Need to save more on electricity.
 

Got to thinking, [prophead] here in my home we use about 3 times more electricity then when I was growing up. Part of that is from lights.

I live in the same house that I grew up in. Bought it from my mom when I was about 30 and learned she had terminal cancer. Moved back in the last few months to help take care of her and the place. That was 1989. Been here ever since. Ma passed away shortly in 1990

But one thing that is different between now and back when I was a kid growing up in this house is the light fixtures. When growing up all our light fixtures wasn't nothing but a porcelan based single bulb fixture. No they didn't look fancy but they gave off a lot of light.

After I moved back in this house I ended up getting married and invited my new bride to live with me in this old house. Without some major changes of coarse! One being the light fixtures. All the porcelan based fixtures came down and fancy new light fixtures went up. Instead of one exposed bulb on the ceiling in each room, we now have a fixture that holds anywhere from 2 to 5 bulbs. And majority have covers on them greatly reducing their brightness.

Thats two to five times more electric use whenever you turn on a light switch. Now I know we now have florescant bulbs we can use and I'm slowly switching all the bulbs over to them. Although I'm finding out some don't last 5 years like their suppose to. But the saving could even be better if I could reduce all fixtures back to down to using only 1 bulb only with no cover.

Just don't know how long my new (old) bride will stick around!

i really dislike the look of those old overhead lights. i also dislike the fixtures with multiple bulbs. give me a table side lamp for reading any day.

they make plenty of lights that just take one bulb. any chance you can change them again?

when i was a child, i didn't shower once or twice per day, i used a wash cloth in the face basin in the bathroom everyday. i would bath 2 or 3 times a week in the bath tub as we never had a shower when i was young. it takes a bunch of electricity to make hot water. is your water heater electric?

Yep, it's electric. At the time I went all electric, electricity was much cheaper then propane. And may still be but don't know since I don't buy it anymore at all.

We also used washclothes a lot when I was growing up. Also, we wore our clothes more then one day before we changed into something cleaner. Everyday when I got home from school I would change my clothes and save to wear the next school day. Wore two days before changing into clean clothes. We took baths only once a week. Used the same bath water for all the kids. The last kid in(me) didn't get very clean.

Unplug appliances when they aren't being used. That'll cut down the bill a bit.

Lights dont really "consume" that much energy. Of course, waste is waste. I would blame the increase on the following(pick out any that apply for you): Microwave, Coffee Pot, Refrigerator and Freezers, DISHWASHER, color tvs, etc

anything that makes heat with electricity will be a hog. you can get a timer for the electric water heater that can shut it off at night when it is not used as much. combine that with a good insulating blanket for the water heater and you will actually see the savings on your next actual bill. the savings will pay for the parts you need in 1-3 months.

I got a question, I use mainly the water heater for showers and dishwashing. I do both of these activities in the evening, my 40 gallon water heater is "on" all the time, hot water anytime.

Now my question is if I shut the water heater off at night, and turn it on like 5p.m., will the energy to reheat the water be less than keeping the water at hot all day long?

Buy your dear bride some gifts, a flashlight and some long underwear(womans).

Now turn the electricity off at the box and unplug and disconnect everything. Then when she wants something turned back on do that (promptly). When everything is back on the way she likes it celebrate. Celebrate the fact that your electric bill is so low, because it will never be any lower. Enjoy.:goodjob:

That's something I've argued about here before. It takes a whole lot of energy to heat cold water up. I don't think you save very much at all when you put a timer on and let your water cool off. Wrapping the water heater up to save heat I believe in.

I agree with all the indicator lights on all the appliances do zap some of the electricity up. But my biggest problems is I have a wife who doesn't think her clothes are soft enough if the clothes are hung up outside to dry. Therefore the dryer is run at least once a day. I have kids who don't believe in turning lights off. I can go around two or three times a night turning unused lights off. And I agree, I do need to go to bed earlier. But I disagree about going to bed when the chickens do. If I went to bed when the chickens did, I would be waking up about 2 a.m. in the morning and wouldn't be able to go back to sleep. Therefore I would be turning lights on and probably the t.v. or this computer and using energy still yet.

Don't forget the computer.

And make sure anything with a filter or lint catcher is clean - in our case that's the furnace, dehumidifier, dryer and refrigerator.

