Cool energy saving GADGETS!!
Here are some nifty gadgets that save energy and these days - that can save you alot of money!
Item #1:
A programmable thermostat for your A/C
& Furnace. You can buy them for a a/c & furnace system or a heat pump system. We installed our first one back at our old place. In our new home,the builder included this. I have to say the Home Depot/Lowes editions have more programming options, but the builder furnished one is pretty simple to use. We program it in the summer to run warmer when we're normally not home and late at night when we don't move as much so we don't heat up (aka sleeping). Overriding the temperature is simple, up arrow for warmer, down arrow for lower. The programmed temperature is the smaller temp on the left, and the current temp is the larger temp on the right. Plus it makes a good clock.
Item #2:
Timers for your fan or lights. Best for bathroom (water closet/toilet) areas. Rather than leaving a fan on all night or day after a major incident, you can ensure that after 5, 10, 15, or 30 minutes the fan will shut off. They were available at Home Depot/Lowes. The middle button is untimed. Happily most guests use the 15 minute or less option, and like the timer. If you'll note the light switch to the right of the fan timer is not an ordinary switch. Made by Leviton, this is a dimmer that fits into the standard sized wall plate. It's unobtrusive and easy to use. It might not be easy for those with hand impairments to use, but for us it works great.
Item #3:
The fan with a thermostatic remote control.... Hampton Bay makes this fan which comes with the remote shown below. As you can see the fan has no controls as it is totally controlled by the remote. You can buy the replacement module with remote for $40. I haven't seen the price of the remote alone. This fan is an Energy Star fan, probably due to the light kit - circular fluorescent, and the remote. It comes in two colors, the black blades with brushed nickel, and painted white, same design. It's about $200. Hampton Bay also sells the temperature remote separately as a kit for $40 which is supposed to work with any remote adaptable Hampton Bay fan. The fans that had this feature tended to be in the $120+ range at Home Depot. The only downside to our fan is the light kit is fluorescent. Therefore you can't use a dimmer on it. Which is a moot point since the light kit is not separately wired to a different wall switch like most fans in our house are. Three wires is all you connect - black, white and the ground.
Here's the great remote.
What's nifty about the remote is that you set the temperature you'd like it to be and don't have to worry about the speed. The remote automatically turns the fan speed to high, medium, low or off depending on how close it is to your set temperature. The control is easy to use and logically laid out. To set the temp, you just press the up or down arrow buttons until you get the correct temp displayed on the left. On the right the bigger number is the current temp. The remote also has a 3 minute delay (timer button) which is nice for the lights. You'll never have to stumble out of a dark room again. I only wish it had a way to dim the light kit (assuming the light kit was not a fluorescent bulb type. Also note the supplied wall mountable holder, so you're less likely to lose the remote. We leave ours in the holder.
Item #4:
Speaking of fluorescent lights. All but our kitchen and bathroom lights have compact fluorescent bulbs in them. Especially the fans and ceiling mounted light fixtures. The newer compact fluorescents give off a pleasing warm light, unlike the circular fluorescent bulb that came with our new fan above. Plus at 13 watts each, you can run 4 of them and still not use the amount of electricity you would in one dim 60-watt incandescent bulb. Or put another way, if you leave these lights on all night, it's as if you only left them on for less than two hours in terms of the amount electricity they used compared to the traditional incandescent bulb.
Item #5.
Timers on your lamps. This is an old idea but if you use the newer digital timer, it works much better. We have the old fashioned mechanical dial timers as well. If you've ever used one of those older ones, you know how hard it is to set the right time and the right schedule. With the digital lamp timer, it's easier to be precise. If you can program an oven/microwave clock you can program this timer. The larger grey button is the on/off switch in case you need to override the program.
Item #6.
Our favorite with all the remotes, and other battery powered kid toys are the rechargeable batteries. Yes if you look you can find 9-volt, AAA, 'D' and 'C' rechargeable batteries (Best Buy). The AA rechargeables are quite commonly available at Walmart, Target, Circuit City as well. Sam's Club sells (8) AAs for $15, while you'll usually pay $8+ for 4 of them everywhere else. A tip, Walmart stocks the rechargeables in the electronics section and not in the battery centers located up front by the register. In our store, they're on the main center aisle, next to the photo albums and photo boxes. As often as I've replaced batteries in the our kid's toys, we've probably saved a few hundred dollars over the past few years.
Item #7.
