What are you doing to save energy?

[JJJJ]

Often a member shares their aspirations to build a system. One piece of excellent advice that often comes up is to perform an energy audit.

Having done this, I was humbled. Something as simple as a standard personal computer consumed more power than I thought it should. I could provide numerous examples but am curious what others are doing to save on energy costs.

Seeing that we are headed towards colder weather, we place window treatments on our windows. This simple plastic coating serves to reduce that drafting that can happen with our older windows. New windows are preferable but have evaded our budget so far.

We open curtains during the day to allow the sunlight in. It would be better if we had south facing windows but it does help.

Recently our personal computers failed without warning. Fortunately there were adequate backups. The replacement is a solid state unit that ends up being more energy efficient since there is no longer a need for a spinning hard drive or cooling fans.

We have been replacing lighting with LED lamps. They even come in warm colors for those who prefer to avoid the brighter daylight version.

What tips and tricks have you found helpful?

 

[timselectric]

All lighting is already LED.
Installing multiple mini splits. To get rid of the NG furnace and water heater.
More solar panels and battery capacity. lol

 

[ilprepper40]

How did you perform your energy audit? I recently installed an Emporia in my main panel and had the same shock for my overall usage.

In my case, due to working in IT, I had several pieces of network/server equipment running, which after shutting down freed up nearly 8kW per day

My next venture is some rewiring for motion sense switches in bathrooms and timer switches in my kids rooms

 

[Tomthumb62]

People used to build houses with little to no insulation in somewhat moderate climates, like the Pacific NW, (the wet areas like Portland and Seattle). Back then people didn’t heat their homes as warm (or cool them as cold in hot climates), and the discovery and extraction of fossil fuels from places like Saudi Arabia, gave the appearance of cheap energy. Now that the world admits these fossil fuels will eventually run dry, things like putting insulation in homes makes more sense.

My mother grew up in a farm house in North Dakota and their house was so poorly insulated that the upstairs bathroom froze on a regular basis. She said they had a graveyard of porcelain thrones in the back yard because they had to replace them once or twice a winter. If you don’t know, North Dakota gets damn cold.

So we turn the electric thermostat down and heat a good very hot fire for once or twice a day during winter (not ND but we hit a record of -33F last winter). If it’s below 0F, we keep the fire stoked all day long. The really cuts down on our electric use and uses our wood efficiently, plus this house is quite well insulated!

 

[Bad Randy]

I bought an Emporia a year before buying anything.
A new AC was first, saved about 30%!
It's easier to reduce and then increase production.

 

[CoolWill]

Insulation and draft mitigation is very important. Heating and cooling are my biggest energy costs. That includes heating water and cooling food. My refrigerator uses about 3 kWh per day. Just sealing up doors and windows drastically improved my heating/cooling bill.

 

[LydMekk]

LEDs, new water heater elements.
Isolate window sills.
New inverter tech minisplits.
Changing freezers etc. one by one to new tech and low consumption.
Etc.

 

[chrisski]

I live in the phoenix valley and with AC running 8 months a year, the only thing to do is turn down the temp. Nothing else makes any significant impact.

 

[Johneb]

Micro air easy start (no affiliation) on non inverter heat pump, on demand water heater, led lighting, inductio cooktop, furnace set to 68, ac to 74-76 degrees.

 

[AntronX]

Small variable speed window AC for the bedroom to keep central AC unit off most of the time. So far managing 1000 kWh per month during past 5 summer south Florida months. Master bedroom measures window AC plus LED ceiling lights. Total energy for house cooling was 3300 kWh or 62% of total energy use equalling $500 at our power price. Water heater ran from my offgrid solar and used 380 kWh DC.



Edit: Added screenshot of remaining loads. As you can see washer/dryer, stove and dishwasher use tiny 3.2% of total energy use. Washer/dryer ran 21 times during this time. Balance of 8% are all unmetered remaining loads (lights, vampire loss, various outlets) and TV/cable box and Comcast modem. Majority of energy use (73%) is used to pump heat around, including the fridge. If we add dehumidifier then heat pumping becomes 77.6% of total energy use.

 

[G00SE]

Currently, in our temporary state. Our chest/meat freezers are on timers and shut off overnight as they maintain temp when “full”
I’ve begun eliminating electrical devices that are redundant. For example went from 4 TVs down to 2. We have our starlink programmed to power down every night. We replaced our existing cooktop with a 120v 2 burner and use propane for hot water.

 

[Crowz]

As mentioned get an emporia as the first step.

Run that for a few days is all it takes to KNOW what you can do to save money on the power bill. Then think about solar or whatever. But the emporia alone paid for itself in the very first power bill. I actually made a profit over what I spent on the emporia monitor in power bill savings.