My water heater is on a timer, only on a few hours when I know I'll be needing hot ware. Here the Rural Electric offered to trade the new spiral bulbs for all the old kind (first day, when I took mine in, they said they'd forgotten to put a limit of 10 in the paper-I just smiled, and left with all mine)
I've put all appliances on a power strip, so they can be shut off--turned off my motion-lights, and the big light on the end of garage.
Have my elec down to about 80. a month--and still looking for more.

You would also loose all that thermal mass, perhaps I will turn down the temp some, but I do need a thermal blanket.

if you have an extra freezer or fridge that isn't full, empty it and unplug it until you need it. They take up a LOAD of power to run.

you can get an electric power meter for about $20-25 (eg, Kill-a-watt), that you plug an appliance in to and it tells you the power consumption. that might be useful to see where your power is going.

also, lots of equip has a high stand-by power. many/most TVs (with "instant on") use almost as much power when "off" as when "on". Many of those "wall warts" (power transformers for various gizmos) also chew up power continuously.

as noted by others, the big draws are usually heating/cooling, water heating (if electric), not lighting.

--sgl

i think the timer idea would work best if you insulate the water heater really well.

What about the on-demand water heaters that heat the water as you use it instead of keeping it hot all the time "just in case" you need it?
I know they are expensive but wouldn't it pay for itself eventually on your electric bill?
I think we'll go that route when we build our new house. We've been thru 3 water heaters in 9 years. The last 2 started leaking, I think the one before that had the element go out due to hard water deposits building up.

Lighting accounts for nearly 10% of home electricity usage, which is not insignificant.

CFL bulbs and fixtures use 75% less electricity than incandecent fixtures.

Marty

I too have been trying very hard to use less electricity. I have been comparing actual kwh instead of just monthly bills because right now the rates seem to be all over the place.. not really, it just feels that way/

Anyway, last month was a very good difference saving over 1500 kwh over last year, but the month before and this month especially makes me crazy.. this month I actually used more.. WHY

Just a few of my changes:
No Air conditioning (AT ALL, NONE!)
No dryer since April, all clothes hung on the line
New energy star washer & dryer
All light bulbs (42) have been change to energy efficient
2 desktop computers have been replaced by laptops that are charged and unplugged.
pool pump is not run 24/7 like last year.. it is run every day, on sunny days it is run all night, cloudy days it gets turned off.. plenty of cloudy days this year.
We removed dish network so TVs are not run into the night.
We do have a Wii but only 1 child who really doesn't like it, so it gets maybe 2 hours of play a month when some friends come by.

All these changes and no BIG savings and we are suppose to increase up to 45% in January because they haven't had an increase in 11 years..

So now what? :help:
Oh yea... outside family thinks we are all bats because we walk around in a dark house. We do not run excess anything, spend a lot of time outdoors and love to sit outside by the bonfire.

We did a couple of things that made a noticable difference to our electric bill. When we had an electric water heater, we put it on a timer, and our power usage dropped. But we have since replaced it with gas and wood water heating, to save even more. And we replaced our 30+ year old refrigerator with a new one, one without frost free, and it uses less than half the power of the old one, and is bigger too. If your refrig or freezer is over 10 years old, check and see what you would save in energy usage by replacing them with new ones. We found that the ones made in the last five years can use significantly less power than older models.

No way would I go back to a single bulb in each room. That is terribly dreary! Surely the new old wife is worth the electricity of a few bulbs.

Lights don't use that much electricity, but if you're worried about them, turn the lights off when you leave a room.

Most of our bill goes to heating/cooling and the hot water heater.

I guess on my dilemma, I should have added that most of my appliances are less than 2 years old. Refr 2, stove 2, dishwashr 2, washr & dryr 6 mnths, tv 6 mths,
We have a geothermal heat/air system.. which as I said we have not used the air all summer.
The water heater is electric, I guess I could put that on a timer, but in the winter when the geo is rumming that is what heats the water, so what I pay in the summer is "free" in the winter.
We pay an extra $10 a month for a farmers light outside, I think that has save us tons, as we don't need a night light in the kitchen, nor a door light outside.
Still at a loss as to how to save more.

