Lower Oil Prices Mean Lower Energy Bills

Oil prices are down. That means your home energy bill is down. I love lower energy bills!

Today the BBC American reports that OPEC is making efforts to keep oil prices from fall further. The OPEC cartel will meet December 17 and could reduce oil output “up to 2 million barrels per day.”

$147 a barrel oil prices back in July sent wise family budget watchers scurrying for alternative energy sources. Now that oil prices are lower, home energy budgets get a breather.

Some would argue we can wait to purchase solar and other alternative energy.

But in your heart-of-hearts you know oil prices won’t stay down forever. The oil cartel will find ways to manipulate oil prices to get what they want.

So if you’ve begun the solar energy journey, keep going.

It would be a relief to know your home energy supply does not rely on manipulating business practices.

It would be a liberating to know you were not dependent on oil from countries tied to terrorism.

It would feel good to know you have reduced your carbon footprint.

Worried about home energy costs? Concerned about your impact on the environment? Perhaps you are one of the many Americans who are considering using solar energy for your home.

Everywhere you go these days people are gathering to learn about solar energy.

Going solar for your home energy needs poses quite a learning curve. Accustomed to thoughtlessly flipping switches off and on, the average American homeowner does not understand the how and why of electrical energy.

Once upon a time, a greater understanding of electricity was necessary. Today, enables us to access electrical energy without a second thought. We take this seemingly endless electrical energy supply for granted. That is, until we began to notice our home energy bills increase.

Using solar energy for your home requires some knowledge of how solar energy works. The ways solar energy can be adapted depends on variables such as climate, house orientation, and amount of energy required.

Solar technology improves constantly. One day we will access solar as easily as we access the internet from our home computers. Now is the time to educate ourselves about solar energy and learn how we can use solar in our home energy equation.

Here are some interesting solar facts:

• The solar energy that falls on the Earth’s surface in 40 minutes is equal to the total energy consumed by the population of the planet in one year.

• One day’s worth of solar energy striking the Earth equals the total worldwide energy consumed in 27 years.

• Twenty days of incident solar energy is equal to all the energy in the Earth’s reserves of coal, oil, and natural gas.

Thanks to SolarSanAntonio.org for these solar facts!

Heating water for your home accounts for roughly 25 percent of your home energy consumption. Since we are trying to reduce our home energy usage by 25 percent, we clearly need to do something about our hot water.

I will make a small confession here. I want a solar hot water heater. Here in South Texas solar thermal energy abounds even in winter! The Maker sends this lovely thermal energy to us on a regular basis and this mere mortal feels ungrateful not using it wisely!

OK. Tirade over.

My husband agrees using solar energy to heat our water makes sense. But he also wants to know that a solar water heater makes sense to our bank account. I do appreciate his frugality.

How much electric energy does our hot water heater use anyway? According to the energy guide on the side of the water heater, our tank uses 4992 kilowatt-hours per year. If this estimate is correct, we pay about $600 a year or $50 a month to heat our water.

Since we use our hot water only in the early morning and evening, my handy husband installed an Intermatic Mechanical Time Switch (T104R) on our water heater. First he tried The Little Gray Box but couldn’t get it to work. So he traded it for an Intermatic Mechanical Time Switch (T104R) , which he found easier to install.

The timer is set to turn the water heater on for three hours in the morning and three hours in the evening. We will see if this makes a noticeable difference in our energy consumption.

Three hours of heating water to 120 degrees may be more than we need. If we don’t run out of hot water, we will adjust the timer to heat the water only two hours each morning and evening.

More later.

A quick, low cost adjustment to help reduce your home energy bill is the installation of a digital thermostat that can be pre-programmed. Depending on the model you purchase, thermostats can be programmed to different temperatures for different times of the day or week.

If everyone is away from home during the day, program your thermostat for a higher daytime temperature in summer. No need to use precious energy cooling an empty house. Program the thermostat to automatically return to a cooler setting when the family returns home for the evening.

Do you have a dial-type thermostat similar to this:

If so, consider changing to a digital thermostat similar to this:

If you have an older, dial-type, thermostat that must be manually adjusted, it may be time for a change. Manually adjusted thermostats lack the accuracy of digital models. While you can manually adjust the temperature settings, how often do you remember to make the adjustment?

We installed a Honeywell RTH230B, which we purchased from our local Home Depot. The Honeywell came pre-programmed, but was easily programmed to the settings of our choosing. Since we are trying to reduce our energy consumption by 25%, we set our thermostat on 85 degrees during the day and 80 degrees at night. These settings may seem extreme to some. But when it’s a blistering 100 degrees outside, 85 feels pretty cool!

Stay tuned! We hope this helps reduce our home energy consumption.