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?
Archive for the ‘Behaviour Changes’ Category
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 »
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.
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.