Save Money & Energy....

Today’s post: Wednesday, 5-6-2009

We need an 80% reduction in fossil fuel use by 2050 to avoid the worst global warming effects. And, practically speaking, we need to also double our electricity generation and double the useful work done per unit of electricity & other energy sources as well during that same time to have a decent economy.

The good news is that many of the ways that double the useful work done per unit of electricity also save money for the people employing them.

A. Here are some ways to cut your energy costs that also save you a lot of money that require some upfront investment.

Some of them do take a long time to pay you back and begin to save you money each month. But some will pay you back the first year you do them and then save you money every year after that.

1. In the Northern hemisphere we are on the verge of summer weather. And, in many parts of the United States, a major energy use is for residential air conditioning.
In fact, during the hottest days, it is exactly that air conditioning use that dictates what your utility needs to be able to deliver for peak demand.

Did you know that for many people you can drop your electricity use for air conditioning so much you do pay off the costs in one year and save literally hundreds to thousands of dollars on your summer electric bill for every year after that?

You can. And, it even has a bonus. Your home will be dramatically more comfortable. And the night time temperature in your home will be so much lower that you’ll sleep much better and have a good deal more energy each day!

Here’s our post on this method from last April.:

Slash your Air Conditioning bills this summer....

Today’s post: Weds, 4-9-2008

How does cutting your bill to zero or by 70 % sound?

Hot weather is coming soon to where you live & work this year.

(In our area, in the Silicon Valley, after below average temps recently, our first hot weather of this year is literally predicted to start tomorrow.)

Unfortunately, in many homes & buildings a huge amount of money & energy is spent on air conditioning to pump heat out of buildings it could easily never have gotten into to begin with.

For many buildings & most homes moderately inexpensive fixes can keep enough heat from getting in to cut well over 50% from air conditioning costs & energy use or even eliminate them totally & do it each summer after they are installed.

In addition, the more people do this, the less new electric generating capacity has to be built to manage peak demand for electricity which is now driven by afternoon air conditioning use on the hottest days.

In climates where the temperature falls enough at night, you can let in cool night air to remove any left over heat from the day before by opening the windows &/or by using fans to pull in air from outside & push out the inside air. Often, if you have things well set up to prevent heat from getting in &/or have ceiling fans to lower the perceived temperature a few degrees, from 76 actual to 72 perceived, for example, on most days you then will need NO air conditioning use at all.

In climates where it is much hotter or only falls to a level where you still need to run the air conditioning, if you have things well set up to prevent heat from getting in &/or have ceiling fans to lower the perceived temperature a few degrees, you can get a triple play. You only will need to run your air conditioner at night on most days. That means you can get maximum efficiency per unit of energy as the AC works better with cooler temps to dump the excess heat into so your bill is less. And, you use the electricity at night when it often costs less per kilowatt than at peak times in the afternoon. Lastly, you no longer need to add a lot of load in the afternoon to overstress you local power grid. The idea is to have the house at or office at 68 degrees F or even a bit less in the early morning when it’s coolest outside & have it not set to turn back on until the inside gets to 76 degrees (or perhaps 72 if you don’t have ceiling fans yet. Then, if your heat proofing is good enough, your AC will rarely need to come back on. And, if it does, it will need to run a LOT less.

Well insulated buildings with a lot of thermal mass, ideally with few windows or with double pane windows, that also have good passive design to prevent heat from entering do this very well.

New buildings with part underground or with thick walls made of rammed earth or adobe or straw or well insulated concrete block & heat resistant roofs do this well.

But in most homes today & some commercial buildings, the main problem is in the roof crawl space.

Usually there is no insulation between the roof & the crawl space -- & in some areas not much below it. In addition, the crawl space has almost no ventilation. As a result, instead of the under the roof temperature being only slightly above the outside air, it can be as much as 70 or 80 degrees hotter. Then this trapped heat re-radiates into the rooms beneath acting as a solar heater all afternoon. Even worse, this heat continues to radiate well into the night making the people inside miserable or running up their AC bills like crazy.

My wife & I had a house like that which was also badly insulated and had no air conditioning. On sunny days much above 79 degrees for a high, it was often well over 80 or even 90 until about the time the next morning we had to get up to go to work. This was NOT fun. And, if we had decent air conditioning then, we would have run it a LOT.

We then discovered & installed a system that uses NO OUTSIDE ENERGY AT ALL which prevented this under the roof heat build up. And, we installed ceiling fans.

We didn’t even get to upgrading the insulation and got this result.:

After doing this, we experienced a day well into the high 90’s outside. It would have been over 100 inside from 3 PM to midnight before. After installing this system & adding ceiling fans, it only got up to about 75 inside & then only from about 3 to 6 PM – AND the 75 felt Ok with just the ceiling fans alone. It was in the high 90’s outside and we needed NO air conditioning at all. And, remember that was before we upgraded our ceiling insulation to R19 or better.

