LED light bulbs make cents!

 At some juncture, while looking at ways to winterize my home and make it more energy efficient, I got to looking at the light fixture by my bed. As is my habit, I like to read in bed and so inevitably leave the light on after I fall asleep. So, the light burns night after night for about eight hours. It’s a regular 60 watt incandescent bulb as opposed to a CFL light bulb which I found can cause skin cancer when used close to the body. Over time I found that this little bulb, being on every night, could cost around $18 per year to operate. Not a great savings, that’s true, but if there’s a cheaper alternative I'm all ears.

Enter the 40 watt LED light bulb from a company called Hitlights. An alternative light source that costs about $11but which boasts a 40,000 year lifespan! (That’s about 13 years if I were to use it 8 hours a day). And, at only a power consumption level of 6 watts (.006 kWh), that would bring the cost down from $18 for a 60 watt bulb to about $2 over the course of a year. Not a bad savings in my book! So, what’s the downside?? – In a word, color. This bulb’s color rating is 6500 K – which puts it more toward the blue end of the color spectrum when viewed by human eyes. (Note: for $18, they also offer a 75 watt bulb that uses 9 watts of electricity, but which is much closer to a regular incandescent at 2700 K). Will that work for a bedside lighting source? I’ll update this post when it arrives sometime in October.

Update: Hold the presses! My light came recently in the mail and when I installed it I was amazed at how good the light looked!  Here. Judge for yourselves....This photo was not altered in any way and shows just what the light looks like.

My 2012-13 winter power goals!

Let me set the record straight! Last year's winter was pretty darn mild. And so were my electric bills when compared to the year before. Over the four month period November through February, I used 4,066 kilowatt hours of electricity to run and warm my home. That was 2,639 kwh less than the winter season before and represented a 39.4% savings in hard cash! Yowser! This year I'm hoping we have yet another warm winter thanks to Global Climate Change. (I think the odds makers are saying we have something like a 34% chance of a plus 3 degree winter over the norm). If that comes to pass and along with other improvements I've made, I'm hoping for a drop yet another 25% off last year. In real terms, that would be about 1000 kilowatt hours less over the four month period and would represent one heck of a drop when you average the past two years out!

I'll post updates on how well I'm doing after the winter season gets underway.

Energy saving comparision for 2010 versus 2012!

I finally go around to tabulating the results of my energy savings program’s effectiveness for the year 2010 compared to 2011 when many of the changes were put into place. I think it is apparent that this program was successful and I hope to continue to explore other ways to save a watt without sacrificing comfort or convenience!

January 2012 – Another great energy month!

Actually January was a great month for me, energy wise, not so much because of anything done on my part, but rather due to the relative warmth. January was over seven degree warmer than the average and that play very well when it came time to pay the electric bill for the month.

In 2011 my bill was $182, and this year, it was all the way down to $121! That’s actually a thirty plus something savings as my rate was increased 13% this year versus last. Now, with the weather forecasters anticipating a warm February, I’m hoping to have done rather well for the entire winter season!

December can be a tough month on the wallet!

Last December, I used 1,629 kilowatt hours of power to keep my home warm and to run my assorted appliances and electronic gadgets. December 2010 was a perfectly normal month from the standpoint of outside temperatures. The mean was 35.1F versus an historical average of 35F. That translated into an average daytime high of about 45F and a low somewhere below freezing. I own a heat pump and as you may know, they struggle to work at any temperature much be 32F. So, for most of the month, the ‘emergency’ mode went into effect whereby heating elements were turned on to make up for what the heat pump could not provide.

Last year, however, I made some changes both physically (installed plastic over the windows) and in terms of how I used power. I employed the aid of a device called the Total Energy Detective (T.E.D.) to help me monitor my power us real time. I also set a budge of no more that 52 kilowatt hours of power per day and that worked out pretty well. Whenever I could, I would avoid appliances like the stove in favor of the more energy efficient microwave. I used space heaters deployed in select rooms to facilitate point of use heating. I made sure to run my dishwasher less often as I did the washing machine (no more partial loads of laundry). I was on a budget and I stuck to it!

The end result was a 34% savings in 2010 over 2009! That lower electric bill was a real blessing during a month when all my other bills were high! Now, this year, I’m hoping to improve on 2010 and have reduced my electric budget by another 25%. That translates out to 52-13 kWh less power a day or about 39 KWh. If I get lucky this coming December will be a little bit warmer than the average of 35F. If that happens I’m sure I can make this work. Otherwise, if it gets colder than normal, I’ll certainly have a challenge on my hands.

If you’re wondering how I did for November 2011 – it was a 34% decrease!

A roomy experiment!

Just for fun, I thought to take advantage of a cool spell when the mean temperature was to run at about 42 degrees and perform an experiment. The day was clear with high pressure overhead and winds that were expected to come out of the northwest initially at 3-8 mph and then die down in the late afternoon and overnight. This would aid radiational cooling in the nighttime hours resulting in a winter like morning the following day.

