Saving Electicity, Saving Money

In My Humble Opinion
1

My usual summer blues of getting the $300 monthly electic bill.

So, every penny counts and thought I would run down a few tips from friends and relatives to find out if they were useful tips, or just useless tips:

  1. When not at home, turn OFF the air conditioner here in Nevada - supposedly because of low/no humidity here, unlike back in the midwest, it takes far less time to cool the house and cheaper than running it all day.

  2. Keep the central air conditioning fan on ALL THE TIME, as it circulates the air and makes it so the thermostat doesn’t kick on so often. (I think this trick supposedly works if I don’t turn off the air conditioning by day when I am at work.)

  3. Never leave chargers (phone/Nook/iPad etc.) plugged in the wall when not charging, as the chargers still suck electricity out even if there is nothing to charge.

  4. No need to run bathroom fans when showering here in the summer - again, due to low humidy, there is little chance for water to develop mold and once you open the bathroom door, that bit of water in the air will be gone in a flash. Plus, running the fan while taking a shower sucks the cool air from central air conditionlng out the roof.

  5. Set the air conditioner to 81 degrees day and night. The constant temp is better than changing it several times a day.
    Feel free to add any additional helpful tips, but also feel free to debunk/support any of the suggestions well-meaning relatives and friends have put forth.

2

toss all of your incandescent light bulbs into the trash. a bit over a year ago my folks spent about $200 on (decent quality) LED replacement bulbs, and they paid for themselves in 7 months. Incandescents are at best 2% efficient at doing their intended job. Their day is done.

3

Keeping the fan running all the time has to be a bad idea power-wise.

The chargers for iPhones, etc. consume trivial amounts of power when they are unloaded. Unplugging them won’t make a dent in your electric bill.

Setting the AC to 81 day and night takes more energy then setting it to 78 at night and 83 during the day.

If you really want to save money, look at the big-ticket items first - AC/Pool/Refrigerators/Electric dryers/Dishwashers/Water heaters. Replace all Incandescents with CFLs or LEDs.

4

Opinions are best solicited in IMHO, rather than General Questions. Moved.

samclem, moderator

5

If they’re modern switched-mode PSUs, they don’t consume very much power when plugged in but not in use (although it probably still saves a few pennies a year if you turn them off)

Anyway, my tip is:
In the shower, turn on the water for a minute and get thoroughly wet, then turn it off. Soap and shampoo yourself all over, then turn the water on again to rinse it off - not only does this save water and the cost of heating it, you may actually end up cleaner because the soap isn’t washed off before it can have any effect.

6

Read physical books instead of ebooks. :stuck_out_tongue:

7

How do you have a $300 monthly electric bill?!
Is that normal in Nevada? I have a 4 bedroom house in Chicago, it’s old and leaks like a sieve and I have 3 kids with tvs and computers and all that good stuff and we’ve never had a bill even close to that.

8

I think it has to be an AC thing. I have a 4 br in Florida, 2 kids and $300 is average. More in the summer and less in the “winter” but the AC is necessary to combat the humidity in the house. Otherwise towels would never dry and things get musty.

9

Only use the dishwasher and washing machine when they’re full (trying different settings to get the most economical). Also rinse dishes before you put in the washer.

We’re similar to Mangetout - wet and wash hair and rinse, turn off shower, condition hair, lather on body wash, scrub skin, cut nails and shave body hair (if necessary), rinse.

Air dry wet clothes and bedding whenever possible.

Keep a/c off when not in, preferably using on a timer so the house is cooling when you get back.

10

It’s really easy to have huge electric bills in the summer when it’s 110°+ outside.
I’ve cut my electricity usage substantially, (mostly by installing a SEER-16 heat pump), and I still have $250/month bills. Having an all-electric house doesn’t help, either.

11

Hang your clothes out to dry. When you live in NV or AZ (as I do) a dryer is redundant.

12

Here in Michigan, summers are humid, so using the fan to expel warm humid air is a no-brainer. For you, it might be mostly whether the air in the bathroom is warmer or cooler than outside. If the bathroom air during a shower is warmer than outside, you’re reducing the heat in your house by running the fan. If you take your shower in the morning, isn’t that the case?

