Jul 22 2010
More Money Saving Energy Tips Revealed
We all wish to conserve cash, here are 4 more easy projects you can do to save. The yearly cost savings starts to add up with every task you complete.
1. Vent your dryer throughout winter. At our home we have routed the clothes dryer heat vent towards the inside of the home throughout the winter months. We live in a really dry climate, so the additional moisture is really a benefit. You will find two main benefits of venting inside. First of all, you recover the heat that was used to dry the clothes which is roughly about 2 kWh every load. Secondly, you prevent bringing in cold outside air to make up for that air that the dryer is pushing outside. To vent to the inside, you have to have a dry climate, an electrical dryer only, along with a method to catch the lint within the dryer exit stream. The price of this task was $20.00 for some tubing along with a lint filter. Gas dryers by no means should ever be vented inside, simply because toxic combustion products are in the vented air. Electrical dryers should only be vented within if your climate is dry, because of moisture difficulties. Energy cost savings each year would be 630 kWh having a cost savings of $63.00 each year.
2. Use electric mattress pads. Unlike electric blankets, the energy consumption for mattress pad heaters is really low, about 0.15 kWh every night. By utilizing these electrical mattress pads to heat the bed, we are able to maintain the temperature in the rest of the home at a lower level and still be very comfortable. In our home we have two furnaces but since putting in the electric mattress pad heaters, we have been able to turn off the furnace that heats the bedrooms. The cost savings per year in propane is considerable. Others have reported being able to do the same thing with good quality down comforters or something comparable. The electric mattress pad heaters differ in cost, but ours was $125.00. The energy savings each year is 2.320 kWh along with a cost savings of $186.00 each year.
3. Insulate windows with bubble wrap. This really is a neat concept that comes from the greenhouse crowd. You are able to insulate windows by utilizing bubble wrap packing material and spraying a water mist on the window, after which applying bubble wrap. The bubble wrap will generally stay in place for a full season with only a one time spraying. The bubble wrap is unattractive to look at, but does permit great daylight to come in. It is really a great choice for windows you do not have to look out of. This is very cost efficient, payback is generally less than 1 heating season. At the end of the winter season, you are able to just pull the bubble wrap away, roll it up and conserve it for next year. If you are going to use a great deal of bubble wrap, it would be worth finding a dealer in packing materials to purchase it from, or a greenhouse supply location. You can get bubble wrap from shipping businesses but their costs are a lot greater. My cost was 27 cents per square foot for 141 square feet, for a total of $38.00. You are able to do this task in just a couple of hours. The energy cost savings was 955 kWh and the yearly cost savings was $75.00.
4. Get rid of phantom electrical loads. Many people are not aware of this, but energy is still used even when something is switched completely off! These phantom loads, as they are referred to, do not amount to alot, but they can add up and what a waste of electricity. The simplest method to figure out how much energy your appliances and gadgets consume even when they are powered down is with an inexpensive meter, called the Kill-A-Watt. You plug the Kill-A-Watt into the wall, then plug the device into it. The meter measures energy use and keeps a total of it. Other brands function similarly, Watts Up is another one you can use. In my house, all of the phantom loads added as much as 80 watts of energy all total. That’s 700 kWh each year. With energy strips, you are able to totally turn off every thing plugged into them by turning off the energy strip it self. We utilized energy strips to get rid of 20 of the 80 watts used in our home We found out that the remaining 60 watts was my dish HDTV receiver. Turning it off has no effect on its energy consumption whatsoever. The only cost involved in this task was a few energy strips, about $20.00 worth. I spent an additional $50.00 to upgrade my satellite receiver. It still consumes energy when it is turned off, but only about 15 watts verses 60 watts. The energy cost savings is 569 kWh each year with a cost savings of $57.00 each year.
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