Shy Picker said:
Wow, do you even turn on a light?
I live in an old farm house that was first built in 1910. But I have done a
lot of improvements.
The water heater is about 10 years old.
The Heat Pump is only 2 years old but I use it for air conditioning more
than heating. I have a pellet stove that I use a lot for heat but it doesn't
keep the adjacent rooms very warm. But a pellet stove is high maintenance
and when it is being serviced, I only have the heat pump for backup and that
takes a lot of energy,
I have an open, airy, 1900 sq/ft house and we use our fireplace and one of
those tank-top propane heaters. You are not supposed to use them indoors
but, from what I've read, the problem is oxygen consumption and not-so-much
carbon monoxide. You can't fall asleep with it on. By having the heater
running in the family room with the ceiling fan on medium (blowing upwards)
it makes all but the bedrooms comfortable. My house is two years old and is
very well insulated. If we get it up to about 66 degrees F, stop putting
wood in the fireplace, and turn off the propane heater it will be around
59-60 degrees in the house when we get up in the morning even if it's 10-15
below zero outside. I live in the desert and have no air conditioning. We
have a small swimming pool and use small fans. I also have a homebrew
evaporative cooler that, if it gets that bad, you just sit in front of.
Yesterday it was only about 100 outside but the air from the cooler was 63.
Very comfortable for me. At night, except on the hottest nights, we use
some small 120mm brushless DC fans (for cooling electronics) connected to a
suitable wallwart (transformer) and put it on the windowsill blowing cool
outside air in. They use about 8-12 watts and I'm completely comfortable at
night. My evaporative cooler uses about 102-112 watts depending upon the
fan speed. On really hot nights we use a 20" box fan (95-100 watts
according to my Kill A Watt) in the windowsill blowing in.
I'm going to build a solar pre-heater for my water heater as soon as I
finish some other projects. I live in South California and it's almost
always sunny here. My 650 gallon water tank is on top of my hill (gravity
feed) and the water temp is usually warm enough for me (but not my wife and
daughters) by the end of the day. The gravity feed also eliminates the need
for a pump to pressurize the system.
I already use a lot of those new light bulbs but I have to leave the living
room light on all night because my wife had a terrible head injury accident
a few years ago and she is up a lot at night to watch tv and I can't take a
chance of her falling in the dark.
I leave a white LED solar-powered Malibu light on at night (if there's no
moon). It might not be enough light for your purposes but for us we can
walk through most of the house without stepping on the dogs or tripping over
anything. Some of the CF light bulbs only use about 13 watts so that is not
a significant draw. We are using a generator to charge our batteries and
when we turn it off at night for the most part we use oil lamps. Some are
brighter than others and some lamp oil burns brighter than other oil. But
you can't fall asleep with them on.
I have several ceiling fans to move the air around and they are on a lot but
I just saw a report that says that they are not very helpful compared to the
energy they use.
My bedroom ceiling fan is rated for 8, 28, and 57 watts. My little
oscillating fan uses 30 or 40 watts. Personally I feel a lot more breeze
from 30 watts on the little fan than I do with 57 watts on the ceiling fan.
Ceiling fans, however, are great for circulating warm air in the winter by
reversing the direction.
I got a new 50" LCD TV so the wife can see it better and it is on a lot but
that can't be helped because she needs the distraction.
So that makes it a necessity. When not using our TV and DVD stuff it gets
unplugged (via a power strip switch). I have to wait a couple of minutes
after repowering the satellite receiver before I can use it but I just plan
for it. We also unplug the laptop computer and microwave when not in use.
All of these draw a little current when plugged in which may not be
significant if you are on the grid but can be if you are running from
batteries, especially if you are burning fuel to charge the batteries. In
any case you might find that you could reduce your consumption a little by
unplugging stuff that you don't use very often.
Like others suggested reducing your consumption and and increasing your
insulation is likely to make much more sense financially. Solar panels and
wind generators make living off the grid viable but it takes a long time to
see a return on your investment and according to some statistics most people
don't live in one house long enough to ever see that, Hopefully they will
get more for their house because of solar panels etc but it might be like
putting in a swimming pool--it raises your property taxes but not
necessarily your resale value because many people don't want a swimming
pool.
