Greening Your Home - Saving energy

Convection ovens cook 25% faster than traditional ovens. Fluorescent light bulbs use 50% less energy than incandescent bulbs. Up/down refrigerator/freezer units are more efficient than side-by-sides which lose much cold air when doors are opened.

We need tips and ideas on how you plan to save energy.

Great idea for this forum. Hopefully more of those interested in energy efficient living will pop in.


I don't know when I'll be able to construct it, as I'm not sure when I'll have all of the money, but here are a few ideas for the net zero energy house I want.


Flourescents and LEDs for lighting, and will have occupancy detectors to turn them off when room isn't in use.

Wood burning stove, and geothermal radiant heating.

Grey water system for vegitable garden.

The attached garage will have a large insulated swinging door, to get the tightest fit.

I'll use a tankless water heater.

Have fans in almost every room.

Using Passive Solar Design, the house will face south to get the most sun during winter, and the least in summer.

I'm going to look into recycled materials that insulate just as good, if not better than the commercial name brand insulations.

I'm considering a large fireplace in the middle of the house. The chimney would be a huge thermal mass for the sun to warm during the day, then radiate the heat back during the night.

Wind turbines and solar panels will supply the power.

I'd like to look into Passive Annual Heat Storage (PAHS) techniques. It's basically insulating the ground approximitely 20 feet around your house.

I'd like to have skylights throughout the house, to reduce the need for lights.

That is what I call an impressive list of ways to save energy. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks. I'd definitely like to talk with others that take an interest in this kind of stuff.

I think one of the big things that will help, is I'm planning on building small.

Something like a 2 bed, 1.5 bath ranch with full basement, 8-900 sq. ft.

I figure that's all I'd need, any more is just adding to building cost and is more space to heat.

Some other things I was thinking of,

Programmable thermostats are great. Also I'll have the ability to shut off heat to certain areas of the house that aren't used.

Energy efficient windows are a given, as that's where most of your heat escapes.

Most electronics around the house like radios, TVs, battery chargers, and computers use electricity even when off. It's best to unplug whatever you can when not in use.

A good product is called "Great Stuff" it's an expanding foam insulation in a can. It really helps out to go around the house and seal any cracks you find.

I want to have an attic fan. They're great at pulling the heat out of the house in the summer.

A front loading washer will use less water and electricity than a top loading one.

Whole house fans are not for everyone and everywhere. They are great if you live in a cooler climate and you can pull in cool evening air. But, if you live where there is lots of pollen and dust, you do not want to pull them inside your home. Too, if you live where humidity is high, you do not want to pull in high humidity. The humidity level of the inside is best maintained between 35-55% year round.

Best way to build a home for low energy use is with poured concrete. Then it is a spray foam home. then everything else.

We just built our retirement home near Logan, Utah, and get a lot of our heat from the sun. There are a lot of windows on the south side, with a sun space that doubles as the dining area.
With our thermostat set at 69 degrees from 10PM to 6AM, and 72 degrees the other part of the day, the gas furnace doesn't run very much, a little at night depending on outside temperature, and some from 6AM to around 9AM when the sun space starts getting warm enough to take care of the heating needs of the house. With the furnace having a low fan speed that runs all the time, the warm sun space air gets sent to the rest of the house. So far, the furnace never adds heat/burns gas from 9AM to late night, early morning, unless we are having a cold rainy day. As winter progresses, more info will be obtained, but I expect that our gas bill will be low.
We used a lot of tile, everywhere except bedrooms and the living room, and most of the tile gets sun during some part of the day.
The basement is insulated on the outside with foam board, and fiberglas around the inside of the perimeter, and there is no insulation between basement and main floor. With no heat, it got down to 61 degrees while we were gone for 2 weeks recently. Returning home and turning on the furnace, the exposed and leaking metal ducting running between the floor joists raised the basement temperature to 67 degrees by the time the main floor got to 72 degrees. I don't mind losing some heat to the basement, even tho it is unfinished for now.
The basement center wall is poured concrete, and the floor/walls are uncovered. In the summer, the cool basement air gets sucked into the ducting by way of an extra filtered 20x20 return for the gas furnace, and we run that on fan only, low speed all the time to keep the air well mixed. That gets sealed off in the winter and the main floor returns take over. That works for the main floor most of late spring, early summer, but when it gets really hot, there is a 2.5 ton AC unit that handles the cooling needs easily. House is 1850 sq. ft. main floor, almost the same for basement where the gas furnace is, and there is a 900 sq. ft. loft where the AC air handler is located. It is there because cold air settles, and the downfall of cold air is more than enough to take care of the few days when the main floor needs a little cooling. Without it, the loft gets uncomforable due to inadequate ducting to that area. HVAC guy didn't listen very well, and I wasn't here to get it corrected before the drywall got installed.
We also have an HRV that keeps a certain amount of fresh air coming into the house all the time.
Using an electric clothes dryer, I vent it inside during the cold months, using a huge filter made from a "bag house" filter sock, about 1 ft. diameter and 6 ft. long. Just 2 of us in this house, so the dryer doesn't get used enough to put too much humidity into the house. Not advised with a gas dryer, or course....
Energy conservation has been my hobby for 30 years, so I will be reading and posting in this section of DIY a lot, now that it has been added.
BTW, best book out there for Passive Solar is by Edward Mazria. Got mine off Ebay...

