Kill-A-Watt Rocks

[priusblue]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(bigdaddy @ Apr 26 2006, 08:14 PM) [snapback]245813[/snapback]</div>

I bought a small kit, see page 2 of this thread where daryllDD were talking about this type of setup...

http://priuschat.com/index.php?showtopic=17088&st=20

Not hard to do, I have mine propped up outside my office window facing SSW, put the battery in a waterproof box outside the window...

I use an inverter for most things, but is inefficient, though not sure how much power I am using going through the inverter.
[/b]

Thanks! I'll look into it - maybe for my next birthday present (I don't think my husband will think this is any weirder than when I asked for the electric edger?) Hmmmm....

[darelldd]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(bigdaddy @ Apr 26 2006, 05:14 PM) [snapback]245813[/snapback]</div>

I bought a small kit, see page 2 of this thread where daryllDD were talking about this type of setup...
[/b]

Hey great. I'm glad you got that going.

As far as I'm concerned every house should have 12V DC outlets all over the place - or at a minimum in the "office." room. All battery chargers would then be nominal 12V, and would not need to converte DC to AC, and remain "on" all the time. The 12V outlets could be easily fed by a small PV panel and/or a battery... OR it could very simply be fed by a single converter from the AC mains. It is amazingly stupid that in today's modern office there are countless individual converters for every peripheral and battery charger. I don't think I could count all mine if I tried.

Color printer
Laser printer
desk phone
cell phone
flashlight
DSL modem
router
scanner
laptop external hard drive

That's just in two seconds off the top of my head. Each one of these things has its own wasteful converter! Ug.

[Bob Allen]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(priusblue @ Apr 10 2006, 10:56 PM) [snapback]237488[/snapback]</div>

So, I bought a Kill-A-Watt meter:

link

as mentioned on this post a while back

a few weeks ago, and I've tested basically everything in the house at this point. I found out lots of stuff to help my energy leaks and also figured out what doesn't make a difference.

Things that really don't matter (don't draw when they're off) include:
1) electric toothbrush charger
2) hair dryer
3) cell phone charger (this was good news)
4) clocks
5) TV - it's an energy star and draws only 2 watts when off - but I still plugged it in to a Smart Strip
6) Fridge - it's 6 years old, but still about as good as the newest energy star models

But there were a few surprises
1) Our relatively small freezer - pulls 380 kWH per year - ouch! Almost as much as our fridge - I'm going to try to move most of our stuff to the regular freezer and only use the outside freezer when needed. I may switch to a smaller chest style freezer in a few years.
2) The computer "standby" mode doesn't help much at all. The computer pulls about 80 watts regular, but still 60 when on standby. We've switched to hibernate mode, which still starts up quick, but only draws 4 watts
3) Our dish network box. This sucker draws 30 watts all the time! Even when the TV is off. The problem is that it takes 5 mins + to reinitialize with the sattelite, etc. So, I'm thinking about a timer for it to only be on in the evenings when we actually use the TV. I actually wrote a letter to Dish Network on this one.

I also found out that we have pretty high voltage, which makes our CFL bulbs draw a little (1 W) more than specified (and everything else, I suppose). All in all, I think the above changes in addition to using smart strips on our TV/AV equipment and computer accessories (hooked up to the monitor which turns off when the CPU goes to hibernate) will cut about 700 kWH/ year, even without taking any action on the freezer. That means this device will pay for itself in about 6 months. Sweet!

Anybody use timers on their hot water heaters? Does that work well?
[/b]

You mentioned that your TV only draws 2 watts when off. Sounds like a really small amount of energy until you think about it running 24/7. That's 48 watts a day, and about 1440 watts monthly. 1.4 kw/hr a month is something to think about. My point is that if you look at these mini consumers in isolation from one another, you miss the cumulative effect. When we did a power survey in our house, using a kilowatt meter, we found 200 watts of "hidden" power consumption, mostly in remotes, unneeded clocks, computers on standby, etc. How many clocks does a house need? Our microwave has one, the stove has one and there is (was) a clock on the wall. We put the microwave on a power strip and turned off the clock........

