Very General question.

Looking for all kinds of answers.

No wrong answers. It my just spark a really good one.

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Making the world a better place just makes sense.

i did several things, 1st my driveway light was 175 watt hid fixture, i replaced it with one from wallmart that uses only 42watts it has a about the same lite output and it only cost about $20.00 bucks. that saved me about 48 kwh a month
2nd i got a kill-a watt meter and discovered that my VIP622 dishnet dvr used 50 watts all the time weather i was using it or not, i only watch tv about 4 hours a day, so i put a remote switch to the wall plug, i now turn the receiver off 20 hours a day, that saves about 30 kwh per month.
3rd i replaced all my incadesent bulbs with CFL's it is hard so say what that is saving me.

There is now an energy efficient alternative for almost every kind of appliance or light fixture. That means that consumers have a real choice and the power to change their energy use on a revolutionary scale.Here some simple tips which will help you in reducing electricity usage.
-Insulate your walls and ceilings.
-Turn your refrigerator down. Refrigerators account for about 20% of Household electricity use.
-Set your clothes washer to the warm or cold water setting, not hot.
-Purchase energy-efficient products
-Be careful not to overheat or overcool rooms.
-Wrap your water heater in an insulating jacket, which costs just $10 to $20

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To help those new to Solar Electricity

On the Extreme End!

Build small effeicent spaces, My tiny 12 x16 building with a sleeping loft is built with 2x6 walls, I have a second building, to house my cooking, and bathroom, these spaces are used for short periods of time then left vacant, to be heated and cooled, While it might be nice to add heat of cooking at times. I do use a ventless propane heater for short times, 1/2 hour or so before showering when it's frigid cold.

This does allow me to live completely off grid(OK I do have community water) and have a/c on a minimal system.

I do need to improve my water heater/storage as cloudy winter days don't allow for enough heating and I've even had problems keeping storage above freezing even with a small heat tape at the bottom. Likely I'll create storage for the water in a the berm shelter I'm creating for my batteries (this summers project), In this manner it'll reduce the worry aout freezing, but I'm not sure how this will effect the heated water...

*Divorce (not always particle)
*Put a dry towel in the drier when drying clothes, it can cut the time by 35-50%
*Triple pane windows
*Insulate and vapor seal under your house if you have a crawl space
*Go in your attic and caulk around ceiling fixtures
*After cooking open stove to recycle oven heat (winter)
*If you have a fireplace use an inflatable chimney sealer as well as closing the flew
*When taking a shower, get wet turn off the water lather up rinse off and get out
*Tank less water heater (I would go with gas 8 gpm apposed too 4 gallons)
*Don’t leave your porch light on go with a motion detector or dusk to dawn sensor
*We keep our thermostat down and use a space heater for our living room
*Get your wifes’ hair cut short (no blow drier needed)

hi, we just got solar panels and we've already discovered that cooking is a real big energy draw. And we love to cook!
any hints here as to how to be more efficient while cooking ? we already figured out it's best to cook as many meals at the same time as possible, but that's not always practical or doable.

Microwave, stove top, these are really big suckers of electricity.

Thanks.

Simple turn off every thing and live like a farmer or hermit.

• You do not need lights, mother nature provides all the light you need. Get up when the sun rises, and sleep when it is dark.
• You do not need TV's, phones, air conditioning, computers, or hot water.
• Grow your own food so you do not have to go to the store. This will put local grocery stores out of biz and shut down thier electrical needs.
• Home school your children more gas and tax money saved.
• Convert your extra cash to gold when things get bad so you have money worth something
• Use saw dust from local mills to provide cooking heat. Just become a vegan and you need no cooking heat because everything you eat is raw out of your garden.

Or you just concieve the idea to conserve, live within your means, appreciate modern life and accept the fact you need cheap energy .

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Dereck, PE, MSEE
Moderator

mimitabby

Look into using gas for cooking.

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My solar setup:
http://home.comcast.net/~n3qik
Updated 6-7-2009

Home Automation: http://68.81.42.56:5800/ Password = guest
Software/hardware 80% complete.

I would add heating and tankless hot water to that list.

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Dereck, PE, MSEE
Moderator

You could always replace your fridge with a chest freezer and control it using an external thermostat. Somthing like this:

http://mtbest.net/chest_fridge.html

We did it but I went the lazy route and picked up a chest fridge from my local hardware store and purchased a thermostat from here:

http://www.northernbrewer.com/temp-control.html

We've been using it for about 2 months now and I can tell you this. My original energy start upright took about 2Kwh to run all day long. With this setup my fridge takes about .250Kwh. (I havent taken readings on the chest freezer that I purchased but it claims on the sticker to only use 240Kwh all year which works out to .6Kwh per day.)

Seeing as the fridge made up for about 20% of our utility bill I am expecting to cut the energy usage that my upright used in half using this. Of course it takes some getting used to and a little more organizational skills but its really not that bad plus you would be suprised how much wasted space in an upright fridge there is.

I do miss the ice maker though....