Programmable thermostats are great. Also I'll have the ability to shut off heat to certain areas of the house that aren't used.

Most electronics around the house like radios, TVs, battery chargers, and computers use electricity even when off. It's best to unplug whatever you can when not in use.

One of my first winter purchases in my 'new' home was a programmable t-stat to replace that common bi-metal, merc switched type that, to me, are useless. 4 daily programs, weekend programs, vacation mode and an hours of use/filter minder function. Very handy and informative to me with my propane burning forced air heater. It's amazing how many hours of use (and gals of propane...) can be saved by a 2 or 3 degree setting change.

In my "office" room, I quickly tired of unplugging this and that, in an attempt to limit my consumption. TV, DVD/VHS player, printers, scanner, batt chargers, etc., etc. always at the ready can suck the juice. I went with a couple of those 'power centers' that have individual switched outlets. Very convenient.

Much has been in the news lately about turning off the computer, fax/printer, etc. when not in use in order to save energy. Today I heard on the radio that we need to unplug battery and cell phone chargers when not in use because they are still consuming energy. And, I can still hear my mom yelling, "Turn off the light, you're going to run up my electric bill." I also flip the breaker off on my electric water heater if I am going to be out of town.

Today I heard on the radio that we need to unplug battery and cell phone chargers when not in use because they are still consuming energy.

I've always been heavily into eliminating this waste, what I call "phantom power". With that said though, it's largely insignificant in the whole scheme of things. My AA battery charger uses 2W when not in active use. It takes a fair amount of work to keep unplugging (or even switching things), and this is utterly NOTHING compared to other measures which don't really require any effort. e.g. thermostat by even half a degree, LCD instead of CRT, CFLs, don't use a rolling boil when cooking, switch fridge to power saver, lower water heater by a few degrees, I mean really anything. Eliminating this phantom power is really the last thing you need to do, only after you have carefully examined everything else.

Here's a really fun experiment though: Turn off all your lights, appliances, computers, the whole works. Then go out to your electricity meter and calculate how much power you're still using by timing the black mark on the spinning disc. You just might be AMAZED at how much you're still using.

The first time I did this I measured a total of 300W being used even when everything was off. That's a lot of power! Then it was a matter of detective work finding out where it was all going. Quite a fun evening if you're into that. [Sick hobbies, I know.]

-

My latest zany idea for saving power is to install 12V wiring throughout the house. All those wal wart chargers convert it to DC anyway, and suffer inefficiency as a result. Supplying it with what it wants in the first place will not only eliminate these losses but also eliminate the need for me to go around unplugging bricks when I'm done using them.

"The first time I did this I measured a total of 300W being used even when everything was off." So, where was it going, core? I gotta know!

So, where was it [300W] going, core? I gotta know!

Some of it was being used by a photocell-controlled light which cannot be turned off and I completely forgot it was there. Silly me. ;) That bulb has since been removed, but it still uses a bit of power. I think this is because it is a high output bulb and the transformer still uses a bit of power. That was my dumbest area to overlook.