In this experiment, I wanted to see how fast my house cooled down (or warmed up during the day) without the furnace on (TStat column) and whether or not I could save on electricity by heating just my bedroom with only a small 900 watt space heater. I tracked the information pertaining to this on a spreadsheet throughout the day and evening. Here are the results I obtained:

[click on to enlarge]

Technical -The area I heated, has a volume that of 1560 cubic feet. The space heater I used was a radiant element type made by a company named Lasko. It was set on low and put out about 600 watts of heat. It also has a crude thermostat so that once a comfortable temperature is reached; it will cycle on and off. Now this room also has a sliding glass door that is 35 square feet in area and a window that is about 11 square feet in terms of surface area. Both use thermopane glass, yet during the coldest part of the experiment, I could feel the cold if I held my hands close to the glass.

General Observations

I settled on a room temperature setting of between 69F and 70F as I find that to be a relatively comfortable climate. Once I had the space heater set properly, it worked pretty well and did maintain a room temperature that was close to the desired value (see data).

At around 2:30PM, I noticed sunlight coming in from the window that faces west. This added a significant amount of heat to the room as the space heater did not run for about a three hour period of time (note the increase in the room temperature).

As the evening approached, I could tell that this was a perfect scenario for a radiational cooling event! The temperature began to drop at about a 4 degree rate every hour. By seven PM, the winds stopped completely enhancing the effect.

Summary

Normally, when the mean temperature was in the forty degree range, my home had used anywhere from forty to fifty kilowatts of power. (That’s with the furnace set for 69F and when the usual stuff like TV’s, light and computers are running). In this experiment, however, I used only about 25 kilowatts* which is at least a forty percent decrease over whole house heating. Only about 4 kilowatts were used by the space heater itself. Now, the real test will come when it gets really cold as the other side known as Yang makes an appearance. In a situation where the temperature drops to say 20 degrees or less, I will have to make sure the house does not drop much below 58F so as to insure that no pipes freeze. This will mandate the furnace being on and running at some point during the early morning hours. Still, this should be an interesting test to see if a significant amount of power can be saved during really winter cold events.

* - In terms of actual power, the figure was closer to 12.1 kilowatts since I was running the furnace in the overnight hours prior to the experiment beginning (7AM reading of 24.5 minus the 7AM read of 8.4 on Oct 20).

Getting set for the winter of 2011-12!

My how time does fly! Here it is, already the fall of 2011, and time to get ready for another blast from old man winter! As it is still only the latter part of October, I still have some time left to check and do the following:

Have the heat pump checked by service personnel.

Change the air filter in the furnace.

Inspect the outside of my home for leaks.

Check all outside door seals.

Set heat pump thermostat at 68F.

Deploy my two space heaters; one in the living room and one in my bedroom.

(This year I will not be installing plastic over the windows as I don’t feel that they lose that much heat).

Goals for this season

Following are the kilowatts of power I used during the three coldest months of the year 2010-11:

Month             kWh                Avg kWh

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December        1629                      54

January            2071                      69

February          2087                      70

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Totals              5787                      64

At about ten cents per kilowatt hour, my bills added to more than $500 for those three months last year! I'm hoping to do better this year, but at the same time I realize that I'm somewhat at the mercy of Mother Nature and here's why.  Consider that a key variable which will dictate much money I will have to pay, is determined by the mean temperature (a total of the highs and lows averaged together) for that month. Let’s look at last December as a case in point.

December of 2010 normally has a mean temperature of somewhere close to 35 degrees Fahrenheit. This means that if you take the high temperature and the low and average them out you would get a figure of 35.

 [click to enlarge]

As you can see by the graph, a typical day is likely going to fall somewhere inside the yellow box whereby the sum of the high and low for the day add up to 70 with the average being 35 degrees. This means then, that for most every day, the temperatures (usually at night) will drop below the 32 degrees. A point below which my heat pump works. In other words, pretty much the entire month will see the ‘emergency heat’ lamp on fairly often. This means that heating elements have been turned on in the furnace to provide heat which the heat pump is unable to provide.  When that happens, you can basically count on having a high electric bill by month's end.

So, a month like December (and January and February, for that matter) are going to cost you quite a bit unless you can figure out a way to beat the ‘physics of the situation’. In my view, there are three ways to accomplish this on a realistic level; one, move to Florida for the winter, two, you can move to a basement (if you have one) where you’ll be able to utilize the buffer that is the earth to lower your heating costs, or three, you can employ the use of space heaters in only the rooms you absolutely need to occupy while setting the furnace stat to a lower than normal (say 60F) temperature setting. Then, hunker down and think plenty of warm thoughts! For anyone that might be interested, here is a graph I constructed that allowed me to estimate the electric power I would likely be using for a given mean temperature. This assumes that the furnace is heating the whole house! It worked surprisingly well:

[click to enlarge]

As you can see, if I am experiencing a mean temperature outside of 35F. (red line), then I can expect to use somewhere in the neighborhood of 65 kWh of electricity. I can control this figure to some extent by cutting back on an unnecessary use of power like the TV, radio, etc. Also, if the sky is sunny, I can open the drapes and catch a little heat that way. But other than executing the 'basement' alternative, I'm pretty much stuck!

Well, that's my plan for this winter! I'm hoping for a wet and snowy one as that will ratchet up the mean temperatures quite nicely.