Knowing what was using power allowed me to eliminate things I didn't know were using so much and it allowed me to change a few minor things as to how we were using power. Worth every penny is cost.

 

[Kuma]

Wife stir fries most food so do that off peak. Same with washing dishes. Have a hot water heater timer set for off peak. Use wood for heat, locally source wood for free. AC t-stat set at 83* in summer. Use air fryer instead of large oven. Follow the wife around at night turning off the lights she leaves on...

 

[crossy]

We went all LED a while back, mostly only run a 12,000BTU A/C in our bedroom at night (A/C in the lounge and other bedrooms only gets used when we have visitors). No heating required All other comfort is provided by fans of various sizes.

All outside flood-lighting and driveway lights are solar (separate from our "proper" solar power).

Cooking is LPG or charcoal (the real stuff, burned by a local chap from sustainable timber and delivered by bicycle), except for the microwave, toaster and kettle (I'm a Brit we drink tea by the gallon! Particularly when WFH).

And yet we still manage to suck up 30-40kWh total per day, luckily only about 10-20% (depends on the weather) of that comes from the grid.

Where's that going: -

• 2 PCs and a fileserver with associated network stuff, printers etc. PCs aren't latest and greatest but they do have SSDs, server has spinning disks but they spend a lot of time spun down.
• Two freezers + 2 mid-size fridges.
• Swimming pool pump.
• 2 & 3HP water pumps for keeping the garden green - I need to measure just how much energy they use over time. ** Makes note to actually do it.
• And the biggest single user - Madam's ruddy koi! Water pumps, air pumps, UV thingy, 24/7/365!!

I don't think we can save much more in reality, so more panels and a bigger ESS are on the plans.

Oh, and SWMBO has informed me that we "need" a BEV as our next new car. Just where she thinks the $$$ is coming from I know not!

 

[Minimoose]

Often a member shares their aspirations to build a system. One piece of excellent advice that often comes up is to perform an energy audit.

Having done this, I was humbled. Something as simple as a standard personal computer consumed more power than I thought it should. I could provide numerous examples but am curious what others are doing to save on energy costs.

Seeing that we are headed towards colder weather, we place window treatments on our windows. This simple plastic coating serves to reduce that drafting that can happen with our older windows. New windows are preferable but have evaded our budget so far.

We open curtains during the day to allow the sunlight in. It would be better if we had south facing windows but it does help.

Recently our personal computers failed without warning. Fortunately there were adequate backups. The replacement is a solid state unit that ends up being more energy efficient since there is no longer a need for a spinning hard drive or cooling fans.

We have been replacing lighting with LED lamps. They even come in warm colors for those who prefer to avoid the brighter daylight version.

What tips and tricks have you found helpful?

We had an 8% electric increase this year from our provider. It didn't affect me too bad as our bill isn't too high this time of year. Recently our bill dropped and after a lot of head scratching the only thing that changed was getting rid of the 3 room Dish network system. Apparently they have a significant draw even when idle. Now I'm on a mission to cut other things just for the challenge. I recently reinstalled all the water saving aerators to keep the well pump from running as much. I also set our two full size computers to go into suspend mode after 30 minutes as they can pull between 300-400 watts at full tilt running both and 150 watts or so when running both at idle. In suspend they only pull 7 watts and they get shut down at night any ways. Was considering installing a mini-split system that would be off grid 24/7, but the wife isn't really going for it. Wouldn't be too hard to do with a few 5Kw batteries a 48 volt inverter and a few panels. My house is small and a 2.5 ton heats and cools it fine. I figure a 1 to 1.5 ton would heat and cool just the upstairs living area just fine. Just a few thoughts I've had!

 

[BigDoug]

While I have a regular stove and oven, I don't use them unless I absolutely have to because I need to cook a bunch of stuff all at once. I bought a 2-burner induction cook top that I can plug in and it gets the job done 95% of the time. Air fryer for a lot of stuff. I also have a countertop oven that can also function as an air fryer, but doesn't have to. Unless I need to cook a turkey, everything fits in that and it'll heat up far quicker than a regular home oven that is like 4 times as big for no real reason (unless you're cooking a turkey).

I've also pretty much stopped using a clothes dryer. Between a clothes line and some simple drying racks it gets the job done.

While it wasn't planned as an energy saver, I downgraded my computer. I bought a mini-PC similar to the size of a Mac Mini (it's not one, but people are generally familiar with those). I just wanted something that took up less space on my desk. Usually while in use it's using like 40-50 watts. My old PC (tower) was consistently running at 150 watts. My computer is from the time I wake up until the time that I go to sleep. There are a few tasks a month that I need to use the tower PC for, but that literally lasts for 10-15 minutes, then I can send the file I need over and back into the closet it goes. It's not a HUGE power savings, but with how much my computer runs, it's not insignificant, either.