As for the rest, I don't still have my exact notes but here's what I can reconstruct, all are approximate. And certainly not a complete list:


15W cable modem and router. I forget about this stuff when it's sitting in the closet
38W Bunn coffee maker which keeps the tank hot even when it's off
1W microwave clock
10W Glade plug-ins
3W Alarm system
?W Old analog clock on electric range
90W total phantom power from TVs chargers, etc. Stuff fairly easily identified and unplugged. I purposely did not do so before the test just so I could see how much it really used. There really was a lot here, probably 3x more than the average household. I like toys. ;)
20W surveillance cameras (forgot about these because they are on the roof, out of sight)
1W furnace standby


Plus a handful of watts which is still unaccounted for to this day. I haven't gone as far as turning off breakers to see what circuit it's on... I'll do it one of these days. I'm pretty sure it's the X10 light switches.

That's just a sampling. I sure had a blast tracking it all down.

-core

With those power centers I mentioned, I was able to situate things better and ended up filling one with the lesser used items. Turns out I rarely used most of them at all. Dumped the 17"CRT for an LCD which was a double bonus - electric and smaller footprint on the desk.

Another thing was to put to switch off the TV and cable box when I was out of town any length of time (DOH!).

Where I live now they use a LCD meter - no more spinning wheel for me. That was quite the handy tool to have. Now I plug thru a Watts Up Pro for any insight. A slow process when compared to the wheel meter.

Where I live now they use a LCD meter - no more spinning wheel for me. That was quite the handy tool to have. Now I plug thru a Watts Up Pro for any insight. A slow process when compared to the wheel meter.

Oh no! I've been dreading that day myself. I figure if they ever come around here installing them I'll have to take drastic measures. Maybe I'll have a chat with the installer:

"Sure would be a shame if that shiny new LCD meter caught fire, wouldn't it?

What's a 'Watts Up Pro'? Is it something like a Kill-A-Watt? Meaning you plug it in inline with your device? I'm assuming so since you used the word "plug". Yeah I've got one of those too but it serves a totally different purpose. It's just impossible to measure your whole house draw with one of those even if you have tons of time on your hands. After all, if you KNEW where to plug the thing in you wouldn't NEED to go finding unaccounted usage. ;) Also you can't measure the big hardwired stuff like A/C, furnace, water heater, ec. But yes I use mine daily -- just not for the same reasons.

They do sell an interesting device though, forget the brand name. I believe in general they call them "whole house meters". Basically you install leads and a small device in your breaker panel, looks fairly simple. Then it sends signals over the powerline to a nice LCD readout which sits on your desk. Instantaneous readout, accounting, peak, and all that. I don't remember what it costs but I believe it was around $200 for the most basic model. It's definitely on my wish list, and will become an absolute necessity if/when they come around with those new meters.

-core

P.S. Doing gas meter tests as I speak. (Hey, that's energy too so still on topic.) Can't figure out the darn 2foot, 0.5foot "test dials" though. May have to start a post in the gas forum.

Yes, the DVD, TV, and lamp on top of TV are plugged in to power strip which I turn off when I leave the river. Electric baseboard heat set low to keep pipes from freezing and vanity and kitchen base cabinets left open in the freeze season. Always turn off breaker to electric water heater. Why heat when I am not here?

No gas on the river bank. Not considering propane.

Floodlights everywhere and never turned them on in 10 years. Gotta a big flashlight and hunting knife. Nothing ever happens here. No gun!


Energy conservation? Turn it off!

Watts Up Pro is like the Kill A Watt thing. Downloadable, software analysis and other fun stuff. Like you said - only good for things you plug in. My main curiosity was the entertainment equipment and the "office" stuff. 3 networked, 24/7 computers, router, modem, VOIP, big computer sound system, etc, etc. Other curiosities as well - going from a five hard drive machine to a 2 HD machine - little wonderings.

I know one thing - the cable boxes takes 24 Watts each just telling me what time it is...

That LCD PoCo meter uses 3 little blocks that light up in sequence with relation to usage. More is faster. 1-2-3 1-2-3 type. The wheel was so much easier and quicker. Myself, I don't trust it and am supplying them with a spreadsheet of monthly usage along with a complaint/request for a meter audit. The more I do to save the more I seem to consume.

I had this same problem with Nevada Power with a dial meter that was spinning like it was out of control. They changed it and even the tech that did the work acknowledged a big difference in visual operation. My next bill, which was during a week of record breaking temps, was 30% less than the one before it. Their audit claimed the meter was within specs. BULL!

That 'whole house' device you mentioned sounds right up my alley, now that I live with a swamp cooler and a pool pump.

the cable boxes takes 24 Watts each just telling me what time it is...