I use CFLs
I run my dishwasher daily (no temp boost/air dry)
I do a load of laundry daily (cold Water)
I threw out the coffee maker....use a funnel and a half gallon jug
I threw out the clothes dryer YEARS! ago
I have 1 frig, 3 chest freezers (full)
3 tvs, 1pc (2 tvs are on all night)
I have canned on my electric range in excess of 400Q over the summer.
I home cook every meal
I use my microwave a lot to heat calf milk
I have oil fired water tank.
My light bill for a family of 5 is $70 approx. 450KWH

A timer on the elec. water heater WILL! save money. And CFLs do save money. Between the two you should save $40 a month easily.

Until you can get everyone on "the same page", you're in for an uphill battle. Same way here, my daughter is terrible at wasting electricity - you can almost determine her "trail" through the house by lights left on, fans stills running, computer, TV.... I've no objection to anyone in this house using electricity, just don't waste it.

[QUOTE=plowjockey;3352709]Lighting accounts for nearly 10% of home electricity usage, which is not insignificant.

CFL bulbs and fixtures use 75% less electricity than incandecent fixtures.

Marty[/QUOTE
Where did you find that?
Even if true, 10 % would not equate with the 3x figure of electricity consumption posted by Oldcountryboy.

Our electric rates are somewhere around forty seven cents a kilowatt hour in our state. That is, if we were attached to the grid. We've been running on sunshine for almost a decade so our electric usage is closely watched since we have a finite supply of it. I think it is really easy for folks to use a lot of power when they have access to almost virtually unlimited amounts of it.

Anything that makes heat uses a LOT of electricity. Lower the temperature of the water heater, wrap it in insulation and replace it with an on-demand water heater if possible. Add in a solar system if you have the sun. We use a propane fired Bosch on-demand water heater and it works great. Electric clothes dryers are another heavy load. Hang the clothes to dry and then tumble them in the dryer on "fluff" to get them soft. Running the dryer without the heating element isn't too bad.

Insulate your freezer, even a blanket over it will decrease the amount of power it needs. It probably wouldn't hurt to insulate the refrigerator, too, although we don't. Rising the temperature a tiny bit would use less power, but don't risk the food spoiling since that would cost more to replace.

Vacuum cleaners use a surprising amount of power. Sweep if possible or get one of those floor vacuuming robots since they don't use much power.

Put all your electronics (computers, printers, TVs, power adapters for cell phone chargers, etc.) on a power strip and turn off the power when you are using them. They draw ghost loads which will add up to a surprising amount of power.

For lighting, if you can get sunlight into your house it will save on running lights during the day. There are LED lights which are beginning to be available, those use almost no electricity although they are still very expensive. Keep the light fixtures clean, too. Task lighting is good.

There will be a couple big answers and a whole slew of little answers to get your electric rates down and every little bit will add up over time.

Here's what we did. Built a new house with thick insulation and infloor heating (no furnace, only a hot water heater). You can't really do that. Here are other things:

We turn off the electricity to the tv and computer when they are not in use so we aren't using ghost power. I don't usually watch tv during the day, so the tv is off most of the time, as is the ghost power to it. We have only one tv, so we have to have a good relationship.

We have a new small microwave.

The refrigerator is about 8 years old, but it replaced a large old one and paid for itself the first year. The refrigerator is small, since there is now only the two of us and I don't like food sitting in the back of the refrigerator hidden and spoiling. Sometimes it is too small, but I'd rather deal with a too small frig a few days out of the year than have a big one that is half full.

When I am simmering a soup or sauce that will take hours to prepare, I use a small electric portable, outside, instead of my cooktop. This keeps the heat out of the house and I believe uses less power overall, at such a low temp.

We have double pane windows. Anderson and Pella are midgrade windows, we have better windows that cost the same (you want 3/4 to 7/8 inch air between the panes).

We have a roof on the west side of the house that cuts down the sun heat during the summer and keeps the house much cooler. Any roof that shades windows will cut down on heat entering the house.

We have a front loading washing machine which a) uses much less water than a top loader (think about hot water washes) b) uses less electricity to run, and c) the clothes come out damp not wet, so even if you use a dryer you will see a drop in electricity just from buying a top loader.

I use an electric pot to heat water for tea because the element is right in the water, it heats the water faster than using a cooktop. It also turns itself off (which is an important consideration for me).

