Suggestions on cutting energy bill --

Hi Everyone,

Thanks for the great advice and feedback! Someone said I didn't give much info on my home, electric rate, etc. My home was built around

1982 and is 1600 sqft. It's on a concrete slab with an attic spanning the entire length of the house. It's also all electric with central air and heat.

The house was built with small 35"x35" windows in the bedrooms and a

35"x70" window in the living room -- all about 4 feet off the ground. I was told this house was built during the early 80's 'energy crunch', so I'd think this would help. We have curtains and blinds in every window though.

The biggest thing I think that's pinging us is the french doors I put in our dining room/kitchen (pretty much the same room). They're all glass doors, but we have drapes over them. I also didn't finish out the doors, so though there's no gaping huge hole, it's not sealed all that well. I'm sealing and finishing this next paycheck.

I'm not sure how insulation is rated, but I'll get into my attic and measure the thickness of the insulation. Also we have a three bedroom house, but one bedroom is a guest room we rarely use. Would it be practical to close the air vent in this room and keep the door closed? I'd say that room is about 300 sqft, so that'd mean we're heating/cooling only 1300 sqft instead of 1600.

As for the dishwasher, I do have a new one (about one year old), and it does have the option to turn off heated drying. I'll start using that instead. Also the clothes dryer is in a utility room, so I'll close the vent in there and keep that door shut when being used. That might help alittle too.

I think the key is getting the house better insulated. I'm not sure if there's anyway to better insulate the walls and windows (short of replacing the windows which is $$$), but I do plan on getting more insulation for the attic.

Thanks again for all the feedback...

Sam

Reply to
Alex
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About the only other things I can think of are to apply a reflective glazing to your south-facing windows. There is also a reflective foil for the attic which you lay on the insulation to 'bounce' the thermal energy away form the living space. I wonder what this does to shingle life in the long term.

Reply to
C & E

I am in error here. If you read this

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will see that laying the relflective barrier directly on the insulation will negate much of its beneficial properties. Apologies!

Reply to
C & E

My house is the same size and built in 1978. My electric rate was .15 kWh and my last bill was $159 for December, no heat (except running the burner) I have two refrigerators, freezer, wine fridge, electric dryer. Last month the consumption was 1080 kWh. December required more lighting and since my grandson moved in with us the bill jumped about $30 for dryer use more than anything. (not to mention the food bill)

Reply to
Edwin Pawlowski

Hi Everyone,

I just called my electric coop, and they're charging 13.75 cents per kWh. I'll check my next bill, which comes out on the 19th, and see what my useage is for the last 30 days. I sure hope it's not too crazy because I can see the costs inching up.

I found this site that is great:

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I'll be keeping a spreadsheet of our used kilowatt hours per month and seeing what I can do to shave the price. I'm also looking into further insulation for the attic and plugging the places where hot and cool air leave the house.

It still doesn't help that my central air and heating system is almost

22 years old... I'm sure that thing SUCKS the power.

Oh hum -- one more worry in life I didn't need :-/

Sam

Reply to
Alex

Probably more accurately, many utilities use gas as boiler-fuel in steam plants. Relatively quick, cheap and dirty changeover for them.

Rather than using the gas to power gas-turbines or diesels and see some efficiency. Or, even fund research on Stirling engines.

They just buy huge quantities of gas at low rates and monitor cash-flow.

Coal is the problem of the guy downwind. Nukes are quite thermally inefficient (saturated steam) and are essentially uninsured.

Enjoy, J

Reply to
barry

One other thing not mentioned yet is thermostatically-controlled attic ventilation. Works great for me in SW CT, so I don't know how you survive without one from June to October in TX.

You can get a fan and t-stat pkg for < $100. Took me a couple hours to make up a transition from plywood to attach it at gable. Effect is clearly noticeable in mid-pm temps on floor below in Aug., and shingles should roast much more slowly. Just be sure you have adequate inlet area. (Insulation is below attic floor in my case- you want to vent above the insulation.)

HTH, J

Reply to
barry

I use the cheapest model from Brand Electronics and it does the little I need it to do although having the ability to monitor 240V loads might be occasionally useful to me. Brand does sell a 240V meter but they call it their "whole house" model and with the two current transducers required for the job it costs about $300. There may be others out there and I&#39;m sure that a Google search would turn up something.