I know, those are killers aren't they!! Same results here. And the worst part is when you power them off it takes AGES for all the schedule information to get downloaded again. I think all those watts go towards listening for "hits" from the cable company so they can do nasty stuff to you. Like remotely shut down your service when you don't pay. <-- Monthly occurrence for me. ;) How dare they.

That LCD PoCo meter uses 3 little blocks that light up in sequence with relation to usage. More is faster. 1-2-3 1-2-3 type.

Just so I know for future reference, how does that calculation work exactly? (And did they give it to you or did you have to dig it up yourself.) I'm assuming you can count how many 123 cycles happen over a certain period of time and go from there. What's the calculation? Are certain meters different, i.e. is there something similar to the Kh factor on dial meters? Guess I'm just looking for the exact steps you have to go through each time. Please tell me you don't have to stand out there waiting for when the number after the decimal point changes!

Oh I finally remembered the name of that whole house meter. You can find it at TheEnergyDetective.com (http://www.theenergydetective.com/index.html). A little cheaper than I remember it, too, only $140.

-core

WARNING....Doing this is dangerous if you have a gas dryer.
I bought a humidity indicator at WalMart, all of $8, and it indicates temperature and humidity, as well as highs and lows of same. Using that to monitor my house, I vented the Electric clothers dryer indoors and watched to see the change.
It was only a few %, not nearly enough to cause any problems. It is dry here in northern Utah to start with, so a little extra humidity is desired. Granted, I only did 2 loads of laundry, and I don't have a small house, and I don't have single pane windows.
For those who are in less dry environments, even there your house will tend to be dry in the winter months.
Use a good filter for the dryer discharge, tho, or you will be dusting a lot more than before.

About the HRV, heat recovery ventilator. If you do have a tight house, this is a very nice item to have. Ours takes suctions on both bathrooms and vents that to the outside.
Fresh air comes back thru the Heat Exchanger core and we get a constant supply of fresh air into the house. I run it on the lowest speed 24/7 with no humidistat or remote controls to boost the speed. It sucks through the normal bathroom ventilation fans, so those can still be used to boost ventilation in a bathroom when desired.

EXCELLENT idea! I'm sure the ultra-cautious professionals would have some small issues with it but I sure like it. What you didn't say is why you did this. I'm assuming to retain the heat generated while it's on but you didn't say. The constant losses caused by just having such ductwork there could probably be lessened with more insulation if someone wanted to continue venting outdoors.

What kind of temperature difference did you achieve?


WARNING....Doing this is dangerous if you have a gas dryer.

Dangerous, yes. But my gas dryer has been more or less vented into the basement for quite some time now simply because the ductwork fell apart and I have not taken the time to install more. I have a CO detector right next to the thing and monitor peak readings -- haven't had more than 20ppm in a year of monitoring, and usually it isn't even measurable at all. If I had a family I wouldn't even consider leaving it this way, but I'm fine with it.

-core

EXCELLENT idea! I'm sure the ultra-cautious professionals would have some small issues with it but I sure like it. What you didn't say is why you did this. I'm assuming to retain the heat generated while it's on but you didn't say. The constant losses caused by just having such ductwork there could probably be lessened with more insulation if someone wanted to continue venting outdoors.

What kind of temperature difference did you achieve?




-core
The vent going to the outside is plugged with a wad of insulation jammed inside a plastic grocery bag. That makes a decent plug for any vent that you want to seal off.
The actual temperature difference wasn't much, as I only ran 2 loads, the sun was coming in the solar space, etc. and who is to say where the 1 degree temperature increase came from. But the humidity in my house runs low, 22 to 24%, and I gained about 3% while the dryer was running. By the time it shut off, tho, it was back down. So any gain in humidity during the winter is a plus. Next time I do laundry, I will turn off the HRV and see what difference that makes.
It is a big house, 1800 sq. ft. main floor, 900 more on the half story mezzanine that is open to the main floor, and another 1800 in the basement. It is over 35,000 cubic feet.
I will be comparing electric and gas bills with my neighbor and daughter this season to see how they compare to their smaller, but older homes.

