ?).

My logic would be "Well, if you have such a concern about burning of Nat Gas, then we'll just shut off the lines to your neighbourhoods, we'll get that done right away".

(For most cities in Ontario, a very high % of residential heating is Nat Gas).

Then, we have the people whining about wind turbines.....

So.... the person who joked about kerosene lamps, carrying water.... well, that might be where we are heading here, during peak summer and winter periods at least.

A buddy has a whole house Generac running on Nat Gas.... I should probably read up on 'em sooner rather than later.

Rgds, D.

 

[dmccarty]

Bingo, Dan. I've observed that often the most vocal proponents of Free Markets are the people that do NOT participate in one.

Here, to create the PERCEPTION of a Free Market, you can sign up with other companies for the consumption ONLY portion of your electric bill. Meanwhile, the incumbent is awarded enough fees and slush fund charges (regardless of what you decide to do) that even if you switch "providers", it is revenue neutral (at worst, typically they are making more money regardless) for the incumbent utility.

A sham, at best.

I do not want ANY utility controlled automation in my house, for several reasons.
...

The power company keeps sending me mail with a great incentive of $25 a YEAR to be able to turn off my heat pump as they wish. :laughing::laughing::laughing: Wow, $2 a month. Let me jump right on that deal. NOT! If the incentive was $25 a MONTH then I might even think about it. :laughing:

The wife is reptilian. She does not like cold. I think she finally gets warm in August. Maybe July at the earliest. Last week we had a heat wave and had to turn on the AC a couple of afternoons. I thought for sure this weekend we would have too as well but we opened the windows which cools down the house at night and it was not TOO humid with the windows open so we managed without AC. During late afternoon it was 83 on the thermostat which is behind the TV. Away from the thermostat it was 80-81ish. We have 10 foot tall ceiling which helps remove the heat so it was comfortable.

We do have a whole house fan that we use a few times a year. It is good for sucking the heated air out of the house within a short period of time. This only works though if the humidity is not too high otherwise the wet air is brought into the house and not much was accomplished.

Humidity is the problem. We can tolerate pretty high temperatures but with humidity the windows get closed and the AC is turned on. If it is cool at night we can open the windows to cool down the house. The coolness will last until late afternoon when we have to turn on the AC. This works until the real heat of the summer when the temps get into the 90's. Our power bills are highest in the summer because of AC but the highest bill has been about $185. Usually $150ish in the summer. Our average is $120ish. Heating with wood really saves us money.

Cleaning clothes I guess costs us $30 a month and heating water is $30ish a month.

People complain about paying the power bill but I am thankful I have power. Having to live without AC in the heat and humidity is NOT fun. Been There Done That. Paying $1-2 a day for AC comfort is worth it. Though I cringe when I see the power bill.

Later,
Dan

 

[Bird]

People complain about paying the power bill but I am thankful I have power. Having to live without AC in the heat and humidity is NOT fun. Been There Done That. Paying $1-2 a day for AC comfort is worth it. Though I cringe when I see the power bill.

I agree.:laughing: I never lived nor slept in a house with air-conditioning until I was 19. In fact, without even a fan, I used to put a cot in the yard and sleep outside when I was a kid because it was so hot in the house in the summer. We did have electric lights in the house; one bare bulb per room. No running water and no bathroom in the house. Our kids and grandkids can no more imagine living like that than I can imagine going across country in a wagon train a couple of hundred years ago.:laughing:

 

[jinman]

I agree.:laughing: I never lived nor slept in a house with air-conditioning until I was 19.

Me too, Bird. I got married and moved into a trailer house with an air conditioner when I was 19. When I went into the US Navy and they told us we had to get up at 6:00 AM, I thought that was getting to sleep in too. Things have sure changed.

BTW: We have a little toaster oven that we use in addition to our microwave oven. That little oven sure beats heating up the big oven when you only have a small dish to cook or heat up where you need browning. I don't know anybody who actually bakes potatoes in an oven anymore. Baking a potato in a microwave is also one of those things we never dreamed of as kids.

 

[Bird]

Jim, I was 19 when I went to work for the Post Office in Dallas and I bought a used (7 years old I think) "house trailer" as they were called back then. It was and 8' x 28'; couldn't afford one of those great big 10' wide monsters.:laughing: Working at night and sleeping in the daytime, I bought a Fedders window unit A/C for that trailer.

And like you, we seldom use the oven in the kitchen range. We have a pretty good sized KitchenAid toaster oven and it's used regularly instead.

I do love microwave ovens. I'll probably always remember the first one I ever saw or heard of. It was in the kitchen of the Marriott Motel on Stemmons Frwy. I used to have a moonlighting job there and I was 29 years old. Their restaurant was open all night, and there was always a big pan of cold, hard biscuits left each evening by the chef. Pop one in that "radar range" and it came out just as if it had been freshly baked. And I guess I was over 35 years old when we got our first one.

 

[dmccarty]

...

BTW: We have a little toaster oven that we use in addition to our microwave oven. That little oven sure beats heating up the big oven when you only have a small dish to cook or heat up where you need browning. I don't know anybody who actually bakes potatoes in an oven anymore. Baking a potato in a microwave is also one of those things we never dreamed of as kids.