You might want to switch to a propane hot water heater that is smaller than the one you are using right now. Use an on demand water heater at the faucet farthest from the water heater, then you won't be putting cold water down the drain while waiting for hot water. Of course, you'd be saving el because the water will only be heated when you use it. If the farthest faucet isn't used often, put the on demand heater where it is most needed. Of course, if you go this route, you may be able to omit the large heater altogether. Either way, this will cost you up front, but will save you down the road. We have a large expensive hot water heater that is more than we need, but that is because the plumbing inspector is an idiot. But, since the hot water is what heats our house, it would be heating water all day most of the year anyway regardless of the size.

Kinda like a goose down comforter, huh? Do the feathers help keep your heat bill down too?
:D

Be careful when you are lowering the temperature in your water heater. I read somewhere that some bacteria can survive in temperatures less than 120 degrees. I think Legionaires (sp) disease was one of them.

I live alone so this wouldn't apply to families but my hot water tank only goes on about every 1 1/2-2 days. I can get two showers and maybe two sinks of dishes out of it.

My computer/printer/scanner is on a powerbar and shut off when not in use.

My TV/DVD player/VCR (yup, still have one!) are on another power bar, also shut off when not in use.

I have two window air conditioners, one 12000BTU in the kitchen and one 5000BTU in my bedroom. Kitchen one goes on only some evenings on hot, sticky nights when I've had a shower and don't feel like sweating while watching TV. Bedroom only goes on hot sticky nights when it's too hot to sleep. Didn't use them much at all this year.

Aside from the heating in the winter (electric), when I leave the house to go anywhere, all that is using power is my fridge, freezer and clock radio. Oh yeah, sump pump but that only goes on for a couple of months in the winter and spring.

I only use the dryer for t-shirts (the neck seems to stretch out if I hang it) and jeans. Everything else gets hung up to dry.

Last month's bill was around $36 and most of that was administrative charges and fees. Of course it will be a lot higher int he winter when the heat comes on!

Here is a decent link.

Marty

http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/howmuch.html

[QUOTE=VALENT;3353978]Can't find the link, but here is one from 2001, which is 8.8%. http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/recs/rec...nduse2001.html

Saving 75% on electricity for lighting could mean $15 on a $200 light bill.

Sound's like Oldcountry now has 3x the light bulbs, as when he was a boy. So much for the bachelor life. ;)

Marty

your biggest elec users are anything that creates heat and a/c. even replacing with all fluorescents is supposed to only cut 10% (and in my house it didn't cut 1% since I rarely turn on lights).

turn your heat down, turn your a/c off or up, don't use the dryer, coffee maker, heat plate, use a toaster oven instead of large oven, turn the temp on your water heater down (one estimate I saw said the water heater uses 40% of a typical homes elec).

plowjockey, I've seen the 8.8% figure numerous times. I agree with you about saving whatever electricity (energy of any type, really) anywhere you can.
It is unfortunate that high prices are the only way to get the majority of people willing to make even the small sacrifices. I guess, though, that is the world and times we live in.

Actually, chest freezers are a lot more efficient than stand up freezers or refrigerators, due to cooler air staying inside. In fact, I've read articles about people who live off-grid converting chest freezers into refrigerators (mostly by using an additional thermostat) and using them on their inverters.

This summer when we spent a week on vacation, I turned the water heater off, and I can't remember if I turned the AC off too, or ran it at a much higher temp, but our electric bill was $50 less than the same month the past 2 years!

Now, every day before I leave for work I go to the breaker box and turn off the water heater, the electric stove, dishwasher, and the utility closet (where the modem and router are) and every night I do the same, except for the water heater (showers in the morning). I can't wait to see the next electric bill - I'm hoping for at least $20-30 savings.

you may want to consider adding seperate switches for the circuits you turn off on a regular basis. breakers were not designed to be used for daily usage. i'm not tossing stones here...just saying.

Had to laugh at that.We had three kid in our family. Once a week bath in a round glavenized tub. I was the oldest and the girl so I got the first water...not so much but clean. My brother came next... more water not quite as clean.My littlest brother got lots of water but twice used! We all thought it was fair!
:D

Oh, believe me, I've wondered the same thing. Until I saw this thread I didn't realize there was a timer that could be put on a water heater. I'll have to check into that. While most things I can either put timers or strips on, some I don't have easy access to - jacuzzi tub, dishwasher, stove. Not sure how much savings for those items, so it may not be a big issue, but right now every little bit helps.

Use CFL bulbs, it will help alot more than you realize.

Keep your powder dry.