ENERGY SAVINGS

Hi guys-want to ask a question-- what's every one is doing to save energy and money? I want to look at saving money and energy this new year.What are some ideas? Wind turbine,solar,tankless water heater,energy light bulbs,geothermal??? Anyone use these KVAR energy controllers? Thanks guys

I have 25 ways to reduce my utility bills. My biggest savings is a V6 truck.

We went from a King size bed down to a twin.

Now that we sleep closer to each other we can turn the heat down a little more.~})

Gary

I spend less time on the internet responding to threads like this.

That"s good,now if you just hadn"t responded...

There's tax credits on most ever energy saving projects, if you find something you might pay for it before the end of the year, but I think they'll continue next year and there may be more.

New windows in the house, thermostat with a timer, and a wood stove cut down our heating oil consumption a lot.

Aside from geothermal and the tiny savings you get from light bulbs, the other things you mention are snake oil. Especially KVAR http://kvarenergyexposed.com/KVAR_The_Truth/Home.html

I hate to say it, but we've not changed our energy consumption. We do drive to town less often, and when we go we aim to get a lot done. Of course we've got kids growing up and so we do have other fish to fry.

Christopher

Additional insulation in the attic and fixing air leaks is the biggest bang for the buck

I shut the heat off when I leave in the am - not that cold here in Dallas to worry about freezing pipes.

Was that your idea or the wifes????

Just bought a 4 cylinder Escape to replace my Suburban for my daily driver. Mark

I slowed down a little to get better mileage but soon I'm going to get run over by the fast ones and killed and then it won't make a damn bit of difference

Space heating is usually the largest expense. Start there.

15 years ago I built our house that self-heats/cools with passive annual heat storage (PAHS). Absorbs summer excess heat and stores it until we need it winters. 69º in here now, warm enough for us, particularly when we have to do absolutely nothing. Recent 30" snowstorm is still keeping everything white here. Doesn't look like it's going over 30º today.

My electric supplier still can't figure it out, thinks I must have a propane tank buried here somewhere. They won't get it when I cut them off (before their major price increase). Studying micro-hydro generation with very high head. Appears I can get all the current I need with .1 ft³/sec (no typo, 1/10 cu ft per sec). Then use woodgas as a backup. Solar doesn't make sense with my large machinery. Wind generation isn't even allowed here.

Domestic water heating plan for us is solar during the winter, heat pump water heater summers when we need the free dehumidification they provide. We have no need of ac, probably the only house in the county without.

If I drove much I'd do it on woodgas as we have our own woodlot. Gas/diesel prices may encourage me to do that eventually anyway.

Your options are almost limitless, just takes some study to see which plan will give a decent return on investment for you. When one plan's complete, go on to the next. Eventually, you're living comfortably without worrying about price increases.

Good luck.

(quoted from post at 11:54:30 12/28/09)
Your options are almost limitless, just takes some study to see which plan will give a decent return on investment for you. When one plan's complete, go on to the next. Eventually, you're living comfortably without worrying about price increases.

Good luck.

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There's a big difference between "saving energy" and "saving money." I'm afraid, for most of us, it would not pay IN A LIFETIME to implement any expensive, trick, scientific doo-dads such as

ground source----although very attractive for NEW builds and for people who CAN AFFORD the capital outlay, for someone like me it would break the bank and never pay off

Same thing with things like solar panels, or even the heat sink system you mention. MONEY

I haven't got a chance, I've got 3 daughters
under twelve years old. They can turn a light on but don't have a clue how to turn it off!

Get rid of the inter-rupter for your AC if you have one. The power company makes money ...


It is there so they can turn you off in case there is brown out conditions. They say it will save you money !

Then why is there a charge to have it when your letting them turn your AC off . Check your summer bill and they prorate it on a six month plan. Last i looked we don't use it in March .

A friend of mine does heating and cooling and told me of this scam and to have it removed.

I changed nothing other then maybe a furnace filter and my AC bills went from $150.00 - $180.00 a month to the worst has been $75.00.

It has been two years now and my summer cooling cost are less then 1/2 of what they used to be.

The meter is a option you are not required to have it. They fought with me on having it removed [ wonder why] . I gave them seven days or i was removing it which went over well.

Not saying everyone will get these results but everyone of my friends that has done this has had the same results. My mother the one who doesn't believe anything couldn't believe the differance in her bill.


