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Old 11-30-2008, 07:57 AM
 
Location: Vermont
5,439 posts, read 16,820,202 times
Reputation: 2651

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Disclaimer my wife and I have GAS stove, hot water heater, furnace, clothes dryer. We use around 300 KW/H a month and i am trying to bring this DOWN.

Most recently I have shut off 1 computer that runs 24x7 by consolidating it into another computer.

We have all CFLs.

We do have 1 computer, a Tivo, and a laptop that run 24x7 (the 2 computers are for my job). Phatom loads include Microwave (clock), stove (clock), coffee maker (clock), 1 TV (remote) and DVD player (remote), and garage door opener (remote) and a few motion sensor lights.

We have brand new 2008 EnergyStar dishwasher and fridge. Clothes washer/dryer are a little older, not EnergyStar.

What can we do next, to make the best and biggest difference. A few things I was pondering were clothes dryer/washer... obviously this is a big $$$ item and ours are fairly new.

Coffee maker. I am thinking we probably use about 1 KW/H a day assuming we leave the coffee on for 1.2 hours * 800 watts = 30 KW/H a month! However I am not sure how much I could realistically offset this to by switching to gas. Perhaps the equivalent would be 15 KW/H a month...

any thoughts?
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Old 11-30-2008, 10:33 AM
 
23,554 posts, read 70,067,529 times
Reputation: 49051
Our coffee maker only uses 800 watts when brewing - maybe five minutes or less. The thermostat flips the power to the heating element off after that.

You could power off appliances at the breakers in the evening. Although they aren't designed for such use, I've worked at businesses where hundreds of breakers were flipped on and off every day, without more than a once every few years breaker failure.

You could use gas mantle lamps in the winter. It would reduce the load on a furnace as well as light the place without electricity.
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Old 11-30-2008, 11:12 AM
 
Location: Vermont
5,439 posts, read 16,820,202 times
Reputation: 2651
An electrician suggested wiring up switches for appliances that I wouldn't mine turning on/off. for example in the kitchen we've got 3 clock loads. Stove, coffee maker microwave. The microwave is the most annoying in that it does not let you USE the microwave until you set the clock. So, could put the stove, and coffee maker on a switch and save probably 2-4 watts * 24 hours a day * 365. Also learned that GFI outlets probably use 1 watt all the time. So get rid of any GFI outlets that do not need to be GFI.

Gas mantle lights sounds neat. I didnt honestly know people still use these. I'll have to look into that...

Last edited by joe moving; 11-30-2008 at 11:46 AM..
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Old 12-02-2008, 07:50 AM
 
Location: Durham, NC
2,586 posts, read 9,082,202 times
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We are a family of 3 + 1 dog living in a 1 year old 2900 sq. ft. house. We're currently averaging about 350 kW/h per month during the fall. Summer is higher since we live in the southeast. We have about 70% of lights with CFLs, all energy star appliances with gas hot water, furnace and range. Everything else is electric.

Add me to the list of folks who hates that everything seems to have a digital clock on it. I recently figured out how to turn off the clock on the cable box, so I was pleased by that.

Our most recent energy saving purchase is a pre-lit LED Christmas tree. I'm going to continue changing out incandesant bulbs w/ CFLs, too in hopes of getting our low-end electric consumption as close to 100 kW/h per person per month as possible. In summer, my goal is to have us around 300 kW/h per person per month...quite a challenge since I'm intolerant of heat and live in hot & humid NC!
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Old 12-02-2008, 08:15 AM
 
Location: Where the sun likes to shine!!
20,549 posts, read 30,312,178 times
Reputation: 88950
We just moved into our house and we are off grid. All of our appliances are propane. The refrigerator is propane and the interior light is battery operated. I have a gas stove that doesn't need the electric ignite and it has "no" clock. I use a peculator coffee pot on the stove. It takes longer to brew but it taste so much better and being off grid I don't want to waste our electric on coffee. I make 2 pots a day. The microwave stays unplugged and it is a dial control microwave with no clock. I rarely use it.