Check out this statistic:
1. We found 200 watts/hr of hidden energy consumption. Probably typical; let's assume it is.
2. That comes to 4800 watts a day, wasted energy.
3. There are 12 houses on our block. Multiply our house by 12 and you get 57,600 watts a day, wasted.
4. Now, there are about 70 million households in the US. Multiply our daily wastage of 4800 watts by 70 million households and you get a staggeringly large number, something like 3360 x 10 8th hours of totally wasted energy.
5. If we actually saved that energy, we could eliminate 30 full scale power plants with NO reduction in our lifestyles....

Dick Cheney thinks this is a fine "personal virtue", but not part of what he calls a sound energy policy. I think he's full of s***.

[DocVijay]

I just replaced twenty-four 65 watt bulbs, two 60 watt bulbs, and two 45 watt bulbs with fluorescent bulbs. Doing some quick math, and assuming on average 5 hours of use each day, I've gone from 8.65 kwh to 3.04 kwh just for lights per day. Not bad. Over a year that's over 2000 kwh saved!

Combine that with my new washer and dryer, which are advertised as the most energy efficient full size machines, and my bills should be getting much lower.

All other appliances are already Energy Star, so not much more to change for the big users.

I've thought about shutting off all the little things (PC's, AV gear) but it's too much of a hassle. Those will have to keep drawing their power.

Our roof already has a radiant barrier, too.

[viking31]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(DocVijay @ May 4 2006, 04:13 PM) [snapback]249873[/snapback]</div>

I just replaced twenty-four 65 watt bulbs, two 60 watt bulbs, and two 45 watt bulbs with fluorescent bulbs. Doing some quick math, and assuming on average 5 hours of use each day, I've gone from 8.65 kwh to 3.04 kwh just for lights per day. Not bad. Over a year that's over 2000 kwh saved!
[/b]

I see you live in Tampa (I'm in Bradenton) and you will be saving even more because of the reduced load you A/C will have to deal with from the relatively large amounts of heat radiated from the incandescent bulbs. That's one of the reasons I have them throughout my house.

FYI here in West Central Florida we pay about 10.5 cents/kwh. Not too long ago it was usually 8 cents but fuel surcharges have come into play.

Rick
2006 #4

[priusblue]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Bob Allen @ May 4 2006, 03:37 PM) [snapback]249845[/snapback]</div>

You mentioned that your TV only draws 2 watts when off. Sounds like a really small amount of energy until you think about it running 24/7.
[/b]

Yeah - that's why I plugged it, and all of the other stuff into one of those smart strips that stops the electricity from flowing when the TV and or receiver are off. I've noticed a pretty big difference already. This past month was very temperate in NC, and we didn't run or heat our a/c much at all (we're all electric), but our bill was over 100 kWh lower than ever before Pretty awesome! I've leant out the kill-a-watt to a friend and have 3 others that are waiting to borrow it - so it's a start!

It would be great if they made some sort of small switch to put in the outlet when you plug something in so that you don't have to use big power strips or timers for everything.... Any body seen anything like that?

[cwerdna]

Yup! It is a cool device. I just got one recently from http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=...74&loc=111&sp=1 ($18.99, much cheaper than most places but they're out of stock again)

Here are some of my findings:
Dell 2001FP: 37 W
Dell 2005FPW: 39-40 W
Sony GDM-500PS 21" CRT monitor:
- 2 W in standby
- 93 W when in WinXP at desktop w/default background
- ~115 W when displaying an all white screen
Athlon 64 3200+ machine w/Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe mobo and Antec 450W Smartpower PSU, Cool n Quiet enabled, 2 hard drives and 2 video cards:
- 8 W w/power "off"
- 101 W at idle
- 130 W when running distributed.net client & World Community Grid Agent; still need to run a graphics benchmark;
1.25 ghz Mac Mini:
- 1 W w/power "off",
- ~14 W at idle
- ~31 W when running distributed.net client
Infocus X1 projector:
- ~200 W on
- ~20 W when "off' and fan is at high speed for 1 minute after shutdown
- ~18 W (!) when "off" [fan running at low speed]
Power Mac G5 2 ghz dual proc at work w/a 17" ADC display attached and both CPUs maxed w/distributed.net client: ~390 W! [unhooking the ADC powered display makes the usage go down ~40 W]
RCA DVR80 DirecTivo w/2nd hard drive and extra fan: 45-47 W
cheapy Memorex 13" CRT TV bought in end of 2004:
- 3 W "off"
- 29-33 W typical usage
- 44 W w/an all white screen