I know, those are killers aren't they!! Same results here. And the worst part is when you power them off it takes AGES for all the schedule information to get downloaded again. I think all those watts go towards listening for "hits" from the cable company so they can do nasty stuff to you. Like remotely shut down your service when you don't pay. <-- Monthly occurrence for me. ;) How dare they.
When I lived in Las Vegas - a Cox Cable domain - my boxes would come back online as "Unauthorized". I would have to spend 30+ minutes on the phone while one of their resident Einstiens would try to decipher a basic flowchart as if he were applying it to my "problem". This would occur anytime I left town for a few days. Rarely would I get a tech that understood the problem and just send a system reset to my boxes. Very aggrevating but now, out of the Cox loop, I just have to wait for the prog info, like you said.

Just so I know for future reference, how does that calculation work exactly? (And did they give it to you or did you have to dig it up yourself.) I'm assuming you can count how many 123 cycles happen over a certain period of time and go from there. What's the calculation? Are certain meters different, i.e. is there something similar to the Kh factor on dial meters? Guess I'm just looking for the exact steps you have to go through each time. Please tell me you don't have to stand out there waiting for when the number after the decimal point changes!

Oh I finally remembered the name of that whole house meter. You can find it at TheEnergyDetective.com (http://www.theenergydetective.com/index.html). A little cheaper than I remember it, too, only $140.

-core

Decimal point? 'They don't need no steenkin decimal points!'. Mine are whole numbers and I have no idea how the calc works on those "power bars". All I can do with it is look at it the same time every day and think about what I used...

Not very helpful from a PoCo (El Paso Electric) that always runs commercials about conservation and minding your watts. Things such as CFLs are not savers in areas that get short-time use like a closet.

After my dealings with my last PoCo and the goofy meter that I had, I'm not too thrilled with this setup of "That's what it says - that's what you pay" metering. I really want a clearer vision on real-time usage. Those power-bars seem too slow to mirror a revolution of the old style wheel. One day I'll time them to a kilowatt. I tried once but lost patience.

And thanks - I did find that TED link. That device looks great and I think it says a d/loadable version is coming soon. THAT is what I want!

Wood heat. Choppin down the trees (and I assure you we have plenty thanks to the slurry bombers about 35 years ago) increases the passive solar, reduces need for artificial light in winter, re-balances our ecosystem, and that wood goes into the stove for wonderful radiant heat. Burns so clean you can't even smell the smoke.

Decimal point? 'They don't need no steenkin decimal points!'. Mine are whole numbers and I have no idea how the calc works on those "power bars".

Those power-bars seem too slow to mirror a revolution of the old style wheel. One day I'll time them to a kilowatt. I tried once but lost patience.


Oh wow, no decimal point at all! That REALLY blows. I was under the impression most all of them had 0.1kWh precision.

I'm extremely interested in those darn power bars. Searched through many many pages of search results and still haven't found anything, except for UK meters. And I totally understand how it would be extremly time consuming to get an accurate reading with just your inline watt mater. But here's two ways I can think of that might not require too much time depending on how slow these flashes really are:

1. Get together a handful of constant load high drain devices. For example I've got three 1500W space heaters that would do nicely. Measure each of these once with your watt meter, fire em all up, then go outside and time the flashes. I would think pulling 4.5kW or more would make those lights flash at a reasonable rate. (Analog meter would be doing a rev every ~5 seconds, so even if your flashes were orders of magnitude slower I would think it would still be measureable in just a few short minutes). Best of all you'd have a very accurate reading assuming everything else in your house was confirmed off.

2. Turn on *everything* in your house that won't cycle on/off by itself. If you're lucky maybe you can get it up to 10kW. You can of course measure your approximate usage by timing how long it takes for the last number to change, which only takes about 6 mins. Then again, time the flashes which should be fairly quick. Not as accurate this way but doable without having to stand out there for long.

In all cases, once you get an approximate reading you can eyeball the numbers and see what would make sense for the exact calculation. It's definitely not going to be arbitrary of course -- will either be a nice round number or correspond to something stamped on the meter like the good ol' kH factor.

Still haven't checked on the usage rate of those 'power bars'. I went down and issued a complaint about my consumption going up while I cut back on everything. That and a slight flickering problem now & then that's showed up recently as well. The guy came out and ran a load check at my meter to check their lines and they have a balance or a neutral problem of some sort.

After replacing all the splices from the transformer to my masthead w/ no change, he mentioned the xformer was too small for both my neighbor and me so thinks they may upgrade that and the drop to my house. I do have future plans of upgrading from 100A to 200A so that works out.