Measuring true power is a bit trickier than it might appear since it involves monitoring current but without interfering or modifying the circuit unnecessarily, monitoring the voltage, then calculating the true power many times per AC cycle, then integrating and displaying the result. Add to that the $ calculations and long-term integration of results that most users want and the design quickly becomes non-trivial. Of course if the load is purely resistive some shortcuts like using a clamp-on ammeter and a decent RMS voltmeter and doing the calculation for instantaneous power manually but most users would balk at that amount of work.

Reply to
John McGaw

"One other thing not mentioned yet is thermostatically-controlled attic

ventilation. Works great for me in SW CT, so I don&#39;t know how you survive without one from June to October in TX. "

Since his prime concern is energy usage, a ridge vent will do the same thing without using any energy.

Reply to
trader4

"My appretice had a cheap meter. We used it on a service call. We : turned the power off at a breaker marked for that unit and checked it : with his meter. It showed 0 volts. I started disconnecting a wire and : got lit up by 240 volts. "

Which is why even after turning off the breaker, or seeing 0 volts, I still treat it as possibly alive, until I can try shorting the hot to ground.

Reply to
trader4

They built one of those here (East Texas). The electricity where I live actually comes from coal.

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Reply to
Mark Lloyd

And turn off the cabinet heater in the refrigerator. These are often confusingly labeled "energy saver". Where "on" is acutely "off" for the heater.

Reply to
Mark Lloyd

Can the clamp-on ammeter be used without separating wires?

Reply to
Mark Lloyd

Hey Guys --

Is there a good meter I can plug in between an appliance to the wall to simply show the watts being used? I&#39;d love to use something like this for things like my fridge, coffee maker, TV, cable box, etc. I created a spreadsheet with everything in my house that sucks power, and if I can get an accurate count of what each appliance uses I can see how much each thing costs if I run it for X hours per day for Y number of days being charged Z per kWh. Yup, I&#39;m a nerd if anyone asks :)

Also I&#39;m looking at prices of florescent bulbs, and those things aren&#39;t cheap! Our ceiling fans use those smaller decorative bulbs, and I&#39;m finding them no cheaper then $10 a bulb online. But I figure the 4 50 watts in my ceiling fan costs me about $3.30 a month to run where if I replaced these with 12 watt CFL bulbs it&#39;d just be $0.79 for the same fan. Granted that&#39;s only like $2.50 a month per fan, but it&#39;ll pay for itself in about 1.5 years. Replacing lights in 4 fans would save $10/month right there a month on electricity even though the investment is steap up front.

Note: I&#39;m getting the costs above with the following formula: ( bulb wattage x 4 bulbs per fan x 4 hours/day x 30 days/month / 1000 [convert to kWh] x .1375) My electric company charges 13.75 cents per kWh.

And what are ya&#39;lls thoughts on hot water heater timers? I have a new

50 gallon hot water heater (electric) I put in last year, and it&#39;s not a cheapo one -- so i assume it&#39;s very efficient. Would I get any noticeable benefits using a timer?

Thanks again --

Sam

Reply to
Alex

Mine&#39;s about the same (built about 1969).

Somewhere, I heard that one thing duct tape isn&#39;t good for is fixing heating ducts.

I used to live in an all-electric apartment (in East Texas). The electric bills peaked in both summer and winter. IIRC both peaks were the same height. I have gas in this house, and there&#39;s a significant difference.

BTW, the gas bill I got after Christmas was the highest I&#39;ve ever had although a neighbor with a similar house had one for more than twice that.

I know that&#39;s a problem for compressors. How would it effect gas or electric heat?

It&#39;s a good idea to turn the monitor off when you&#39;re not using it. Your system can probably be set to do this automatically. Note that a "screen saver" does not turn the monitor off, and does not save energy.

I don&#39;t do this, because my monitors are connected to X10 modules, and are automatically turned on/off with the other things (lights, fans, TVs, ...).

Reply to
Mark Lloyd

Yes. Any meter, no matter how expensive, can fail (or be misused).

Reply to
CJT

No, but you can make a short extension cord (or modify an existing one) with a section in which the wires are exposed so that they can be accessed separately.

Reply to
CJT

I would think electric hot water heaters should heat water at near 100% efficiency (if you ignore losses in generating the electricity, which are somebody else&#39;s problem), and, if well insulated, probably won&#39;t benefit much from using a timer. But I haven&#39;t actually tried it.

Reply to
CJT

I had AC in mind. I doubt it would help with heat, although starting and stopping the furnace fan probably uses a fair amount of electricity.

Reply to
CJT

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