Our Solar Energy Quest

Our quest to incorporate solar energy into our home progresses, however slowly. Sometimes improvements seems as slow as molasses in January. But we know the necessary preparation for integrating renewable energy options begins with energy conservation measures.

We are in the 11th month of our energy conservation journey. Since last August we have been searching, learning, and implementing all energy conservation measures feasible for our particular circumstances.

Averaging our energy use for the first ten (10) months of the process, conservation measures (rather than efficiency measures) produced a 26 percent decrease in our home energy use. That’s a 26 percent decrease in our energy bill as well!

As I write this post, well into month 11 of our test year, our South Texas heat climbs to around 104 degrees daily. Our thermostat setting stays between 83 and 85 degrees in the day and 80 degrees at night. The air conditioning still runs a lot.

I’m beginning to worry about my percentages.

We hope to end the 12-month experiment with at least a 25 percent energy decrease. We will see. All results will be published here on the blog in hopes that our learning will help others.

next phase, year two (2), of our quest involves energy efficiency (rather than conservation). The research is begun.

Stay tuned! And as always, we would love to hear your energy conservation success stories. Share your comments and/or blog links in the comment section below.

Summer Energy Efficient Windows – Part3

In the final months or my energy conservation mode, I’m beginning to gear up for the next step – Energy Efficiency. My study now revolves around windows for summer energy efficiency.

Today’s window performance rating element is visible transmittance (VT).

Visible transmittance tells you the amount of light a window allows though. Efficient windows are energy savers and will reduce my energy bill, but I still need the daylight shining into my house to keep my inside plants alive and to keep my sanity!

The visible transmittance (VT) is measured on a scale of 0 to 1. Usual values are between 0.3 and 0.8.

The higher the visible transmittance (VT) rating on the window, the more light passes inside. So for the greatest amount of daylight and to enjoy the view from your windows, the visible transmittance (VT) rating the better.

But there is a trade-off. You see, lower the VT number, the better a window insulates. To get maximum daylight transmitted inside, I lose insulating capacity.

Hmmm…I’ll have to think about this more. Perhaps some of my windows need more insulting that others.

Programmable Thermostats for Home Energy Conservation

On this solar energy journey, one of the most helpful gadgets to help reduce home energy consumption and thereby reducing the size of the solar energy system required, is a programmable thermostat.

The Alliance to Save Energy (ASE) estimates a programmable thermostat can save the average American household up to $170 just over the course of this winter alone.

The ASE explains how these thermostats work to save your money without sacrificing comfort in Save Energy 101.

If you haven’t switched to a programmable thermostat yet, install one now and start saving energy dollars now.

Reducing Home Energy at Christmas

Basically, this blog is a journal about our quest for energy independence. We want to go solar but there’s a long and winding road to get there. We set our eyes on the goal and have made small but meaningful changes that greatly reduced our home energy bill.

However, I’m find that our home energy reduction plan falls by the wayside during the holiday season.

Since August my incentive for energy conservation remained on the front burner, so to speak. But with cold weather and holiday company arriving at our house, less focus goes to energy conservation.

I find myself more concerned with the people in my house being warm and having plenty of hot water available. So our thermostat got nudged up and the hot water heater timer switch turned off for a few weeks.

Keeping the thermostat at 68 degrees might work better on sunny days. And the timer on the water heater works well enough when we live by a more rigid schedule.

This month, houseguest comfort trumps energy conservation.

But I’ve decided not to feel badly about it since I did conserve lots of energy during the hot summer months. Today I choose to use the biggest portion of my “energy budget” for holiday times.

How to Gain Control of Your Home Energy Consumption

The buzzwords these days are green, renewable, sustainable, and carbon footprint. You care about all these, but sometimes your busy life keeps you from making changes. With work, kids, household upkeep, and bills, there just isn’t time to make huge changes.

Instead of thinking about all the pieces of the energy puzzle, it’s easier to think about one change at a time. But where do you start?

Start at home. Find out just how much energy your large home appliances are using. The greatest energy users in your home are heating/cooling systems, large kitchen appliances, and hot water. Get a handle on the big items will bring results faster.

Here’s something to help you find the energy hogs in your home.

The Kill A Watt Plug Meter is a good plug meter that measures watts and kWh. This handy devise allows you to see just how much electricity one appliance is using. It is an inexpensive way to start getting the big picture of how your home uses electricity.

Once you know where your greatest energy consumption is you can do something about it, one small step at a time.

Image via Wikipedia

Whether you’re just trying to reduce your energy bill or reduce your energy load anticipating adding solar, paying attention to your phantom load use deserves your attention.

What is a phantom load? The term phantom load is a euphemism for electronic devices that draw electricity even when we think they are off. Devices that fall in this category are computers, cell phone chargers, ipod chargers, and TVs.

If you want to know how many kilowatt-hours those small devices use, get yourself a Kill-a-Watt meter. Plug your device into the Kill-a-Watt meter for 24 hours and see for yourself how much energy it uses.

You can also get a power strip to plug all your small devices into. Simply cut the power strip off rather than trying to remember to unplug several different devices.

About your computer: A good rule of thumb is to turn your computer off if it will not be in use for two (2) hours or more. That pretty little screen saver working while your computer is idle cost you in kilowatt-hours.

WARNING: While turning off your computer is good, cutting the power to your computer’s modem is not a good idea. Check with your computer professional for the best way to save energy and keep your computer in good health.

Home Energy Efficiency and Major Appliances

Eventually, I want a net ZEH , a house that produces as much energy as it uses.

We are taking the small steps toward that end goal. Our initial goal is to reduce our energy consumption by 25%. For us that means reducing energy use to 38 kWh/day. Reliable sources, like my energy provider, declare our major household appliances huge contributors to our energy consumption.

Using our handy new Kill-A-Watt meter, we are now testing our major household appliances—the refrigerator, freezer, and hot water heater.

Today we have our refrigerator plugged into our Kill-A-Watt meter. The refrigerator is a GE 18.2 cubic foot, frost-free, refrigerator/freezer. It was here when we moved into this house ten years ago. I estimate it to be a 1996 model. I find no energy-star rating on it anywhere.

After twenty-four hours, I will check the reading and see how many kilowatt-hours my older GE refrigerator has used. Multiplying that number by 365 days in a year will give me an estimate of the refrigerator energy requirements over a year’s time. This information will help me decide if buying a new, energy efficient refrigerator would be a wise investment.

Perhaps leaving the refrigerator plugged into the Kill-A-Watt meter for a week or thirty days would give a truer estimate. Maybe I’ll do that another day.

But just now I am anxious to find out what I am paying for my stand-alone freezer which is 28 years old! That’s next!

I’ll let you know how this turns out.

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.