Reducing Electric Bills revisited

It's been more than a year since I've posted about techniques for reducing your electricity bill. At that time I promised that I'd let you know how much electricity I've saved.

My monthly average consumption has gone from a peak of 283 KWH/Month in 2003, down to 131 KWH/Month - a reduction of almost 55%!

The techniques I used for cutting my electric consumption by 55% are:

Replaced traditional lightbulbs with CFL bulbs.
Turn off lights, appliances, and equipment when not in active use.
Set my refrigerator to about 38 degrees F, and the freezer to 5 degrees F
Turned off the useless "anti-sweat" feature of my refrigerator
Run dish washer and wash clothes only when the load is full - and when they don't have to compete with the airconditioner (or can assist in heating)
Only run the air conditioner and fans when someone is home.

... and that's it! It was that easy - no pain, lots of gain. I notice that my consumption continues to fall - I'll provide another update at the end of 2007!

Fixing a SodaStream Jet, part 1: Disassembly Guide

I've had my SodaStream Jet for years, and once in a while something has gone wrong. Disassembly is the first step to repair. Start with this article to see how to disassemble the SodaStream, and then once you have that down, scroll through my other articles to see how I repaired specfic SodaStream problems. SodaStream Jet Disassembly Guide Tools Required Flat head screwdriver Phillips head screwdriver 1. Remove the Carbonator. Duh. 2. Remove the black panel lever The front big black tilt lever needs to be removed first. Removing this panel is tricky, but it isn't impossible. Looking up at the bottom of the black panel, there are two tabs, one on the left and one on the right. These tabs fully secure the panel in place. The trick is to use a flat-head screwdriver under the plastic to gently lever the tabs out of the way. Note in the pictures how I approach these tabs with my screwdriver. I usually release the left side first, and then I release ...

Fixing my Wahl 9918 Groomsman Beard and Mustache Trimmer

Not everyone would bother repairing a $25 beard trimmer, but why not fix something for under $5 instead of spending another $25? My Wahl 9918 Groomsman Beard and Mustache Trimmer has admirably performed its beauty duty for many years, but the time came when the battery just wasn't holding a charge any more. Most people would just put the trimmer in the trash and buy a new one, but I figured I could repair my otherwise excellent Wahl and save some money. In fact, even high priced trimmer and rotary shaver brands, like Norelco and Remington, can be easily repaired using a process similar to the one I used to fix my Wahl. Read on to find out how. I opened up the Wahl by popping off the black plastic faceplate with a tiny flathead screwdriver, which revealed two screws. By removing the two screws I was able to easily open up the unit, revealing the guts of the device. Backplate off, Revealing the screws The internals are rather simple: a motor, a...

Macintosh: Upgrading an eMac

It's been a long time since I wrote this article, but the fact remains: The good old eMac can still be useful if you take the simple steps to keep it as good as it can be. All can run Tiger, and most can run Leopard - great operating systems for their day with a bit of useful life. This article describes the procedure I used to upgrade my old eMac, including: Replacing the internal hard disk with a large capacity drive. Increasing the memory for performance Upgrading the operating system Here I'm upgrading a 700 MHz eMac, but the procedure and tasks for upgrading other eMac models should be almost identical. Upgrading versus Replacing My sister's eMac is of the 700 mhz variety, with 256 MB of memory. The machine seemed to be getting "slower", and the original 40 GB disk was becoming jammed packed with photos and iTunes, and within a few months she'd be out of disk space. There were two options to address the problems: upgrade the eMac, or go o...

Porsche Key Remote Battery Repair Video How-To

We now live in the age where part of your life is spending time and money maintaining and repairing things like your car keys . My Porsche's remote key was getting weaker and weaker, until one day it stopped operating altogether. Keyless remote without the remoteness. Not so good. I was a bit fearful spending a sizable chunk of my time and money at the dealership to have such a small problem addressed, and so I decided that I would try to replace the battery myself. Items required A clear work surface A small flat blade screw driver. A quality lithium CR-2032 Battery, available here. Procedure The following video shows how I successfully opened up the key without breaking it, and replaced the alarm remote battery. In short, from the vantage point of the key's steel part facing away and the buttons facing up: I take a small screwdriver and press on the little plastic tab on the left side. At the same time I use my fingers to start to pull the two halves apart. From th...

Trendnet TEW-652BRP and DD-WRT Success!

I recently visited my dad while on a business trip when I coincidentally discovered that DD-WRT is now available for his TEW-652. The TEW-652BRP has been a great router for my father, but it isn't what I'd call "feature rich". An upgrade to DD-WRT is a big bonus. I live 2500 miles away from my non-technical father, and so a well-specified router that helps me manage his network remotely is important to both of us. This article will explain what I did to finally get DD-WRT working on my TEW-652BRP v1.0R. About the TEW-652brp It's a nice looking little black 802.11n, 2.5 GHz router. It was amazingly inexpensive (usually way under $30), and the TEW-652brp is available through Amazon. Mine is a version 1.0R, you'll likely want the same version. Out of the box, it works quite well - it has been stable, and I was fairly happy with the stock firmware. But it was short on features - I like having VPN, SSH, and flexible DHCP services on the home netwo...

Excellent DD-WRT Router for Me: Netgear WNDR3400 / N600

My WiFi performance was suffering, and so I decided to do something about it and upgrade my router. When I say my WiFi performance was suffering, I really mean it: I live in a large high-rise apartment building and there are 100+ WiFi access points visible from my home office. All of the contentious traffic was severely curtailing my WiFi reliability. I was lucky to get 1 Mbit/second throughput. Sometimes I was lucky to stay connected even with my WiFi router in the same room. I decided it was time to go for 5 GHz, which is a WiFi band which is used less frequently and which has a tougher time traversing walls. And of course I wanted DD-WRT support. The set of features I was looking for included: Trouble-free DD-WRT support 5 GHz 802.11n Support Simultaneous dual band capability Inexpensive. Maybe even cheap. For me this means under $50. Under $35 is even better! It sounds like an easy task to bring all this together: A...

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