Hope this works for you.


Jim

Start small check for leaks in walls and windows and doors. We have slowly replaced almost every window and both doors in this old house (1871) and put in a lot of insulation. Went to a pellet stove from wood. So far its paying off but when one window cost $800 you wonder how.
One thing if you use a lot of air conditioning in the summer you can install an under ground system for very little using your existing system and adding 1.5 ft. pipe buried 6 ft. deep and let the natural rise of the air to cool you house. Lots of book around on these systems they work great cost very little and nothing to operate.
Walt

PS look at LED light they run all year on less than a dimes worth of electricity.

You're correct, annual heat storage won't retrofit well. You're incorrect that there's nothing worthwhile to do for existing houses. Solar domestic water heating for instance. It will pay for itself if you try. Or a heat pump water heater if you need dehumidification where you live and can use the cool dry air byproduct in your house. Mine was a 1.5 year payback, well over a decade ago. Still working fine, only one pump repair.

If you used an infrared temp sensor you could follow the heat loss around your house. Usually, there're inexpensive improvements that you could do if you were inclined, that all add up to fast return on your investment. Windows are a good place to start. How much heat are you losing there? What did you pay for that heat?

If you never examine any of those "scientific doo-dads" you for sure will never see a return. Those that do, can sort the good ideas from the poor ones.

As for annual heat storage, it's cheaper to build new than conventional stick construction. Our last house, for a client, appraised 50% more than it cost to build, immediately on completion. That was a direct comparison to stick-built, the appraiser completely ignored the energy savings. Needless to say, the client was tickled. Promptly went out and bought a new truck.

He's now commuting 210 miles round-trip (3 days/week). That's insane, but he won't give up the house. Too comfortable/cheap.

BTW, I wouldn't recommend ground source heat pump on a new house here. They work great, but not inexpensive. Figure out how to beat that incredibly high installation cost and you'd really have something.

Don't try, and you never will.

I agree, insulate, insulate, insulate. In my town it costs $.50/cubic feet for blown fiber glass. You can't buy it that cheap and someone else is doing the work. To have your walls blown it's $3.50 a linear foot. Insulate your crawl space outside walls. At one time there was a tax break on insulation.

(quoted from post at 09:06:15 12/28/09) Hi guys-want to ask a question-- what's every one is doing to save energy and money? I want to look at saving money and energy this new year.What are some ideas? Wind turbine,solar,tankless water heater,energy light bulbs,geothermal??? Anyone use these KVAR energy controllers? Thanks guys

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Rather than looking for alternative sources. The largest savings are keeping the cool air in and the warm air out. Or keeping the warm air in and the cool air out.
Less water going down the drain that you spend $$$ to heat save money.
Window blinds summer and winter slow heat gain and heat loss.
Programmable thermostat to cut cooling or heating while you are away or sleeping add up too.
Wearing sweat pants in the house during winter instead of shorts and a tee shirt saves $$$.
Purchase a new thermostat, mount it in a new hidden place. Then connecting the wires to the new stat and leaving the old stat in place as a decoy saves $$$.

Insulation, better windows, etc. in the home. We've also made our home all electric, and plan on putting in electric thermal storage heating units when we do some remodeling projects in the next few years. These units run at night, on reduced electric billing rates, heat to a high temperature, and store the heat in ceramic bricks. We put in a air to air electric heat pump fifteen years ago, and find it to be affordable and efficient. My only complaint with it is it isn't a warm feeling heat, compared to anything with a flame. But we do have enough thermometers scattered around the house to know it heats to the temperature set on the thermostat. The cooling side of the heat pump in the summer is hard to beat in my opinion, I like it much better than central air. And while our local rural public power district has raised our rates 10-15 percent per year, for the last five or six years, it's still a better value than any fossil fuel. Something else we've found very helpful, both in terms of comfort, and efficiency, is ceiling fans throughout the house, blowing up in the winter, and down in the summer. I also used to be a big believer in heating livestock water in the winter, both with propane, and electricity, but have switched to the rubber tire stock tanks in recent years. In the coldest weather, they freeze a little ice across the top, but never down the sides, completely energy free. As far as travel goes, my wife drives 35 miles one way to work, five and six days a week, and we just deal with those kinds of distances to most everything as a fact of life here. There's only so much you can do, we try real hard not to make special trips for anything.