I asked about whether that could show as increased consumption at my meter and he became very non-committed in his answers. Haha. He didn't know about the 'formula' for those power bars but said the meter tech that's scheduled would.

I just want it straightened out. All this money for things to monitor and/or lower consumption and I end up using 1.5 to 2 times as much??? Insane...

Best way to build a home for low energy use is with poured concrete. Then it is a spray foam home. then everything else.
7% of global CO2 emissions come from concrete production, it think it would be better to build a strawbale home with a R-50 value insulation.

Some of it was being used by a photocell-controlled light which cannot be turned off and I completely forgot it was there. Silly me. ;) That bulb has since been removed, but it still uses a bit of power. I think this is because it is a high output bulb and the transformer still uses a bit of power. That was my dumbest area to overlook.

As for the rest, I don't still have my exact notes but here's what I can reconstruct, all are approximate. And certainly not a complete list:


15W cable modem and router. I forget about this stuff when it's sitting in the closet
38W Bunn coffee maker which keeps the tank hot even when it's off
1W microwave clock
10W Glade plug-ins
3W Alarm system
?W Old analog clock on electric range
90W total phantom power from TVs chargers, etc. Stuff fairly easily identified and unplugged. I purposely did not do so before the test just so I could see how much it really used. There really was a lot here, probably 3x more than the average household. I like toys. ;)
20W surveillance cameras (forgot about these because they are on the roof, out of sight)
1W furnace standby


Plus a handful of watts which is still unaccounted for to this day. I haven't gone as far as turning off breakers to see what circuit it's on... I'll do it one of these days. I'm pretty sure it's the X10 light switches.

That's just a sampling. I sure had a blast tracking it all down.

-core

My wife and I just bought a house...well, it is in escrow right now at least. Hence the reason I am on these boards now. But what you are saying gave me a great idea...before I plug anything in, I am going to look at how much wattage is being used and try and take into account everything that is plugged in after that and see where all the wattage goes.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,338652,00.html

I think at least some of this story was meant as humor..

Convection ovens cook 25% faster than traditional ovens. Fluorescent light bulbs use 50% less energy than incandescent bulbs. Up/down refrigerator/freezer units are more efficient than side-by-sides which lose much cold air when doors are opened.

CFL's contain Mercury, bad for mother earth!!!!
LED, is the future, of course the 60 watt equivalant has to come down below 35 bucks!!!!!

(incandescent bulbs are 90% HEAT!!!!)

fred

I :
installed a wood pellet stove in my basement. A bit of hassle but theres no free lunch. The wood is renewable and the stove is very efficient. The ashes go into the compost pile.

Open the dishwasher door after the last rinse cycle ( only in winter months). Theres a bunch of heat and humidity that would otherwise get pumped down the drain.

Leave water in the tub for as long as it takes to get to room temp.

Endlessly hassle my family about shower lengths, turning off lights and computers and washing full loads. This is more proof that we all turn into our parents :)

have just finished re-insulating my 50 year old house and installing new windows. CFL's and programmable thermo are no-brainers.

strategically planted several trees that will eventually provide shade in the summer months.

A cold climate allows for lots of little things like this. I am brainstorming a tank that would capture tub and shower water, again during cold weather, and release it through a thermostatically controlled valve when it reaches something close to room temp.
I have also been thinking for years about a device that would be a tube with a reversable fan inside. The tube would extend from the ceiling of the ground floor to the floor of the basement. During the winter, it would suck hot air from the highest part of the house and push it to the basement and in the summer it would, with the fan reversed, draw cool air from basement to first floor. Without opening walls i just can't figure out how to make it not ugly and intrusive.

http://forum.doityourself.com/showthread.php?t=343189

I'm wondering what's going happen if it starts getting really hot in August and I need 2 showers a day! :confused:
Humm, lukewarm is okay when it's hot.. :cool:

I worry about the cable and internet speed.

http://forum.doityourself.com/showthread.php?t=343189

I'm wondering what's going happen if it starts getting really hot in August and I need 2 showers a day! :confused:
Humm, lukewarm is okay when it's hot.. :cool:

Hi XRing,

Not sure your post was meant in jest or not. If not, have you thought about installing exterior solar shades on the outside of your east, south and west facing windows?

We installed them this spring and had an immediate 15 degree F drop in the reading of a temperature gauge I used to show the impact. These things reall work.

