Ok I’m back from my hiatus. But I’ve got a few things to update on. First off, gas prices are now affecting EVERYTHING we do. Not only with driving, but heating (thank goodness it’s spring), shopping and generally living. So I’m going to be adding ways to save on fossil fuels. Especially after seeing prices change from $3.93 to $4.13 in less than a day between gas stations.
Archive for May, 2008
Ok I took an unexpected vacation. Yeah my job lets me do that but while I’m away my empty house (don’t think of anything I’m secure) is using power in my absence. So what to do to get a little bonus savings on my electric bill?
Ok before you get into this you may want to look at my other post about what electricity is.
Now most electronic devices have their power usage info on them. Light bulbs usually have them on the bulb. Computers on the back of the power supply. It’s usually written on the brick that you plug into the wall when you charge your phone.
Lets just jump right in. Take this 60W, 120V bulb on my desk(I don’t like florescent lights for desk work) If I wanted to convert to amps I would simply divide watts by volts.
60W/120V = .5A
YEAH it uses .5A of power but that’s NOT what you’re getting billed for. You get billed in Kilowatt hours. So you have to add some time period.
60W * 1 Hour = 60 WattHours = .06KWh
Now if we know that our electric company charges $0.10 a KWh
.06KWh * $0.10 = $0.006 an hour (or 1 penny cause you KNOW they’ll round UP) to run this 60W bulb for one hour.
Ok now for the formulas in a bit more organized format;
- Convert Watts and Volts To Amps
W / V = A - Convert Amps and Watts to Volts
A * W = V - Convert Amps and Volts to Watts
V / A = W - Convert Watts to WattHours (Wh) (T is time in hours)
W * T = Wh - Convert Wh to KWh
Wh * 1000 = KWh - Get the cost of our electrical appliance over time (R is your utility Rate)
(W * T / 1000) * R = Cost
From this we can figure out pretty much the electrical cost of almost anything in our hour from looking at the little numbers on the back or bottom of the device.
Computers are GREAT we can connect with people, get work done, play games and pretty much live our lives on them. But they do use electricity. There are a LOT of ways to reduce how much electricity they use by simply following a few steps. Read the rest of this entry »
Without much thought we plug our stuff into the wall socket and never think twice about what it really is. Granted we are upset when the power goes out, worried about lightning strikes and annoyed when someone shocks us with static electricity. While looking into conserving electricity I began to learn a bit more about the terms and concepts about electricity.
The term electricity can speak about a wide range of things but for the most part when talking about conservation and the power in our house we’re talking about an electric current. Electric current is when charged particles (most often electrons) move. In a conventional current electrons move from the most positive to the most negative charge.
Before I get too much farther it helps to think of electric current as water flowing through a hose. Technically there’s a bit more to it but for this case we’re pretty much ok.
When electricity travels through something such as a wire it’s call conduction. A related term is conductor which is the material that the current is passing though. Different materials have different resistance to letting electricity through. Most metals and water as you probably know are GREAT conductors while rubber and plastic are not. Think of the empty place in the middle of the hose where the water goes through as the conductor.
There are two types of current in peoples houses, direct current (DC) or alternating current(AC). DC is what comes from batteries or the black boxes you often see on phone chargers. DC moves in one direction. AC is what we get from the outlets in our house. AC current moves back and forth never really getting anywhere (i.e. two steps forward two steps back).
There are several terms used to measure electric current. Each are related to the other and can be converted quite easily.
The first is ampere or amp. You can often see this listed on electrical devices by a number and an A. The actual technical definition of an amp is pretty complex but simply put an amp is a certain amount of electrical current. The average home usually has about 100A service. This means that you can pull 100A of power at a time(TIME is a factor in this). An amp would be the equivalent of gallons per minute in our hose.
Next is a Volt(V). A volt is the potential difference that the electric charge must have to do something. With the hose it would be the pressure of the water in the hose. Low voltage = Low Pressure.
A Watt(W) is the amount of energy used or the amount of push needed to run something or the amount of amps(gallons per minute) multiplied by the volts(pressure). If you think of a water wheel at the end of the hose, volts would be how much water at what pressure would turn it. If you dump a LOT of water slowly or a little water under high pressure the wheel will turn.
Now your electric company sells you power using Kilowatt Hours. This is the amount of work(1,000 watts) over time(hours). This would be the amount of spinning the water wheel does over time.
Finally there is the term Hertz which is a measure of frequency and is only used for Alternating Current(AC). This is the amount of times that something goes back and forth in 1 second in this case the direction of the current. In North America we use 60Hz most of the rest of the world uses 50Hz.
So there you have it a bunch of terms about electricity. In a future post I’ll go over using these terms and measurements to convert and measure your electrical usage.
I have 2 kid who have rooms at the top of the stairs and one really likes night lights. I also have a disabled wife who needs light when moving about the house. The way our house is situated we don’t get a LOT of outside light and leaving lights on all the time is NOT a good idea. So in addition to replacing bulbs I got a bunch of LED night lights with light sensors. My daughter had a nightlight she loves so and was able to find a replacement LED bulb.
I used LED bulbs instead of incandescent and florescent bulbs for energy savings. While an LED bulb may cost about $2.00 more it lasts 10x as long and uses 1/10 the electricity. By getting lights with light or motion sensors the lights are ONLY on when darkness prevails. This is also helpful in some rooms where the compact florescent bulbs take a minute or two to warm up. You still have a bit of light.