I have no dishwasher. I have a very energy efficient washing machine and a gas dryer. I only do laundry on sunny days and I hang the clothes outside. We just got the dryer hooked up yesterday. I haven't used a dryer since last spring.

Our house is heated with a propane fireplace but we don't need it. We also don't need A/C because we built a berm home. It's snowing out now and we have no heat on, very cool.

We only use one light at a time in the house. The TV, satellite, DVD player is on a switch. It gets turned off when not in use. My computer and satellite is unplugged when not in use.

When the day is sunny we produce about 9 KWH a day. When it is not like all this week we produce anywhere from 1-4 KWH per day. Not much so we have to be very careful. If worse comes to worse we can put the generator on for extra power but so far we are doing OK.

You have to be careful of the high draw items like irons, vacuums, coffee makers, hair dryers etc..

I would guess we use about 40-50 KWH per month.
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Old 12-02-2008, 08:38 AM
 
Location: Durham, NC
2,586 posts, read 9,082,202 times
Reputation: 1719
Quote:
Originally Posted by younglisa7 View Post
We just moved into our house and we are off grid. All of our appliances are propane. The refrigerator is propane and the interior light is battery operated. I have a gas stove that doesn't need the electric ignite and it has "no" clock. I use a peculator coffee pot on the stove. It takes longer to brew but it taste so much better and being off grid I don't want to waste our electric on coffee. I make 2 pots a day. The microwave stays unplugged and it is a dial control microwave with no clock. I rarely use it.

I have no dishwasher. I have a very energy efficient washing machine and a gas dryer. I only do laundry on sunny days and I hang the clothes outside. We just got the dryer hooked up yesterday. I haven't used a dryer since last spring.

Our house is heated with a propane fireplace but we don't need it. We also don't need A/C because we built a berm home. It's snowing out now and we have no heat on, very cool.

We only use one light at a time in the house. The TV, satellite, DVD player is on a switch. It gets turned off when not in use. My computer and satellite is unplugged when not in use.

When the day is sunny we produce about 9 KWH a day. When it is not like all this week we produce anywhere from 1-4 KWH per day. Not much so we have to be very careful. If worse comes to worse we can put the generator on for extra power but so far we are doing OK.

You have to be careful of the high draw items like irons, vacuums, coffee makers, hair dryers etc..

I would guess we use about 40-50 KWH per month.
Y'all are doing it right! I've really enjoyed following your progress on the home in the Tennessee forum. Congrats on a great home and on minimizing your footprint!
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Old 12-02-2008, 09:57 AM
 
Location: Vermont
5,439 posts, read 16,820,202 times
Reputation: 2651
Quote:
Originally Posted by mdp_az View Post
We are a family of 3 + 1 dog living in a 1 year old 2900 sq. ft. house. We're currently averaging about 350 kW/h per month during the fall. Summer is higher since we live in the southeast. We have about 70% of lights with CFLs, all energy star appliances with gas hot water, furnace and range. Everything else is electric.

Add me to the list of folks who hates that everything seems to have a digital clock on it. I recently figured out how to turn off the clock on the cable box, so I was pleased by that.

Our most recent energy saving purchase is a pre-lit LED Christmas tree. I'm going to continue changing out incandesant bulbs w/ CFLs, too in hopes of getting our low-end electric consumption as close to 100 kW/h per person per month as possible. In summer, my goal is to have us around 300 kW/h per person per month...quite a challenge since I'm intolerant of heat and live in hot & humid NC!

i cant believe you're only using 300 KW/H. our house is 800 sq ft!!!! we are using 300 KW/H in the WINTER! clearly, we are doing something wrong. Need to look into it more.

another thought is the furnace. 1000 Watt fan probably runs, I dont know... 5 or more hours a day??? that is 150 KW/H right there. I have looked into, but not found anything regarding swapping our the furnace fan with an EnergyStar furnace blower.
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