The Lance J. Technoweb

There are many choices when powering a wired Ring Video Doorbell.  Most people just reuse their existing doorbell power, but I wanted to see if I could improve that situation. When I first hooked up my Ring Wired Doorbell , I used an existing Honeywell Plug-in AC Transformer .  These AC transformers are very popular for both video doorbells, traditional doorbells, and security systems.  They reduce standard home voltages (120VAC in North America) to 16.5 VAC. In contrast, modern DC power adapters for home electronics are efficient. There are global efficiency standards on modern adapters , and in the USA the current efficiency standard is called "Level VI".  These efficiency standards help ensure that idle equipment has near-zero power draw, and that active equipment isn't wildly inefficient. The thing is, the standards are for modern single-voltage DC power adapters, but given that my Ring Wired Doorbell was hooked up to my home's 1990's vintage AC doorbell ...

The apartment building we own has "common" lighting in the hallways and stairwells. Lighting accounts for our largest share of electricity. I've worked over the years to reduce the lighting costs. Here is how I reduced our lighting expenses by a whopping 90%. Pursuit 1: 70% savings by moving from CFLs to LEDs and reducing bulb count My first pursuit was to simply transition from CFL lightbulbs to LEDs. LEDs are generally lower wattage than CFLs, and given the extraordinary reliability of quality LEDs, I no longer needed in-fixture bulb redundancy. I happened to come across a set of Energy Star certified Cree LED bulbs and used them to replace all of the old CFLs.† This reduced the building's lighting expense by about 70%. This change also greatly reduced my labor costs, because the CREE LEDs have been 100% reliable for the past 6 years, unlike the old bulbs which needed to replaced every year or so. The reliability of the CREE LEDs have been so high that over the pa...

Modern US homes have a lot more electrical circuit protection than they once had. Ground and Arc fault circuits are great at preventing electrocution and house fires.  What is their power consumption? It's hard to be completely accurate here, but I've measured a bunch using a combination of my Kill-o-watt meter and my Emporia Gen 2 Vue .   My measurements suggest that these devices use roughly 0.5 watts each .  In total, that works out to 4.4 KWh per GFCI/AFCI per year: (0.5 watts x 8766 hrs/year) ÷ 1000 watts/KW = 4.383 KWh/year Again, this is an estimate . It could be 3.5 or 4.8 KWh per year, but you get the idea.  Total GFCI / AFCI Load On My Electricity Bill I have 27 circuits with these features ( 18 modern breakers and 9 outlets ). So multiplying 4.383 KWh/year by 27 circuits, and we get a total draw of 118.3 KWh/year. That's a measurable amount of money.  That's about $142 per decade using today's US-average electricity cost. The Cost/Value of GFC...

I've been doing some serious electricity power monitoring at my house to see how I can reduce my electricity consumption and costs. I have an 8-sensor Emporia Vue home electricity monitor and a Kill-o-Watt power meter , so I'm well equipped to identify what is chewing down the electricity I pay for.  When I first installed my Emporia Vue, I found that my house was always consuming at least 128 watts of power.  I'll call this my house's base load.  What made up these 128 watts?  Phantom loads?  Let's Discuss! Phantom Load or Not? A phantom load, by one definition, is equipment that is always consuming some electricity even though it is not in active use. This is commonly understood as "standby power consumption".  But another definition of phantom load is equipment that is inexplicably consuming significant power for no known useful reason. We might call this "completely stupid power consumption". I had both types: standby power and crazy-off-the...

I like the think about the details of things.  So my question is: when is the best time to do laundry?  My conclusion is that it depends on the weather, the time of day, and the day of the week.  Here I will tell you the variables I consider when doing laundry (or running the dishwasher, etc etc). Energy Use and the Time of Day If you're going to use electricity from the grid, it is always best to consume when the grid is powered by the most efficient power plants. Generally speaking, grid electricity is most efficiently produced when the grid is at low load.  That's the time when the most efficient base load power plants are supplying most of the grid's power, and the power from less efficient variable-load power plants are minimized.  So the first answer of when to do laundry is "when fossil fuel power plants aren't being over-worked".  This means moderate temperature nights and weekends, or on moderate sunny days when solar power generation is greatly d...

I have an over-the-range GE microwave oven, and I use its surface light quite a lot. It's great for illuminating the stove top, or just brightening the kitchen a bit. Sadly, the bulbs it uses are a weird size and they burn out often. Here I discuss how I installed common and inexpensive LED bulbs in my microwave oven. Microwave Oven Surface Light with LEDs Most over-the-stove microwave ovens and exhaust hoods still use old-school incandescent light bulbs. They burn out rather frequently, and it's a pain to replace them because it entails removing the glass panel with a screwdriver. To compound the pain, the weird bulbs are stupidly expensive. And since each bulb uses 40 watts of energy, cost to run them (80 watts) is ridiculous. I initially replaced my microwave's 40 watt bulbs with 25 watt bulbs, but that's still 50 watts, and they're still burning out several times a year. I decided that I'd replace the lousy old bulbs with quality LED bulbs, but sadly nothing...