This weekend I installed them on the outside of the 2 foot wide by 5 and 1/2 foot long window insert of our French Doors which lead out to our deck and my wife didn't even notice. She asked (true story) when I was going to start installing them after she had come home from work.

Dan

This is a long thread so I may have missed it, but has anyone mentioned exterior solar blinds as an energy saving device.

I mentioned it in a reply to a post much earlier in this thread as well. We achieved a 15 degree F reduction in the reading of our temperature gauge once we installed them. We really like them, especially my wife who would be the one to mention if I had to take them down if she could not see sufficiently from the inside.....they have been up since the spring.

In fact, I installed them on the outside of the 2 foot X almost 6 foot window inserts in the French Doors from our kitchen out to the deck in the back of our house. She was home for 15 minutes in the kitchen before she asked me when I would get around to installing them.....I had to tell her I already had :eek:

stevets, how do you stack those pellets? I just end up flat on my back in a mess every time I try? ;)

Are skylights efficient enough to justify the light versus the heat loss or gain? Seems like more windows would be more efficient.

Hi XRing,

Not sure your post was meant in jest or not. If not, have you thought about installing exterior solar shades on the outside of your east, south and west facing windows?

We installed them this spring and had an immediate 15 degree F drop in the reading of a temperature gauge I used to show the impact. These things reall work.

This weekend I installed them on the outside of the 2 foot wide by 5 and 1/2 foot long window insert of our French Doors which lead out to our deck and my wife didn't even notice. She asked (true story) when I was going to start installing them after she had come home from work.

Dan

Hi Dan,
We live in the Boston area and it's rare that we get a heat wave. I think we have had one (3 days in the 90s) so far this year. The inside shades work just fine for these rare events.

The main reason we need more hot water is all the bicycle riding we've been doing this summer. :)

After a little experimenting, we have found that running the boiler 20 minutes (1/3 gallon) is good for a couple of warm showers with a little left over. :)
I think we are using between one and two gallons a week now.
That's a LOT better than burning a gallon or more, every day..

Alias
Skylights can be great, if you put in high efficiency unit and heavily insulate the tunnels that come down to the ceiling in the room. Replaced our original plastic bubbles with some Velux units. Better light in the laundry and bath, and less heat according to my infared gun. Prob not as efficient as no skylights at all, but since they were interior rooms, best we could do. Existing skylights, so not an option to install Sun Tunnel type.

Better than having lights on when we need to sort laundry or read a few articles on the throne.

Nice article on "Greening Your Home". Your words clearly state that and have complete knowledge on "sky lights ". Your explanation was elaborate enough to clear my doubts on “sky lights”. I am sure it has helped a lot of people out there.
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Jack Steven

Saw a programme about a guy in the states recently converting an old SUV to run solely on electricity.
The guy also made his won wind turbine to generate the electricity to charge the new SUV up.

Anyone have any idea on how someone would go about doing this as I am genuinely interested.

Saw a programme about a guy in the states recently converting an old SUV to run solely on electricity.
The guy also made his won wind turbine to generate the electricity to charge the new SUV up.

Anyone have any idea on how someone would go about doing this as I am genuinely interested.

Here's a Honda CRV conversion.
http://www.evalbum.com/1729

Just google "EV conversion" and you can find all sorts of info.

You have to live in the right place to install a windmill. :)
We have too many trees around us. And, we are too
close to the airport for a high tower. :(

* If you have a pool, instead of using a pool heater, rig your pump to send the water through a series of black pipes that are exposed to the southern sun. (This can be done by rigging the pipe back and forth across a privacy fence where it won't be seen.)

My grandfather did this and it heated the pool just fine, without using any additional energy.


* I've known people to build their own windmills to store power in a series of batteries which they use to power things like lights and computers. (There are home made wind power plans for do-it-yourselfers available on the internet.)


* Run the dryer at night, when temps are cooler and your A/C isn't trying to fight the heat to keep the house cool.

* Build a rain-barrel to capture water from a downspout. Use it for out-side watering, like flower gardens, to avoid wasting water. There are plans for that on HGTV.

Those are some great tips on saving energy, thanks!

We need tips and ideas on how you plan to save energy.

Mod's note: Sorry, Dan; those are good tips, but unfortunately they are surrounded by advertising on a webpage you are connected with. Feel free to post the tips here and we'll make them into a "sticky".