Energy usage log

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jennypenny
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Re: Energy usage log

Post by jennypenny »

I bought a Kill a Watt and I've been testing everything in the house. Our cable boxes were a surprise. The DVR cable box was drawing a lot more power than our other regular cable box. About $10 more/month. I moved it to a TV where it's easier to unplug the box when we're not recording anything.

I know most of you eschew cable, but I thought someone might find this helpful if they have it.

cmonkey
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Re: Energy usage log

Post by cmonkey »

Any other surprises? I have wanted a kill a watt for a long while, but just haven't bought one.

jacob
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Re: Energy usage log

Post by jacob »

I installed electric outlet/switch foam insulation all over the house. Probably only really needed to do it in the external walls, but I figure even the internal ones might open to the roof, so why not ...

The small uptick in feeling warmer is probably just placebo, but there could be a real effect.
http://www.usinspect.com/insights/blog/ ... skets-work

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jennypenny
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Re: Energy usage log

Post by jennypenny »

@CM--One of our chest freezers was drawing a lot more than the others. We couldn't figure out why so we transferred the stuff to the other freezer and unplugged it. Our Home Depot has a large number of scratch and dent appliances on sale right now, so we might replace it. The other (pleasant) surprise was the power needed to run the xboxes. Very low. We figured since they were Microsoft products they would be inefficient. ;)

From now on, whenever I get a new appliance I'm going to hook the Kill a Watt up right away to make sure the appliance is as efficient as advertised. I wish I had bought it years ago.

cmonkey
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Re: Energy usage log

Post by cmonkey »

Today is VERY windy from the west. The first cold windy day since we sealed up all of our walls with foam insulation cans. Absolutely no drafts around the outlets/baseboard/windows anymore! :D Temperature is very evenly distributed. It used to be our large livingroom was alwasy 5 degrees colder.

Also, we haven't turned on the heat this year yet, but this week looks like we might be turning it on. I'm excited to see how our bill stacks up this year after all the work we did.

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jennypenny
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Re: Energy usage log

Post by jennypenny »

My PC (on an average of 16 hours/day) is over $60/month. :shock: That has to change. I'm thinking of switching to an iMac. I need to look into how much of a cost savings that would be. The computer is over 10 years old and needs replacing anyway.

My desk lamp is $15/month, even with an LED light. I have no idea why. Unfortunately, my office is dark and I need a light when I'm working. I'm considering moving my desk.

jacob
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Re: Energy usage log

Post by jacob »

@jp - Just received our electric bill for September: $31.20 total ($8.65 is actual usage for 147kWh, the rest is fees and taxes). When I replaced my computer last year, I originally figured on getting a desktop rig and keeping up with hardware upgrades. However, realizing that I practically never switch my computer off, I went with a mini pc (intel nuc) which consumes about 10W. It's also easy to take with me if I travel.

theanimal
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Re: Energy usage log

Post by theanimal »

My electrical consumption at my cabin varies between 110-120 W/day. My electrical system primarily consists of lights, but I do charge up my laptop every few days and things like cameras, ipod and drill every once in a while. Right now, the sun is barely up above the horizon so I have to charge my batteries up by generator. If I am being conservative with my batteries, this necessitates a charge every 12 days. My neighbors charge every day. By extrapolating my current usage over the rest of the dark period, my yearly electrical costs (with extra thrown in as a buffer) come to be $100. 8-) I could likely decrease this with a more efficient generator, but I'm not going to drop $950 to save $20/yr.

Water consumption prior to putting in the well was about 2 gallons a day. One becomes quite conservative with water usage when you are the one that has to haul the water! Now that I installed a well, I'm less stringent. But still probably using only about 3-4 gal/day.

I'd like to measure wood consumption. I have not taken any steps in this regard yet.

Having to provide for my own power really opened my eyes to how much energy is wasted throughout the world, but especially in America. I am consuming an amount of power that is minute to the average homeowner, which in turn is minute to that of the power consumed by cities. It is still too abstract to firmly grasp how much is used (at least for me), but this increased understanding leads to irritating and more depressing thoughts.

cmonkey
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Re: Energy usage log

Post by cmonkey »

theanimal wrote:My electrical consumption at my cabin varies between 110-120 W/day.
So you are using 1 KWH every 8-10 days. Where I am billed that's $0.08/10 days or less than $0.25/month. This is really impressive, well done.

theanimal
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Re: Energy usage log

Post by theanimal »

@Cmonkey- Thanks. It's almost too bad I'm not connected to the grid..$0.25/month! Here it's roughly $1.50/hour to run a generator.

