Electric Stovetop Cooking: Conservation ideas

Who would have though we could find the root cause of global warming this quick.

 

Could that be a multi-heatlamp fixture? I don't get a sense of scale, but the bulb faces look identical to my heatlamp. I see images of double and quad fixtures online too.

If that is what it is, the sockets are standard edison bases. If you need only light, not heat, just unscrew the bulbs and replace them with something else. Anything else. Some PAR LED floodlights might be best, but any other standard base lamp might be a good start.

 

And so easily treatable too!

 

I pulled it off the junction box, but don't yet find any specs online. It is a GE Class 2 transformer, 10V, 5VA. Various markings include GE 2250-0, 118V 60Hz, UL Listed 669Z Korea. I'll have to put a suicide cord on it and plug into the Kill-A-Watt to get its standby loss.

The house's original smoke detector is also pulled down now. It claims 0.1W Standby, 5.0W Alarm. This wired unit is now retired and will be replaced. Until then, three battery powered units (much newer) are in other locations.

 

Just like we monitor MPG to warn us of subtle failures in our vehicles, we would do well to monitor electrical consumption to warn of electrical failures.

 

While that is true, I have found out that simple air conditioning ducting split can show up with a much bigger jump than any electrical failure.

 

If the power factor of your load is = 1.0 the 5VA = 5W, otherwise it is less than 5W, but for conversational purposes on a doorbell circuit it isn't very important. Depending on what type of doorbell you have 5VA may be enough. Standby power should be a fraction of that if it is rated at 5 vA

 

Done ... 1 to 2W (mostly 1W, occasionally jumping to 2W for a moment). The lighted door switch (pulling 23mA at 13V) doesn't change anything. One of my Kill-A-Watts had a zero-offset issue, but plugging an incandescent bulb in parallel didn't change the increment added by the transformer.

This is small enough that I won't bother replacing it with a more efficient wall wart.

The smoke detector doesn't even register on the meter, even with its status LED on.

 

I plugged a multi-outlet power strip into the Kill-A-Watt. The transformer was connected to a suicide cord with wire nuts, then plugged into the outlet strip. A separate lamp was also plugged into the same strip. Power was measured in all combinations.

 

In theory, it shouldn't make much difference what kind of load is added in parallel. In practice, an incandescent nightlight (e.g. C7) is probably best, as it is only a few watts and purely resistive, thus very friendly to any vagaries of the power meter.

The lamp I grabbed initially had a 1W LED lamp. I wanted more offset, so swapped it with something in the spare bulb box. The first one out was an appliance bulb that came out of the refrigerator when I put LEDs inside.

 

As of lunch time today, it is now installed and metering. I'm hoping for a respectable sale on heat pump water heaters around Memorial Day. While not as good as a full year of data, at least this will give some pre-swap usage data.

 

Now the challenge is to maintain a constant lifestyle for a meaningful comparison.

 

I'll have to make the best of imperfect data.

The meter is refurbished, purchased online.

The heat pumps under consideration are all air sourced, free standing units not tied to any central heating system.

The original heater location was in a closet next to the kitchen pantry. It was recently moved to the garage, with new wiring and plumbing. This freed up that closet as additional pantry space -- shelving finished yesterday -- and puts the next water heater failure in a safer place, outside the main house and away from the nice flooring put in after a previous failure.

In this climate, HPWHs must be put in a garage or other un- (or semi-) conditioned space to qualify for incentives. We normally run 4400-5000 heating degree days here. Nighttime garage temp goes to the mid-60s in summer (daytime much warmer in good weather), and mid-30s in winter (with little daytime warming). Two of the available models work in HP mode down to about 45F. Both will default to resistance mode a good portion of the year, and would be cooling today's 53F down to their lower operating limit. One now has a ducting option, to exhaust the chilled air outdoors. But the duct kit hasn't existed long enough to show up in independent test results. Tests show this unit works at a noticeably colder '45F' than the other.

The most expensive choice works with ambient air down to 20F. It has ducted exhaust, required for its incentive program, and is the only choice currently meeting the Northern Climate Specification Tier 2. It has many configurable settings for techies to play with. But it fell off my utility's incentive list over the winter due to an electrical problem, and has not reappeared. Thus I cannot double-dip on incentives as with the others. Lacking teenagers in the household, it seems unlikely to save enough to produce a payback.

A couple great incentive programs were missed over the fall and winter when I wasn't paying attention, but more are expected. But product design is clearly not yet mature for cold climates, so there may still be some value to waiting another year or two.

The electric energy here is virtually carbon-free (mostly hydro), thanks to booking shenanigans and legal preferences allowing public utilities to get first choice, and push the local coal plant output onto the private utilities lower in the pecking order. But I figure that all my conservation will still help, as it frees up more carbon-free energy to shift to someone else to displace their carbon.