Do you keep a computer on all day/night because it's become a file server? As more and more people get more than one computer, they tend to leave one computer on all the time either by choice or forgettfullness due to having to view the family photos or listen to music that is stored on one computer. Well at 60 watts minimum and up to 350 watts per hour that can be very expensive in terms of your energy bill. Here's where NAS (network attached storage) or network drives make sense. At 17 watts, this baby not only keeps your energy bills lower, it also is a necessary defense against all those trojans/worms/viruses that attach themselves to so many home computers. I know many users who sometimes lose all those precious files during a slick and rebuild when trying to wipe out the infections. What's nice about most home NASs is that you can also attach a USB drive to the device and back it up (take the backup offsite perhaps). Therefore if some disaster occurs in your home (like a fire, etc), at least what you backed up onto the USB drive will be saved (assuming it didn't perish in your home disaster event).
Item #8.
The last item, no picture is your average notebook. Notebooks tend to use about 55 watts in active use and less when sleeping. So already there is some savings versus the desktop PC with it's power hungry CRT monitor. Also if you install a Secured wireless access point, then you can watch TV and surf at the same time. Or as we like to do, eat and surf at the kitchen table, while watching TV at the same time...
Bottom line. At our old place we had the setback timer for our heat pump and didn't leave our devices on all the time, nor did we program our lights. At our new home which is twice a big, we leave our computers and network devices on all the time. We also have lights programmed to come on automatically. Have our bills gone up? No - they have gone down. We're averaging about 15% a year in falling bills in the summer, and 5% in the winter. We pay less despite the rises in rates compared to our old place, and despite the fact that we leave more things on.
What can account for the drop in our energy bills surely not just the devices I've listed above. That was true for the first year, since we bought energy star washers/dryer/refrigerators for our new home. Also our a/c unit (not a heat pump like our old place) and automatic temp controlled attic fan made a big dent. But that only accounted for the first year's savings. The next year we saw about a 10% drop, due to installing the timers and dimmers. This past year, we've seen yet another drop. Again, we've added more timers, replaced an older TV and we also put up curtains for our back windows. It's amazing how much heat you gain in the summer without curtains on your south side windows.
This past week we installed the temp remote fan (item #3) above and that should cut our bill even more. In July 2005, without the new fan, our usage was 15% lower than July 2004 despite July 2005 being warmer than average. August is traditionally a very hot month for us. So we'll be able to compare July's percentage drop with August's percentage drop. If our August 2005 bill shows a drop of more than 15% in energy usage compared to August 2004's usage then we'll be able to figure out how many percentage points the new temp controlled fan saves us. We're expecting the fan to increase our savings by at least 1% perhaps even by 5%. At that rate, we would pay off the fan's above average cost in less than 6 summer months.
Until September then...
Item #1:
A programmable thermostat for your A/C
& Furnace. You can buy them for a a/c & furnace system or a heat pump system. We installed our first one back at our old place. In our new home,the builder included this. I have to say the Home Depot/Lowes editions have more programming options, but the builder furnished one is pretty simple to use. We program it in the summer to run warmer when we're normally not home and late at night when we don't move as much so we don't heat up (aka sleeping). Overriding the temperature is simple, up arrow for warmer, down arrow for lower. The programmed temperature is the smaller temp on the left, and the current temp is the larger temp on the right. Plus it makes a good clock.Item #2:
Timers for your fan or lights. Best for bathroom (water closet/toilet) areas. Rather than leaving a fan on all night or day after a major incident, you can ensure that after 5, 10, 15, or 30 minutes the fan will shut off. They were available at Home Depot/Lowes. The middle button is untimed. Happily most guests use the 15 minute or less option, and like the timer. If you'll note the light switch to the right of the fan timer is not an ordinary switch. Made by Leviton, this is a dimmer that fits into the standard sized wall plate. It's unobtrusive and easy to use. It might not be easy for those with hand impairments to use, but for us it works great.
Item #3:
The fan with a thermostatic remote control.... Hampton Bay makes this fan which comes with the remote shown below. As you can see the fan has no controls as it is totally controlled by the remote. You can buy the replacement module with remote for $40. I haven't seen the price of the remote alone. This fan is an Energy Star fan, probably due to the light kit - circular fluorescent, and the remote. It comes in two colors, the black blades with brushed nickel, and painted white, same design. It's about $200. Hampton Bay also sells the temperature remote separately as a kit for $40 which is supposed to work with any remote adaptable Hampton Bay fan. The fans that had this feature tended to be in the $120+ range at Home Depot. The only downside to our fan is the light kit is fluorescent. Therefore you can't use a dimmer on it. Which is a moot point since the light kit is not separately wired to a different wall switch like most fans in our house are. Three wires is all you connect - black, white and the ground.
Here's the great remote.
