Summer Energy Efficient Windows  — Part 8

It’s summer now here in South Texas. Those energy efficient windows are calling my name!

The solar energy coming our way brings heat and lots of it. The aim of energy efficient windows is to keep that solar thermal energy at bay!the cost may be prohibitive, even with energy tax incentives attached.

For those who grapple with fixed incomes and rigid budgets, it still comes down to basic economic factors. Replacing windows solely for saving the energy bill is not often a cost-effective measure. See replacing windows at the Energy Star site.

So if the economic factor is your prime motivator, you can make your existing windows more efficient by using a few other methods:

·    Cellular shades

·    Curtain panels with interlinings

·    Window films

·    Solar screens

·    Cover your windows during the sunniest times of day

But if you need to replace your windows for other reasons, maintenance perhaps, or you just want nicer windows, make it an occasion to provide your home for comfort and energy cost savings.

Weather Stripping Repaired

A couple weeks ago I posted  about our worn out weather stripping around our front door. http://simplehomesolarenergy.com/home-energy-use/weather-stripping-wears-out/ .

On closer investigation, we found that our front door had a flat jamb, the vertical piece of the doors frame. Attaching more weather stripping was awkward having nothing to attach more weather stripping to.

So my handy husband went to our local home improvement store and purchased strips of primed molding, which fit just inside the doorframe. The door shut against the molding, creating a better seal.

installing molding

Then we attached strips of weather stripping to the molding. These made an even better seal that keeps our conditioned air inside and summer heat from seeping in.

Do yourself a favor and check to see if you have air leaks around your windows and doors. Summer is coming!

Still striving toward that net ZEH home….

Weather Stripping Wears Out

Note to self: Weather stripping does not last forever.

Early this morning I walked past my front door and had a shock.

I could see daylight coming through the gap between the front door and the doorjamb. Funny, I didn’t remember the gap there being so huge. I looked closer to find worn out weather-stripping.

I tried to post some pics here of my weather stipping but I’m having technical issues. I’ll try posting them later.

So in the interest of energy conservation—not to mention my electric bill (!)—this little job must be taken care of promptly!

I foresee handy-husband and I enjoying a date-night at our local Home Depot store.

So take note, and check out your weather-stripping. You just might reduce your electric bill.

Home Energy Conservation Challenge –      Week 2

Welcome to this week’s Home Energy Conservation Challenge! If you’re here for the first time, you can find how this challenge works here.

Remember our grocery shopping analogy from last week? If not, here it is again:

Imagine that you go to the grocery store every week, pick up all the food you want for your family and never question how much the food costs? You just pick up whatever you want, have it packed in eco-friendly grocery bags, and take it home. You do this every week. Then at the end of the month, you get a bill from the grocery store, telling you how much you owe them for the food you ate the previous four (4) weeks.

Of course, you do not grocery shop this way! The family member who grocery shops every week has a fairly good idea what their basic grocery items cost.

If you got started last week, and have begun tracking your kilowatt-hour use, comparing 2008 to 2009, you have a good idea of your monthly energy use. As you continue to track and compare month by month, you will be able to see how your energy savings strategies are working.

You now also know how much you are paying per kilowatt-hour (or per gallon where applicable): dollar amount of your bill divided by the number of kilowatt-hours you used equals cost per kWh.

Armed with this information, cost per kilowatt-hour, you can get a good estimate of how much it cost you to use most of your household appliances.

Next to your heating/cooling system and hot water heating system, major household appliances like your refrigerator, freezer, stove, and washer/dryer are the big energy uses in your home.

There are a couple ways to estimate the energy used by your home appliances:

1.    Read the appliance manufacturer’s specs label (or engraving) and do the math, or
2.     Use a simple Kill-A-Watt meter
The first method is the longer, more arduous path. If you want to take this route, you certainly may. The math equation is: amps X volts = watts. If you want to do it this way, leave a comment and I’ll post the arduous details.

But I know you have a life! You are going to work every day, raising a family, feeding them, carpooling them, helping them do homework, etc.

Take heart, there’s a better way.

The second method, easier and more accurate, is to use an Kill-A-Watt electric meter. It basically works like this: the meter plugs into the electric outlet, and then you plug your appliance into the electric meter.

The electric meter I use is a Kill-o-watt Meter. You program your cost per kilowatt-hour (kWh) into the meter before plugging it into the electric socket. Then plug your appliance, say your refrigerator, into the electric meter. I suggest you leave the appliance plugged into the Kill-o-watt Meter for 24 hours in order to get a more accurate reading.

Record the kilowatt-hours used per 24 hour period on the Kill-A-Watt meter page of the Energy Challenge excel sheet. Multiply the number of kilowatt-hours by 365 (days per year) to find how much it costs you to run this appliance for a year. Enter this in your excel sheet as well.