When we built the house we bought a Maytag range. The range is unique in that it has TWO ovens. One is the large oven as one would expect but the second is a smaller oven. Instead of a pot storage drawer at the bottom of the range, the pushed the big oven down and put the little oven on top. We use that little oven 95% of the time. It heats up quickly. The big oven really takes awhile to heat heat. Course the small one cost less to run than the large oven and produces less heat. In the winter I don't really care about the extra heat since we can use it but in the summer that extra heat is expensive to generated AND then run the AC to remove.

Later,
Dan

 

[Bird]

When we built the house we bought a Maytag range. The range is unique in that it has TWO ovens. One is the large oven as one would expect but the second is a smaller oven. Instead of a pot storage drawer at the bottom of the range, the pushed the big oven down and put the little oven on top. We use that little oven 95% of the time. It heats up quickly. The big oven really takes awhile to heat heat. Course the small one cost less to run than the large oven and produces less heat. In the winter I don't really care about the extra heat since we can use it but in the summer that extra heat is expensive to generated AND then run the AC to remove.

Later,
Dan

So far, I haven't seen that kind of range. We have a KitchenAid range and dishwasher that were here when we bought the place, and a built-in Kenmore microwave over the range, so I bought a KitchenAid toaster oven and a KitchenAid mixer. So far have not regretted any of it.

 

[3930dave]

Last time I checked (when we bought ours 10 years ago) in a normal sized electric kitchen range (stove top elements and oven) you can save energy in the oven portion if it is a self-cleaning oven.

Because of the super high temperature the oven runs at for self-cleaning, the cabinet has to be that much better insulated (fire hazard). Noticed the difference when we got the self cleaning oven, it stayed hot a lot longer after you switched it off.

Might consider a gas range when this one needs to be retired. I'm no cook/baker, but have heard that the way to go is gas stove top burners, with electric elements for the oven - many residential gas ovens seem to struggle to regulate the temperature as tightly as electric.

Rgds, D.

 

[SPYDERLK]

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 happen to know a little bit about thermodynamics and I disagree with the above theory that a warmer ambient temp makes a more efficient freezer. That's just totally silly. For one thing, the freezer will gain more heat from the room with higher ambient temps so the load is greater. Secondly, the heat sink (room air) being warmer means that there is a smaller differential between the coils and the heat sink so a less efficient transfer of heat from the freezer to the room which is how a freezer cools the icebox. It is true that some freezers have design parameters that make them not function at very very low temperatures, think below freezing, but a cooler room makes a more efficient freezer.

Right information, wrong reason. The compressor works fine, but the control circuitry doesn't. If the ambient temperature drops too low, it won't turn on the compressor, and the freezer warms up. Older freezers didn't have this problem. My parents bought their first chest freezer in the '50s, and it worked fine on an unheated porch. My new Sears Energy Star chest freezer stops working if the temperature in the garage drops too low.

Be interesting to know the real issue here. Im quessing that in cold environment you can get condensation of the refrigerant in the compressor. A compressor starting in this mode is in trouble. A PTC heater for the compressor would fix this and only use about $0.01/day in the warmer times.
larry
larry

 

[Bird]

Might consider a gas range when this one needs to be retired. I'm no cook/baker, but have heard that the way to go is gas stove top burners, with electric elements for the oven - many residential gas ovens seem to struggle to regulate the temperature as tightly as electric.

That's something else I haven't seen, or even heard of; gas stove top and electric oven. But over the years we've had natural gas, propane, regular electric "burners" and now the electric smooth top glass. I guess each his it's good and bad points; hard to decide which one we like best.

Incidentally, our current KitchenAid kitchen range oven is also a convection oven; a feature that we've never used in the 6+ years we've lived here.:laughing:

 

[3930dave]

Older residential compressors were definitely higher HP than what is used today. They now also run at higher rpm.

Reason 1:

"New, Improved" lower HP units can't move cold (due to low ambient temperature) refrigerant reliably/safely ?

(Just guessing).

Reason 2:

Old fridges had little or typically nothing for electronic controls.

Most today have electronic controls. A low cost way to (correctly) build electronics is to use (0 - 70)C spec'd parts, or even narrower range if you can get away with it.

Today, I suspect that most residential fridges are not built with more expensive Industrial or better rated (Operating Temperature wise) parts.

(I've spent a long time dealing with electronic component specs).

Bird - Convection does work well for baking. Frozen pies we used to buy would be done in something like 55 minutes, vs. 1hr 10 minutes.

Most large items that need to be in the oven for a while seem to benefit time wise with a Convection setting. The trick is finding out/guesstimating the time reduction. The pies we buy now no longer have the Convection time listed, but it does work !

Rgds, D.

 

[aczlan]

Might consider a gas range when this one needs to be retired. I'm no cook/baker, but have heard that the way to go is gas stove top burners, with electric elements for the oven - many residential gas ovens seem to struggle to regulate the temperature as tightly as electric.

I have seen that. We had a gas range at the last house and it was always erratic on temperature. We now have an electric range the the oven is spot on for temperature, but we prefer the gas cooktop.

Aaron Z