[SolarDave]

Has anyone else ever gone to the trouble of insulating an interior wall or floor?

yes!

I have one room that is my "home office" and during a recent remodel I had the walls (interior and exterior) insulated. Not only is the home office the quietest room in the house, the computer keeps the room warm all winter. I live in California, so "winter" just means temps during the day of 40-60, but still, it's nice to be able to turn off the heat to the entire house and have this room stay comfortable all day.

[snax]

We have an all electric 1350 sq ft. house with 5 people and 2 dogs, and our useage runs between 1100-2000 kWh despite our best efforts to leave the TV on all day! (A jab at my SAHM wife. :D)

CFLs have made little difference, but I think the bulk of the expense comes down to our hot water, dryer, and oven use. As even with our best efforts, you can't dry clothes on a line very well when it's raining, and it's difficult to say no to good cooking. Hot water use I suppose is even more of a vice with people dawdling in the shower and such. (Perhaps I should install one of those point of use 10 gallon heaters for the whole house. I think 5 minute showers would be on the high end with that!)

[ACrisisAwaits]

My summer usage is from air conditioning. Last year, the landlord planted a tree in the backyard, but it will be years (probably too late for me) before it provides the shade needed to reduce the need for air conditioning. I have a window unit and set it to maintain an indoor temperature of 79 degrees in summer (about 3.5 on the 1-7 scale with 7 being the coolest setting). To conserve energy next summer, I'll use the aluminum-in-the-windows trick again. I'll need to find some form of insulation that will still allow me to open windows. It would also help if I can find a way to withstand an indoor temperature of over 80 degrees.

Try taking cold water showers twice a day. But of course sometimes in the summer the "cold" water is 90 degrees.
Also, you can try to use a dehumidifier, if it gets humid in your area. I think they use somewhat less energy than an A/C. If it is dry in your area, consider buying a swamp coooler, which consume far less (1/5) than an A/C.

According to weather.com, http://www.weather.com/weather/wxclimat ... imoMonth=8
the mean daily temperature doesn't ever seem to go much above 75, which in theory should mean so need for A/C assuming a thermostat setting of 78.

Since it seems to get into the low sixties at night, perhaps you should try a whole-house fan. They also consume far less energy than an A/C.

[snax]

Try taking cold water showers twice a day. But of course sometimes in the summer the "cold" water is 90 degrees.

Thankfully not here! 65F tops!

Since it seems to get into the low sixties at night, perhaps you should try a whole-house fan. They also consume far less energy than an A/C.

I think that is one of the best ideas for moderate climates and we will likely install one for our house before the summer heat kicks in this year. It would be nice not to have to open every single window and wait hours for the air to slowly convect out on windless evenings. We won't keep the downstairs windows open at night because of the security risk, and they are rarely open long enough during the cool hours to drop the temperature enough. Perhaps we could avoid the AC completely most days that way.

[topcat]

We hang a lot of our laundry on plastic hangers to dry, especially in the heating months. I figure this is a double win - no dryer running and it helps to add moisture into the heat-dried air. But, there only two of us humans here.

Is your shower head one of those that just goes cold to hot without being able to reduce the flow? We have one of each and I swear some day the other one will be replaced. Really like the one that I can set the temp and then reduce the flow (at least I do).

[lady-t]

in the last year i have replace all my windows with thermal pane insulated one's, i have added 3/4" insulation around the entire house and sheeted the whole of the outside including the roof with sheet metal, i have replace all but one appliance with an energy star models. i have built a porch 12' out down the entire west side of my home for shade in the summer, i have covered with porches the other two exterior doors. i have replace all my light bulbs in my home with compact fluorescents. i don't even wash my clothes in warm water i use cold.

and still my electric bill did not drop. two months ago i looked at the bill and i had used less energy than the previous year at that time and my bill raise up one dollar. the cost of the energy is outstripping my conservation efforts.

now, last year we had a heat wave and drought, but this year has been kinda temperate. and my house is all electric except for the cook stove which is propane.

i don't know what else i can do other than bake in the summer and freeze in the winter. we live in a high humidity area so i don't think that evaporative coolers will actually work well here.

[snax]

It might be worth taking a look at all of your parasitic loads. I suspected and recently confirmed that our satellite system and stereo alone were sucking 40W from the outlet 24/7 in the off state.

40W x 24H x 30days = 28.8 kWH

At 9 cents per kWH, thats only $2.59, but it's just one example of the many items in our house that draw power just for being plugged in. All told, we are probably wasting $20/month on these stupidly designed devices that don't truly shut down.

Granted, heating and cooling loads are by far the largest chunk of the picture, but take a careful look at what all of the little things in your house are using before getting too up in arms.

And plant some leafy shade trees on your east and west sides. Barring that, consider exterior shades that hang from the eaves of the house to help control solar heat gain.

[PeakOiler]

I recently updated my energy spreadsheets with the 2007 data. Here are the charts:

Annual Gasoline use and cost:



Annual Electricity use and cost:



I used more gasoline last year since I helped my younger brother move to the Houston area and he needed the use of my F-150 and my labor.

Note that my 2007 gasoline costs were about the same as in 1999.

So how am I doing? You tell me.

Edit: Oops. I checked and corrected my spreadsheets since the 2006 gasoline amount seemed a bit low. Apologies. Bad XL link.

[PeakOiler]

I thought I should point out that the data graphed above are from the gasoline retailer's receipts (which give amount in gallons to three decimal places) and the electricity data are from my utility bills.

[patience]

HamRadioRocks,
Great thread idea! I wish I had cool charts to contribute, but I'm late to that party. We have saved electric bills from several years, and will post that when we have data on our latest improvements. We are all electric, but will have wood heat by next winter, and have made many conservation efforts.

Has anyone tried window awnings to reduce summer cooling needs? I want to try that. How about IR barrier foil in the attic? We put that in over a foot of fibreglas, but no data yet.

We have tracked gas mileage for a long time, but only recently added tracking total usage. Our "fleet average" has gone up recently, trading one truck for a small car, and we hope to cut driving miles this year by reducing a 32 mile commute to a 5 mile commute with a new job for my wife

At this point, I am in shotgun-mode, with respect to conservation, and will fine tune later, after we get major items out of the way.

[snax]

Window awnings and blinds can make a huge difference in solar heat gain. Think about how hot your car gets on a sunny summer day with the windows up. Most of that heat is from the energy that goes through the glass.

If you have east and west facing glass that gets full sun, or if you south facing windows are not properly shaded in the summer, you can have allot of unwanted solar heat gain in the summer.

[Ludi]

We have awnings on our west-facing windows, and it has made a huge difference in the comfort of the house. We don't use AC in the house, except in the business work areas (office, workroom), and then only on the hottest days. The awnings were one of the very first improvements we made to the house and they have been a tremendous help. The only drawback is they make a lot of noise during windy nights. They are fabric awnings and are beginning to fray a bit now after about 8 years.


I should mention we live in Central Texas, a hot climate.

[patience]

I'm planning to put up metal awnings using leftover white metal roofing from our new house roof. Permanently mounted. Then, simple, passive solar window box heaters for winter heat gain. In summer, they can be diverted for food drying. See the neat stuff in the food drying thread!