We will use this number later when we read EnergyStar Labels.

Also, this number will come in handy to help you decide if and/or when the appliance needs to be replaced.

Proper maintenance also keeps your major appliances running more efficiently.

No doubt, you perform proper maintenance on your automobile, changing oil, rotating tires, checking air in tires, etc. Proper vehicle maintenance helps your automobile run more efficiently and last you longer.

Well, major household appliances need periodic maintenance as well, especially your refrigerator and freezer.

Watch this 2-minute video to learn how to do quick, periodic maintenance to your refreigertor.

Take Action:
1.    Order your Kill-A-Watt meter through this link, (or get one elsewhere).
2.    Clean the coils of your refrigerator as shown in this video
3.    Use the Kill-A-Watt meter and record the energy use of your refrigerator, freezer, floor lamps, and other 120 volt appliances in your Energy Challenge Excel spreadsheet

Note: 210 volt appliances like an all electric stove, water heater, and clothes dryer, cannot be measured with the Kill-A-Watt meter

Welcome to this week’s Home Energy Conservation Challenge! If you’re here for the first time, you can find how this challenge works here.

We’ll start our challenge today with a grocery shopping analogy.

Image via Wikipedia

Imagine that you go to the grocery store every week, pick up all the food you want for your family and never question how much the food costs? You just pick up whatever you want, have it packed in eco-friendly grocery bags, and take it home. You do this every week. Then at the end of the month, you get a bill from the grocery store, telling you how much you owe them for the food you ate the previous four (4) weeks.

Of course not! But that’s how many of us buy electricity. We pay little, if any, attention to our energy consumption. We just wait for that monthly bill, it comes, and we pay it.

First, to control and/or reduce energy consumption we have to know how much you use.

Today, we start the conservation challenge with the basics:
•    reading an electric bill,
•    find out how much you pay per kilowatt-hour (or per gallon if applicable),and
•    start a tracking system for monthly energy use

Note: The electric utility bill above is not very clear. I’m working on making it better. If you click on the picture it will open in a window giving you a better view.

Electricity is measured in kilowatt-hours (kWh). You can see from the statement pictured above that this home used (and is charged for) 2350 kWh of electricity between 12/25/07 and 01/24/08.

This particular bill covers a period of 30 days (blue arrow). (12/25/07 through 01/24/08)

By dividing the kWh used (yellow arrow) by 30 (days), we determine the average kWh used per day. In this case, 78.3 kWh per day is the average.

Notice the bill pictured above does not tell us how much the customer paid per kilowatt-hour (kWh). In this case the customer must calculate this himself. Simple math, amount of bill divided by number of kWh used, will tell how much this customer is charged per kWh. For example: $200.23 ÷ 2350 = $0.0852. This customer pays just over .08¢ per kWh.

A note about the electric bill in our example: This particular energy provider is an energy cooperative, meaning the cooperative buys energy from an electric utility company at wholesale prices and resells this energy to the co-operative customers.

The cooperative customers pay a monthly rental fee of $20 for their electric meter.

However, this $20 fee is not shown on the monthly statement! A cursory glance makes it appear the amount of the bill is for the kilowatt-hours used only.

In order for this customer to confirm how much they actually pay per kilowatt-hour, they must know to subtract the $20 meter rental fee from the bill amount before calculating cost per kilowatt-hour (kWh).
Each company’s monthly statements will vary.

Take action:
1.    Take out last year’s electric (or other energy) bills (2008 in this case).
2.    Learn to read your bill if you’ve never done this before. If you have any questions, call your energy provider. They are happy to answer your questions. Make sure there are no hidden fees unexplained on your bill.
3.    Write down your energy used in kilowatt-hours (not what you paid, since costs per kWh change) for each month in 2008. (Use this simple excel sheet if you want or make your own tracking system)
4.    As you receive each month’s electric bill, write down the amount of your energy use (or enter in the excel sheet provided) and compare your current use to the same month in 2008.

Note: the excel sheet provided has four (5) named sheets. One sheet each for “kilowatt-hours,” “propane,” “heating oil,” “water,” and “kill-a-watt meter.” Choose the correct sheet for measuring each type of energy source. I realize water is not an energy source but those of you who pay a fee for water usage may want to begin tracking that as well.

OK. That’s all for this week. Take the action steps. You are on your way!

Share your questions and comments in the comment section.

Home Energy and the Renewable Electricity Standard (RES)

The Alliance to Save Energy is pleased about a new piece of legislation introduced by Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass). If enacted, the Energy Efficiency Resource Standard (EERS) legislation would reduce national energy use while incorporating renewable energy sources.

That sounds good. I do want to reduce my energy use and incorporate solar energy in my home. Eventually, I want a net ZEH home that produces as much energy as my home uses.

