Surprise: Not-so-glamorous conservation works best (CSM)

[jpak]

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1130/p13s01-sten.html

When high school science teacher Ray Janke bought a home in Chicopee, Mass., he decided to see how much he could save on his electric bill.

He exchanged incandescent bulbs for compact fluorescents, put switches and surge protectors on his electronic equipment to reduce the "phantom load" - the trickle consumption even when electronic equipment is off - and bought energy-efficient appliances.

Two things happened: He saw a two-thirds reduction in his electric bill, and he found himself under audit by Mass Electric. The company thought he'd tampered with his meter. "They couldn't believe I was using so little," he says.

Mr. Janke had hit on what experts say is perhaps the easiest and most cost-effective place to reduce one's energy consumption: home.

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[NMDemDist2]

1. we've already replaced all the bulbs, and half the appliances

the other two will go this spring and hopefully by fall we can do all the windows

the A/C is new and so is the hot water heater so we're a long way down the road and hopefully we;ll get the rest in 2007

i like what the guy said about solar panels being the "badge" that you've done everything else right

[Warpy]

2. My electric bill averages about $22.00 in winter, $35.00 in summer

My gas bill last month (and it was pretty chilly here) was $20.00.

The utility company is used to me, though.

The city replaced the water meter this year, probably because I'm such a water miser, using maybe 1/20 what the average household uses, and they didn't believe it.

I needed to conserve for many years. Now that I don't actually HAVE TO, I still do. It's just become second nature.

[suziedemocrat]

3. How do you do it?

Please tell me what you did.

[all.of.me]

4. my electric bill is about $22 all year long

$10 of that is just the base charge, the rest is power usage.

i read about that phantom load, in preparation for an off the grid home (which has not yet materialized), and i put all our appliances on power strips. they get turned off when not in use - tv, coffee pot, everything. i only have one flourescent bulb in one daughter's room, where it is on a lot.

i bought a sunfrost refrigerator about 8 years ago, and it cut my electric bill in half, which was about $45 or 50 back then in a rental. now i own my own place.

we heat with wood and use propane for hot water and cooking. this is my biggest expense, esp with a 16 and 12 year old girls. hot water usage is up! my plan to combat that is to get a front-loading washer and eventually solar hot water. that would be most cost effective for me, not pv. a better thing for me would be to get a small windmill and sell electric back to the electric co-op.

i have always conserved, esp after growing up in the 'oil embargo' of 1974. it taught me a lesson in conservation at an impressionable age (20). and even now that i am making good money, i have not changed my ways. i am really proud of that.

[FredStembottom]

5. Here's the downside to putting things on power strips........

First, let me point out that I have put everything I can on power strips so that the dozens of wall-worts I have going into my musical equipment and such don't pull power 24/7.

BUT...there is a drawback built right into many appliances. If you truly cut off their power with an external switch they lose all their memory!

This can result in several things when you turn them back on: the most common is a re-set clock that blinks 12:00 forever (even on things you never wanted to even have a clock. It's extra annoying to see them blinking all over the house when you don't even want them (I even have 1 bookshelf stereo that has to have power to switch off the clock display).

But with TV's and radios and CD players and such, power-stripping them off deletes every channel, preset and preference you have spent 3 months putting in. Most TV's will be blank nothings that can't even tune in a channel after power-down. Just not acceptable. Why don't these things at least have those little batteries soldered onto the motherboard to preserve memory????

I have read that there is a new kind of memory that holds nearly forever with no power applied (no AC. no Battery). Let the world of TV, radio CD DVD etc. convert to this soon!

[suziedemocrat]

7. Energy Star ratings for TVs are only for Power used in Standby mode.

From what I understand, the Energy Star rating for TVs is not based on power consumption when they are on, but when they are in Standby mode. So, I guess instead of power strips, we could at least make sure to purchase energy star products.

[amandabeech]

6. Landscaping can help cut heating and cooling needs.

Plant evergreen trees or large bushes on the north or northwest side of your house or townhouse. Put a combo of evergreen and deciduous trees and bushes on the west side.

On the south side, plant deciduous only, but don't plant trees so that the limbs will grow over your roof, if at all possible. They have the unfortunate tendency to break off and damage the roof during storms.

The east side could be deciduous, evergreen or a mix, depending on the weather in your area.

All of this assumes prevailing westerlies and cold north and northwest winds in the winter.

My former neighbors had huge evergreen and deciduous bushes obscuring the very sunny south side of their cape cod. Two years ago, they decided to cut them down and go for lower plantings. Immediately the temperature of their house in the summer went up by 5 to 10 degrees and their electric bill rose accordingly!

This was in Pennsylvania where a large percentage of the electricity is generated by coal. If all Pennsylvanians who had a suitable dwelling were to landscape with energy usage in mind, think of the savings in coal usage in the summer and natural gas and oil usage in the winter once the landscaping reached a sufficient maturity. For many, energy-minded landscaping would probably increase the amount of carbon tied up in plants rather than floating around the atmosphere. IMHO, subsidies for the plants would be a great idea.

One of several things that bug me about current residential building practices is that the builders do not leave enough space for trees and large bushes on the exposed sides of the structures.

I currently live in a planned "new urbanism" townhouse/condo/single family community. There are small trees planted between the streets and the sidewalks, but I don't know if any of them will grow tall enough to shade 3 and 4 storey buildings.

The space between the sidewalks and the structures will hold a good size bush or a very small tree. The rear is almost completely paved over with alley and driveways.

Land values are astronomical here and I do not wish to contribute much more to sprawl, but I wonder if the positives of compact development with respect to transportation and sprawl will be outweighed by the negative impacts of loss of shade and windbreaks that a few more feet of depth per row of townhouses might provide in an energy-short future.