13

It doesn’t matter what the climate is. In any climate, you save money by turning off the AC when not at home. Keeping a house cool all day always takes more energy than letting it warm up then cooling it back down.

The best thing you can do is not use the A/C unless absolutely necessary. Open windows, use fans, wear minimal clothing, etc. And turn on the AC only when it’s still unbearable. My wife and I live in Alabama and last year, I think we only used the A/C a couple of times when we had company. So far this year, we haven’t used it even once. (Though we do have a huge tree on the south side of the house, which helps a lot. And we have window fans in almost every room.)

Also, laundry doesn’t really need warm water unless you have visible stains you’re trying to take out. “Cool” setting works just fine.

14

One other thing - old computers use a lot of power. My old Core-i7 desktop used about 130 W idle, and the CFC-backlit LCD monitor consumed something like 80W. My new laptop + new 27" desktop monitor (LED backlit) consume 55W total. Of course, even with a modern computer, you want to set it to go to sleep mode automatically.

15

For us (SE Georgia, and yes, a $300+ electric bill isn’t rare during the muggy hot summer time):
Change your lightbulbs to fluorescent and/or LED.
Only turn on the dryer, dishwasher, or oven after the sun has gone down.
Choose the room you use most. Install a modern, efficient window a/c. Turn the whole-house thermostat to a higher setting, and use the window a/c to keep your primary room at a comfortable temperature.
Lower the temperature on your water heater during summer months, if possible. (If you use a dishwasher, and have a model that won’t heat its own water, this may not be practical.)
Hang clothes to dry whenever possible.

I would think that running the central a/c fan all of the time would be a bad idea - fans don’t cool anything, and constant running would create more risk of malfunction. But maybe there’s a benefit I don’t know about? I’ve never lived in a low-humidity climate…

16

The first thing to do is to figure out exact what that $300 is being spent on. For example get a
Kill a Watt Meter from a place like Amazon. For example you might find out you are spending $150/year on your refrigerator. And looking at new refrigerators you see you can cut this down to $50/year (there have been really massive improvements in refrigerator energy efficiency).

17

And if you have to use the dryer, make sure you clean out the lint trap.

18

My A/C guy specifically recommends NOT turning it off in the summer, but rather up. (Arizona)
He says you’re working the unit way too hard turning it off, and your refrigerator will work way harder, aging that as well. And consuming power.

19

For the OP, you live in Nevada. Get a swamp cooler. It uses much less electricity as it’s just a pump and a fan. They aren’t effective in climates with higher humidity, but perfect for the desert.

If you can, vent the hot air out your house while you are away during the day. I had a house designed and built in Tokyo, and had a passive heat flow venting system where cool air would come in ground level and would be naturally vented at the highest point. In the summer, we would augment it with an fan.

The sun is not your friend. I install sun shades for the summer, especially on the south and west sides of the house. We had a “green curtain” of vine plants on the west side of our house. Shutting curtains and blinds while you are away is helpful.

Our house was would become considerably less hot that our neighbors who didn’t take such steps.

In our current house, I’ve used plastic sheets to direct hot air flow up open stairs and to contain cool air.

We use fans a lot, especially when doing something like posting. Even in this high humidity, having moving air keeps it comfortable.

Some debunking.

Several points are wrong, but especially No. 5. The greater the difference in temperature between the inside and outside air contributes to the greater amount of heat penetration into the house. There is nothing magic about a given set temperature, so keeping it at 81 constantly means that the air conditioner had to work harder during the day and less so at night.

This is related to No. 1. Even in hot, humid areas (such as Taiwan, where I now live), an air conditioner would have to work much harder to keep a house cool all day while no one is there, rather than just use it to cool the house when you return.

If you think about winter and heat escaping, it cost much more to heat a house all day, than to let it got cold while no one is there, and then heat it.

20

Don’t use a dishwasher, wash them in the sink by hand after each meal.