But I am wary.

The ASE article says this bill,

“would require electric and gas utilities to reduce demand by 15 and 10 percent, respectively, by 2020. Utilities could count savings from helping their customers to make their homes and businesses more energy efficient, as well as from appliance standards, building codes, and other government programs. And while utilities would be responsible for meeting the energy efficiency requirements, they would be allowed to buy savings from states and other third parties that could be used to demonstrate compliance.”

I am bothered by the word “require,” here. My utility provider would be “required” to reduce energy demand? They “could [emphasis mine] count savings from helping their customers….”

Or they could just declare power outages at certain times of the day or night.

I read through the actual bill presented. You can read it here.

It looks to me like the utility companies will be required to pay a “quantity of electricity credits” (read: money) to the government. And if they meet the annual reduction requirements, then they get a portion of that back.

Two things:

1.    Why does the government take money out of our pocket (you know who your utility company will get the money from to pay these credits), give some of it back if we jump through the right hoops, and then act like they are doing us a big favor?

2.    We do not need to wait for the government to make us reduce our energy consumption! We are free adults who can make these choices for ourselves.

Of course, the American Renewable Energy Act is replete with the necessary legalese. I am no trained lawyer so it’s possible I misunderstood something.

Read the document yourself and let me know what you think.

Still, rather than waiting for clumsy government intervention, I like this idea better.

And if you are ready to start reducing your energy consumption now, you are welcome to join the Home Energy Conservation Challenge.

Reducing Your Carbon Footprint

Did you know you can calculate your home energy carbon footprint? There’s a nifty carbon footprint calculator at BeGreenNow.com. All you have to do is enter your kilowatt-hour usage and/or your natural gas usage for the month (or year).

Using the BeGreenNow calculator, I calculated my home’s carbon footprint based on my kilowatt-hour usage alone. My home’s carbon footprint measured in CO2 emissions from electrical use for 2008 was10.79 tons.

Is that good or bad?

The Nature Conservancy also has a free carbon footprint calculator. Their calculator, based on averages, has no input for kilowatt-hours used. After answering a series of questions, they totaled my CO2 emissions per year at 23 tons.

While the Nature Conservancy site calculator teaches lots about how daily habits affect energy use, the BeGreenNow calculator felt more realistic since they use my actual kilowatt-hour usages.

Reducing your home energy consumption begins with knowing what you are using today. Then you can consider and make changes to reduce your energy consumption (and your energy bill!)

Go ahead. Try one of these carbon footprint calculators to get an idea of your home’s energy use.

BeGreenNow

The Nature Conservancy

Our Home Energy Reduction 2008 Progress

This week I paid my last electric utility bill for 2008. As mentioned in Monday’s post we went off our “energy diet” during the holidays, so the monthly bill was higher than usual.

Still, in spite of our holiday energy binge, we used fewer kilowatt-hours (kWh) than the previous December (2007). Almost 5% less than last December, in fact.

We have been paying closer attention to our energy consumption for six (6) months now. Only four (4) months ago we began implementing some changes.

The news is that comparing our 2007 and 2008 home kilowatt-hour (kWh) use, we reduced our energy consumption in 2008 by more than 10 percent! This may seem like peanuts to some, but to me this is nothing short of amazing!

Really, our efforts have been minimal not extreme by any stretch of the imagination. I mean, if we had made this same minimal effort the whole year, I estimate our reduction over twelve (12) months would be at least 20 percent.

I have not calculated how my 10 percent reduction translates in carbon footprint terms.

Does anyone know how to make this calculation?

If so, please leave a comment. Thanks!

Home Energy Diet Resumes

During the holiday season, we have been off our home energy diet. With family and friends here to celebrate Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the New Year, we set the thermostat back up to 70 degrees, turned the hot water heater timer off, and used the clothes dryer a lot!

Family and friends have returned to their respective homes. While we are coming off four (4) weeks of caloric intake well beyond the recommended daily allowance, we are also re-adjusting to more conservative home energy consumption.

The thermostat is back to 68/65 degrees, the timer switch once again controls the hot water heater, and no clothes dryer except on rainy days.

And it is time to re-assess and make plans for 2009.

Energy conservation and energy efficiency remains our path toward a solar powered home.

Mark and I have focused our physical energy on reducing our home energy for about six (6) months now. And we are making progress (in spite of an energy binge during the holidays).

But I can’t help but think we could do much better connected with others on this same path.

I’m thinking an Energy Conservation Challenge would be great incentive for each of us to put our best “carbon footprint” forward. I hope you interested folks out there will join us.

Check back with us here at Simple Home Solar Energy the rest of the week for more details.

And if any of you have suggestions, I’d love to hear them via the comment link below.