So far things have been good. We can still see and we are turning off more lights but not losing the luxury of illumination. A stubbed toe is NOT a good thing.
I think my next step with this is to see if I can get some Solar cells and run some of these lights from solar cells that gather light from the sun and interior lights. Recycling some used light how cool would that be?
To give an idea of the savings I’ll describe what I WAS doing. Starting awhile ago I was running 1 60W bulbs 12 hours a day in the bathroom ceiling fixture as a night light (this would be on when people would be in the bathroom and during sleeping hours this costs about $30 a year. I replaced this with a 14W CF which saved about $23 yearly. Finally I used a 2 watt LED nightlight with a light sensor so it’s ONLY on when its dark. Running this way costs less than $1 a year TOTAL.
Another example in the downstairs bathroom I placed another one of these night lights. Before we would keep the 2 14W CF bulbs burning as they would take about 2 minutes to warm up in the winter and just kept the habit up throughout the year. This cost almost $30 a year the 2W nightlight runs about $2 a year. Granted we DO turn on the overhead lights still but now we are in the habit of turning them off during the day and at night when we are not in the bathroom. The warmup period is also not that bad as we have the nightlight to compensate.
Well the fridge went on the blink. The freezer can barely keep at let alone under 32°F NOT good… Ice cream won’t stay frozen. So I’ve moved a LOT of stuff out and into another freezer. The fridge is about 10 years old so while a replacement may cost a bit there may be some energy savings by upgrading.
A few things of note as a I went through the Internet trying to troubleshoot my problem that can save money and energy. First off CLEAN YOUR FRIDGE! Not only that science experiment in the back but also behind and under the fridge. This allows for air flow around the condenser coils. (These may be a set of wires and tubes on the back or underneath the fridge. Along those lines make SURE there is a adequate airflow around and inside the fridge. Look for vents that may be blocked by food items or ice. If possible check to see if ice (or even dirt) is building up on the evaporator coils (usually in the back of the freezer behind a panel.
Another tip is to really let your fridge rest and defrost every so often. This means empty all the food out of the fridge and freezer. Open the doors and let it sit for 24 to 48 hours. (Yep that long) This should allow for any ice build up in the doors, on the evaporator coils and anywhere else to melt off.
Well I’m off to go and get a new fridge as the old one while it can be repaired would cost more than it’s worth.
Yep I’m still collecting data I’m starting to see some patterns. First off the water heater for my area of the house (kitchen, 1 1/2 bath, etc.) also runs a hot water heater. This water heater provides for a dishwasher and clothes washer that are less than 10 feet away. But also for a kitchen and 1 1/2 baths up 2 stories and over the other side of the building. In other words a LONG run of pipe so a lot water and heat is wasted just warming up the pipes. Add to this the temp is about 150° at the tap and I can see a MAJOR HOG.
With this in mind we’re starting to only run the hot water when we ABSOLUTLY need it. This means making sure that when we use faucets with only one handle its ALL the way to the cold side. Even a little bit of hot water will be a big waste as it simply sits in the pipe and cools.
Ok first day into this experiment. Rather than go a purchase a wattage meter(which can run into the hundreds of dollars), I’ve decided to simply take readings manually at the meters.
I created a simple form in a word processor to record the readings and type them into a spreadsheet to do the calculations.
The meter reading form has 7 columns. (You could get away with 4 but I have 2 meters to read)
- Date and Time
- Meter 1 Current Reading
- Meter 2 Current Reading
- Meter 1 Elapsed Time
- Meter 1 Revolutions
- Meter 2 Elapsed Time
- Meter 2 Revolutions
I also have a spot to write down the Meter Constant (I’ll get to that later)
The first three columns are pretty easy fill in the date and then read the meters. I have one of the ones that simply shows the numbers rather than the dials. The next four record the number of times the little disk goes around and how long it took.
The only other data that I’m collecting is the Meter Constant which is a number that is on the front beside the letters Kh. This can be different from meter to meter but once you’re recorded it you don’t have to have it again.
Once I’ve recorded the numbers I then plug them into my spreadsheet.
I record the current time, and reading and get a change or the amount of power used since I last read the meter and I make a running total.
From there I get a bit tricky. I then use the time and revolutions an calculate the RPM of the little disk (I take the revolutions and divide by time in seconds and then multiply by 60. To get the actual watt hours I then multiply the RPM by the Meter Constant and then by 60.
To get how much money I’m using at the time I take the watt hours, divide by 1000 (getting kilowatts) and then multiply by the rate I’m paying per kilowatt hour.
It all sounds a bit complicated so I’ve created a spreadsheet to do the work for me. I’m still getting the kinks out but I’ll post a copy when I’m sure that it’s bug free.
I live in a home with several other people (7 in fact) they range from a precocious 7 year old to a retired/disabled grandfather. We live in a 3 story attached home in a small town that runs its own electric service. Unfortunatly our rate just went up 10%. Now if you had a bill of $10 it would be one thing but ours is a bit more. However for us as energy hogs we’re a bit more than that. What we want to do is still live nicely but reduce our energy costs as they price will never really go down but we can curb our usage.