What's nifty about the remote is that you set the temperature you'd like it to be and don't have to worry about the speed. The remote automatically turns the fan speed to high, medium, low or off depending on how close it is to your set temperature. The control is easy to use and logically laid out. To set the temp, you just press the up or down arrow buttons until you get the correct temp displayed on the left. On the right the bigger number is the current temp. The remote also has a 3 minute delay (timer button) which is nice for the lights. You'll never have to stumble out of a dark room again. I only wish it had a way to dim the light kit (assuming the light kit was not a fluorescent bulb type. Also note the supplied wall mountable holder, so you're less likely to lose the remote. We leave ours in the holder.
Item #4:
Speaking of fluorescent lights. All but our kitchen and bathroom lights have compact fluorescent bulbs in them. Especially the fans and ceiling mounted light fixtures. The newer compact fluorescents give off a pleasing warm light, unlike the circular fluorescent bulb that came with our new fan above. Plus at 13 watts each, you can run 4 of them and still not use the amount of electricity you would in one dim 60-watt incandescent bulb. Or put another way, if you leave these lights on all night, it's as if you only left them on for less than two hours in terms of the amount electricity they used compared to the traditional incandescent bulb.
Item #5.
Timers on your lamps. This is an old idea but if you use the newer digital timer, it works much better. We have the old fashioned mechanical dial timers as well. If you've ever used one of those older ones, you know how hard it is to set the right time and the right schedule. With the digital lamp timer, it's easier to be precise. If you can program an oven/microwave clock you can program this timer. The larger grey button is the on/off switch in case you need to override the program.
Item #6.
Our favorite with all the remotes, and other battery powered kid toys are the rechargeable batteries. Yes if you look you can find 9-volt, AAA, 'D' and 'C' rechargeable batteries (Best Buy). The AA rechargeables are quite commonly available at Walmart, Target, Circuit City as well. Sam's Club sells (8) AAs for $15, while you'll usually pay $8+ for 4 of them everywhere else. A tip, Walmart stocks the rechargeables in the electronics section and not in the battery centers located up front by the register. In our store, they're on the main center aisle, next to the photo albums and photo boxes. As often as I've replaced batteries in the our kid's toys, we've probably saved a few hundred dollars over the past few years.Item #7.
Do you keep a computer on all day/night because it's become a file server? As more and more people get more than one computer, they tend to leave one computer on all the time either by choice or forgettfullness due to having to view the family photos or listen to music that is stored on one computer. Well at 60 watts minimum and up to 350 watts per hour that can be very expensive in terms of your energy bill. Here's where NAS (network attached storage) or network drives make sense. At 17 watts, this baby not only keeps your energy bills lower, it also is a necessary defense against all those trojans/worms/viruses that attach themselves to so many home computers. I know many users who sometimes lose all those precious files during a slick and rebuild when trying to wipe out the infections. What's nice about most home NASs is that you can also attach a USB drive to the device and back it up (take the backup offsite perhaps). Therefore if some disaster occurs in your home (like a fire, etc), at least what you backed up onto the USB drive will be saved (assuming it didn't perish in your home disaster event).Item #8.
The last item, no picture is your average notebook. Notebooks tend to use about 55 watts in active use and less when sleeping. So already there is some savings versus the desktop PC with it's power hungry CRT monitor. Also if you install a Secured wireless access point, then you can watch TV and surf at the same time. Or as we like to do, eat and surf at the kitchen table, while watching TV at the same time...
Bottom line. At our old place we had the setback timer for our heat pump and didn't leave our devices on all the time, nor did we program our lights. At our new home which is twice a big, we leave our computers and network devices on all the time. We also have lights programmed to come on automatically. Have our bills gone up? No - they have gone down. We're averaging about 15% a year in falling bills in the summer, and 5% in the winter. We pay less despite the rises in rates compared to our old place, and despite the fact that we leave more things on.
What can account for the drop in our energy bills surely not just the devices I've listed above. That was true for the first year, since we bought energy star washers/dryer/refrigerators for our new home. Also our a/c unit (not a heat pump like our old place) and automatic temp controlled attic fan made a big dent. But that only accounted for the first year's savings. The next year we saw about a 10% drop, due to installing the timers and dimmers. This past year, we've seen yet another drop. Again, we've added more timers, replaced an older TV and we also put up curtains for our back windows. It's amazing how much heat you gain in the summer without curtains on your south side windows.
This past week we installed the temp remote fan (item #3) above and that should cut our bill even more. In July 2005, without the new fan, our usage was 15% lower than July 2004 despite July 2005 being warmer than average. August is traditionally a very hot month for us. So we'll be able to compare July's percentage drop with August's percentage drop. If our August 2005 bill shows a drop of more than 15% in energy usage compared to August 2004's usage then we'll be able to figure out how many percentage points the new temp controlled fan saves us. We're expecting the fan to increase our savings by at least 1% perhaps even by 5%. At that rate, we would pay off the fan's above average cost in less than 6 summer months.
Until September then...
posted by ^-^,-,~ Inu at
00:37