Here is the magic trick we used that I cannot recommend more highly after this experience.:

Hot air rises. So, what we did is to install several very well screened air intake vents around the perimeter of our roof’s crawl space that were under the shade of the roof & we had a competent workman also install several convection powered turbines in the roof near its peak. Then we added ceiling fans to our bedrooms & living room. The entire project cost less than $1,000. And, this was a one time fee.

The very same hot air that was giving us such grief before now happily spun the turbines as it rose & drew the much less hot outside air in behind it. This was all solar powered. We needed no outside energy at all to run it.

If we had more money at the time, I would have liked to add the extra ceiling insulation & a radiant heat barrier in our attic and installed wood frame double pan windows.

Even better would have been to add a decent heat pump system to deliver efficient air conditioning it we ever needed it for days above 100 degrees & install enough solar panels to run it all. And, added window shading on the west & south sides of the house would have also helped.

But, much to my delight, we got close to 100 % of the cooling we needed from this single inexpensive fix that still needs no energy bills at all to operate these several years later.

So, if you have a roof that traps heat the way our roof then did, you can add all sorts of useful extras as I would have liked to do. But for about $2500 or less you can heat proof your house better than you might imagine with this simple system.

(In our area we bought the convection powered turbines & ceiling fans at Home Depot.)

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Back to the post for 5-7-2009

2. Now you can cut your lighting bills by up to 75% by installing compact fluorescent light bulbs.

They save so much energy and last so much longer, even though they cost more initially, over a few years they save you a LOT of money.

The good news is that, you can now find compact fluorescent light bulbs that both cost less than they once did AND turn on nearly as fast as the old fashioned incandescent light bulbs did. GE has done a good job making compact fluorescent light bulbs with precisely those two improvements.

The bad news is that compact fluorescent light bulbs contain mercury which can literally harm you if you break one and breathe the air in that room. This same mercury will eventually make its way into landfills, tap water, and fish and seafood since many people have & will toss them into the trash when they break or burn out.

But, do two things to solve that problem. Be extremely careful not to break any compact fluorescent light bulbs in your home. And only discard compact fluorescent light bulbs that go to a special center that will dispose of them without allowing their mercury to get into landfills, tap water, and fish and seafood. (That’s also now the legal requirement in many places.)

The better news is that LED light bulbs and LED wall coverings or ceiling coverings that light up will be available at relatively reasonable prices sometime over the next 5 to 10 years.

Compared to compact fluorescent light bulbs LED light bulbs and LED wall coverings or ceiling coverings that light up produce 50 % to 100 % more light. So, if you replace incandescent bulbs with them, you cut your light bills by 5/6ths or 7/8ths. If it was $24 dollars a month before, it will be $4 or $3 a month with LED’s!

And, if you have switched to compact fluorescent light bulbs and had $6 a month lighting bill, it will be $4 or $3 a month with LED’s!

3. You can also replace appliances, TV’s, consumer electronics, and computers with more energy efficient ones. And, in the case of TV’s, if you get one with a smaller screen as well, you’ll save a lot of money on your electric bill. (Some large screen TV’s use as much electricity as a large refrigerator on a hot day.) One way newer and more energy efficient TV’s, consumer electronics, and computers save money is by using far less electricity in sleep mode when not in use. That alone can cut the cost of using them by about 40 % along with cutting the energy used by 40 %.

4. You can buy and have wired up a special switch that will turn off all electricity to TV’s, consumer electronics, and computers when no one is home. Compared with older and less energy efficient TV’s, consumer electronics, and computers that will save 50% and even 10 % on new TV’s, consumer electronics, and computers that use far less electricity in sleep mode.

The important thing is to have the electricity turned on as soon as someone is home, so the startup time when you want to use something will be faster.

5. If you possibly can in your home, install wind and/or solar electricity generation capacity. Soon, you’ll be able to get paid for any electricity you generate above the amount you use. And already you can cut your bill for electricity by quite a bit. This is even more true for solar and running air conditioning since the same increased sun that heats up your home enough to cause a need for running air conditioning also will provide maximum solar electricity generation.

6. Added insulation and double pane windows or at least weather stripped windows and doors will cut both your heating and air conditioning bills.

7. Simply avoid waste. Why leave on a light for several hours in a room no one is in? Why pay to heat up hot water that gets cold due to lack of insulation or a leak in your hot water tank?

Although most of the things in part A cost money, they do not require you to lower your lifestyle or have less. In fact, buying newer appliances, TV’s, consumer electronics, and computers or heat proofing your house will give you a better lifestyle and quality of life in addition to using less energy.

B. The other way to save money is to make intelligent cuts on how much energy you use that are come from using less or using smaller things.

If you have a 4 bedroom house but now only use one usually and two bedrooms occasionally, move to a two bedroom house. Or move to a one bedroom condo and use the money you save to put up visiting relatives in a nearby motel or hotel instead of paying full time for a two bedroom home or a 4 bedroom home.

If most of your car trips can be done in a small car that uses a lot less energy than the SUV or pickup truck you have been using. Trade in your SUV or pickup truck or only drive it when you need its extra carrying capacity and drive a small car that uses a lot less energy otherwise.