Like everyone else mentioned - lightbulbs/lighting fixtures. LEDs. I moved into a new house last year and the previous owner still had plenty of old bulbs and fixtures (not all, but some) with 60-100 watt bulbs. Going to 9/10 watt bulbs probably adds up if you aren't already there.

Depending on how old your TV is, a new one could be a good savings. My 10 year old TV draws nearly twice the power as my brand new one does. Neither is a huge draw, but we're talking 150 to 75. And if you watch TV/user the TV a lot, that helps (I use a TV as a monitor, which is on most of the time that I'm awake - I do turn it off when I leave the room).

If you're running an old fridge or freezer... replace them. My fridge - a 23 cubic foot with water and ice maker - uses about 80 watts per hour. Your mileage may vary on that because if it's empty it'll kick on more often than if it's not. But yeah, new ones are quite efficient.

That's all I've got on my end.

 

[Tomthumb62]

I forgot to mention a HUGE energy savings:

Our metal roof is flat (no gables or the like) and tilted at about 10-15 degrees. The house and the roof are designed to hold up to 6-8 feet of snow, which it never gets that much here. There are metal strips on the roof that act as stoppers to keep the snow from sliding off. The insulation that even a foot of snow provides is significant. Last winter we averaged about 2.5 feet of snow on the roof all winter. Our electric bill averages $160 in winter (1100 square foot house, some electric heat) and we burn about 2.5 cords of wood each season (usually 1-2 hot fires a day). In summer, the metal roof is a fire deterrent.

The downside: It's just me and my wife in this house. It's small. It feels like an apartment, even though our nearest neighbor is about 200 yards away (roughly 200 meters). It's usually not a problem during the week since she works from home and I go to my office in town, but on days like today where I'm nursing some nasty allergies at home and she has really important (needs to be QUIET) work to do, it starts to feel smaller. But we otherwise love each other, enjoy living together and love our beautiful home and the 37 acres of property we are stewards to. If we had kids there's no way we could live in this house, lol!

 

[2TrevorJ]

I also have a countertop oven that can also function as an air fryer, but doesn't have to. Unless I need to cook a turkey, everything fits in that and it'll heat up far quicker than a regular home oven that is like 4 times as big for no real reason (unless you're cooking a turkey).

With Thanksgiving coming up I thought I would share that we've been rocking a Ninja 8 Qt (XL) pressure cooker to do our turkey for a couple years now.

6-8 lb breast(s) for 40-50 min + 15 extra minutes worth of crisping to put a brown on it. Comes out consistently awesome which saves the wife some stress.

Way quicker and a whole lot less electricity than the oven. Also frees up the oven for other stuff.

 

[Wakintx]

My girlfriend loves running ceiling fans and desktop fans 24/7.

They suck. Electrons...

A small desktop cheapo fan that's a few months old and not lubricated eats more. Lots of little things use power.

Since all the modern appliances with remotes actually consume a few watts waiting for the remote power button to be pressed.


Propane tankless, propane heat and stove. Pretty efficient window air conditioners,

Emporia? My old 1950s house had about 6 circuits to monitor before I began to rewire and add circuits and dedicated solar outlets.

Lots of insulation in attic. As I've remodeled areas I've added rigid foam board under the new walls. I plan to replace these old windows with more efficient but as of today there is thick plastic sealing them for now.

It's not hard to replace windows and there are better places to buy them than the big box stores.

Bought a Chinese diesel heater to play around.

We also have her RV running year round in our yard, replaced the roof air with more efficient unit. Sealed what I could, efficient refrigerator. It gets dedicated inverter and I'll build another solar pergola this winter.

Cutting down a big junk Chinaberry tree that was damaged by the cold 3 years ago that shades my solar pergolas and roof of my shop but already have shorter, spreading shade trees growing under the tree to keep our Texas yard shaded.

Our front yard which is south is now well shaded with trees we planted as soon as we bought our house. I don't intend to put panels on our roof...yet...

Yes, I purchased several kill-a-watt type meters and amp clamp meter and spot check things.

Now if I could just manufacture water....

 

[Shawn Hayes]

We built new so we had the advantage to plan this out.
2x6 exterior walls with spray foam insulation.
Encapsulated our crawl space which regulates temperature and humidity. However dehumidifier does use energy but it is on a timer to operate 9am to 5pm when PV is likely. Crawl space stays well regulated even on a timer.
We use LPG to heat water (Navien), cook and fireplace to supplement ducted mini split system in winter.
We purchased Bosch heat pump clothes dryer to save power versus a traditional clothes dryer.
Researched energy usage on appliances before purchasing.
Our refrigerators and freezer are on timers to operate from 6am to 11pm. If the freezer has empty space, add water bottles or jugs to freeze to help add thermal mass to keep the compressor from running unnecessarily.
All led lighting which is pretty typical.