Hot water heaters
- Solar hot water heaters aren't that efficient, though you'll get your money back in savings.
- The World Heat Organization recommends a temperature of 60-degrees Centigrade or 140-degrees Fahrenheit to kill legionella bacteria. To reduce the temperature is good for saving energy but you don't want to invite a proliferation of bacteria. Perhaps the place to save energy is not at the hot water heater.
Various recommendations are found in a web search. For example, keep the temperature high but put mixing valves at faucets and showers so that no one gets scalded. Or, install a high temperature, stainless steel electric hot water heater.
I don't know how hot the water is in on-demand tankless hot water heaters, but for a small family these can represent a good energy savings. Investigate as needed.
- A representative at the July 13-15, 2007, Great Green America Fest in Lebanon, PA, suggested lowering the temperature to 110 degrees or putting the electric hot water heater on a timer, keeping it off during the day and turning it on a hour before you expect to need hot water. He also suggested turning the bottom thermostat down a few degrees, because the top thermostat is higher. I wouldn't recommend any of these steps, because of the risk of bacterial growth.
- This representative also spoke of pre-heating water, such as with a copper drainpipe heat exchanger to absorb heat back, or by putting water through the radiant heat system first in the summertime. This (?) can be hooked up to the garden, too. (Clarification needed)
Chargers
Chargers (such as for a cell phone, a computer, any transformer) are sucking energy all the time, even when the electric device is off. Either unplug chargers when not in use or put them on a power strip and turn off the power strip when not in use.
- You lose 100 watts of energy even if the device is turned off, as long as the charger is plugged in.
- Even when off, the speaker's HP printer loses 25 watts. His monitor loses 10 watts and the speakers lose 10 watts.
- Put the printer, computer and components on a power strip, and flip it off at night.
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| Freezers and refrigerators
- Get rid of any upright freezer. These use 150 kilowatts a month. If you were putting up solar panels, you'd save $10,000 in solar panels just by jettisoning the upright freezer. Buy a freezer chest. There will be a 3-year payback.
- A ten-year old refrigerator is considered an old refrigerator. Newer Energy Star models are more energy efficient.
- The better option in a refrigerator is for the freezer to be on the top.
Electric stoves
- About all you can do here is to turn the burner off part way through and let the food sit. It cooks itself.
Washing machine and clothes dryer
- A front loaded spins at higher revolutions. You save water.
- Give up the clothes dryer for a clothesline.
Lighting
- If you saw Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, you might remember the picture of an incandescent bulb with a hill of coal behind it. The coal represented the energy used over the lifetime of that incandescent bulb. The visual was pretty impresive.
The Great Green America Fest speaker noted that if every American household replaced just one (commonly used) incandescent bulb with a CFL bulb, that energy reduction would knock out one nuclear plant.
- The common suggestion is to change to CFLs (compact fluorescent lighting). Yes,CFLs save energy, but there are concerns:
- They contains mercury, which eventually goes into the landfill. The argument is that more mercury is given off at power stations from the use of incandescent lights.
- Fluorescent lights give off high frequency radiation, which increases electrostress on our bodies.
- If a light bulb is broken, mercury is released. A professional clean-up of hazardous mercury could be costly.
- CFLs aren't going to be around that long. They'll be superceded by LED lighting, which is even more energy efficient and doesn't have the mercury and radiation concerns. I keep my antennae tuned to LED lighting. I just saw screw-in LED bulbs for the first time in the Xtreme Geek catalog, www.x-tremegeek.com.
My reading light at bedtime is an LED pivotal camp light, $10 in the camping section of KMart. My home inspection flashlight is a 3-watt LED beauty from Lowe's.
- Home Depot is now requiring labeling of temperature for CFLs. 5000 degrees Kelvin gives a brighter light. 3000 degrees Kelvin give a warmer light.
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