It's not so challenging to have low consumption with a small space. I have special dimmable 10 W LED lights that put out 1100 lumens. They can go down to 1 watt. I usually have them around 6 watts or so.

cmonkey
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Re: Energy usage log

Post by cmonkey »

theanimal wrote: It's almost too bad I'm not connected to the grid..$0.25/month!
I imagine if I were billed .25 for a month they would send someone out to inspect the meter for any 'shenanigans' . It would certainly cost more to send the bill through the mail. ;)

jennypenny wrote:My PC (on an average of 16 hours/day) is over $60/month. :shock: That has to change.
You got me to break down and get one of those kill-a-watt, just because I'm OCD like that. I unplugged the fridge in the garage, but it was only a couple years old so I don't think it was using much of anything. Newer ones are rated at about $40/year I guess.

cmonkey
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Re: Energy usage log

Post by cmonkey »

We have a fish tank in our kitchen with an air pump/air stone. I decided to look at the energy usage for the air pump and it was running at 1.5 amps/180 watts 24 hours a day. This is 4.32 KWH/day. Monthly that is about $10. Considering my 'baseline' energy bill (non-HVAC months) is about $70, this is 1/7 of my energy usage for some bubbles!

The filter uses minimal energy (9w).

Needless to say the air pump has been unplugged.

jacob
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Re: Energy usage log

Post by jacob »

180W for an airpump?!?!? That sounds bizarre. Remeasure.

cmonkey
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Re: Energy usage log

Post by cmonkey »

I did not measure, I simply looked at the electrical info on the bottom of it. Perhaps it uses less than the rated electrical draw?

When I get the meter, I'll post back the results.

cmonkey
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Re: Energy usage log

Post by cmonkey »

Damn! I thought I had found an easy to fix energy sink. It's only 1.5 Watts, not 1.5 amps. I have never seen a device label with watts.

The fish have their bubbles back. :?

cmonkey
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Re: Energy usage log

Post by cmonkey »

I have the Kill-A-Watt and spent a fun hour or two logging some stuff. Some surprises!

Fridge - Compressor runs at 130-150 watts. The lights run at 50 watt each so max is 250 watts for the whole unit. This was the biggest surprise! Over 12 hours it used .56 KWH. I'm going to let it log for 10 days and multiply by 3 to get my monthly usage. Why is this thing rated for 7.5 amps? I have it on 5 of 10 setting, so maybe I'll turn it up and see.

Aquarium - 10 watts total, including lights.

Automatic chicken door - .5 watts open, 1.1 watts closed

Christmas lights - 30 watts per string. We have 5.

Nightlight (incandescent) - 7 watts

Home theater system (27 inch tv, old dvd player and a 15 year old surround system) - 90 watts for everything

Vintage video game center - 35 watts for the old CRT tv and 8 watts for the SNES

Coffee maker - 900 watts for ~4-5 minutes. Based on this I will use 1 KWH every 17 pots of coffee. Usually only make a max of 2 per day so looking at ~4 KWH monthly.

Toaster - 750 watts per side. We almost never use it though.

Kitchenaid mixer - 160 watts on high, 30 watts on low

Electric can open (don't ask me why we have this) - 60 watts. Again, we never use this much.




Clearly I am not finding any energy sinks so I'll keep looking. My next targets are the microwave and computer. I suspect using our stove accounts for at least half of usage.

jacob
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Re: Energy usage log

Post by jacob »

@cmonkey - I'm guessing it's the starting current/spike of the compressor. You can make toast on a frying pan (no oil) if you want to get rid of the toaster.

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jennypenny
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Re: Energy usage log

Post by jennypenny »

cmonkey wrote:I have the Kill-A-Watt and spent a fun hour or two logging some stuff. Some surprises!
It's fun to play with, isn't it? My next target is the Christmas tree. If it's too much, I'm going to try putting solar lights on the tree since we set it up in the sunroom. They should get enough of a charge to light up the tree for a few hours at night. I keep solar lanterns in that room to use around the house at night, and they last until bedtime.

For toast alternatives, see avatar. :D

cmonkey
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Re: Energy usage log

Post by cmonkey »

@jacob, good idea. The burner uses at least 1200 watts which is more than the toaster, but we'd have counter space. It'll have to go through committee approval first. ;)

@JP, yes is it super fun! DW is more relieved than annoyed by this round of eccentricity actually because now I'm not complaining about the Christmas lights and the fridge anymore.

I have also had my eye on this as well, so I can monitor the large circuits. :D A good example.

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jennypenny
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Re: Energy usage log

Post by jennypenny »

Ha, that last one looks like Scott2's budget diagram from the other thread.

I've also been looking at switching to a 'green' electric supplier who advertises that they rely solely on wind power. I haven't done much research yet, but assuming it's what they advertise, I might be more comfortable with that if we don't install solar this year.

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