Water can be expensive, right? Well, kind of.  Water is actually free. You have a lake or a stream or ocean near by and you can basically take water from it at zero cost. What costs money is moving and cleaning water. A local water supply is often pumped, and is often treated to make sure its clean enough to use.  Then the waste water is usually pumped through a waste water treatment plant.  And all this water cleaning uses the magic of chemistry and filtering, which requires a lot of energy. Every time you run a shower or flush a toilet takes energy, because ultimately that water needs to be moved and cleaned.  Chemicals need to be mined and processed to perform the treatment. In short, water-related costs are mostly energy costs.  Using water uses energy, and saving water saves energy.

Today I got around to measuring the electricity consumption of the cable TV box that is in my home - a Comcast Motorola DCT-3412. It's an HDTV Cable TV box with DVR. Is this "powered off" cable box costing American taxpayers hundreds of millions? I measured the box's consumption by plugging it into my awesome Kill -A-Watt power meter and measuring the wattage. Surprisingly, I found that my cable box consumes just about as much power when "off" than when "on"! Here's what I measured with my Kill-O-Watt meter: "Power Off": 30 watts Watching TV: 31 watts Recording TV: 31 watts Playing back a recorded program: 31 watts Why provide a power button when it makes so little difference in power consumption? Who knows! Electricity Cost So I did some math to figure out how much 30 watts of consistent power use costs, using recent prices for electricity around here: (17¢ per kwh x 30 watts x 8760 hour...

My house has Verizon FiOS. Part of the FiOS installation included the mounting of a Verizon network backup battery unit in the basement. I asked myself "how much electricity does this box use?" Verizon FiOS: How much electricity does this cost me? So I plugged in my awesome Kill-A-Watt electricity usage meter to find out. My Kill-o-Watt watt meter reported that there was a 16 watt load on the circuit. And since Verizon's box is powered and plugged in 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, 16 watts would quickly add up to roughly 140 kilowatt hours per year: calculation: 16 watts x 8760 hours per year ÷ 1000 = 140.16 KWH/Year How much does 140 Kilowatt-hours cost in dollars and cents? Here's a table that shows how much that would cost per year based on recent residential electricity rates (source: DOE. State Electricity Profiles , 2006 Edition): State ¢/KWH ) $/Year Alabama 7.07 $9.91 Alaska 12.84 18.00 Arizona 8.24 11.55 ...

Some Globe-style CFLs are sucky. As you know from reading my blog, I'm a fan of not throwing away my hard-earned cash. So it was obvious for me to replace my incandescent bulbs with much more efficient CFL bulbs. My conversion saved me quite a bit of money, but there was one trouble-spot: the CFL globes I installed in the bathroom. I have one of those old-fashioned bar fixtures in the bathroom, designed for a set of three exposed globe-style bulbs, and so only globe style bulbs would look right in the fixture. I use my bathroom quite a bit, and the fixture with incandescent bulbs would normally require 180 watts to power (3 bulbs @ 60 watts each). Replacing them with CFLs seemed like an easy target for reducing electricity costs. "No problem!" I thought, since globe CFLs are readily available in retail stores. My 1980's Style Bathroom Light Bar with Globe CFLs. GE CFL in the center, Sylvanias on each side. I bought a set of three 14 Watt "Commercial Electri...

I reduced my electricity consumption by 12% this year (2007) versus last year (2006). I consumed an average of 110 KWH of electricity per month during 2007, as shown on the chart below: Now that I've done all the cheap and easy things to reduce consumption, and so I don't know if I can save so much more next year. I've done everything I could easily pursue, including: replacing old fashioned light bulbs with CFLs turning of my computer equipment, lights, and other stuff when it's not in active use reducing equipment that consumes lots when doing nothing (such as my old VCR) adjusting my fridge properly So, any ideas of what else I can do? Since I live in an apartment, I can't readily upgrade my fridge (which averages around 50 watts). I could buy a new LCD TV, but I'm not much of a TV watcher so that doesn't seem like it'd be a good move.

For the longest time I used incandescent light bulbs on my outdoor light fixtures, primarily because I had a rather ugly looking timer that only supported incandescent bulbs. I'm totally dumbfounded why retailers and manufacturers seem to focus on electrical products that don't support fluorescent lighting, but that's another story. So I have looked high and low for a timer that met my "simple" requirements: wall-mountable, programmable timer decent looking (or at least not butt-ugly) compatible with CFLs not insanely expensive I went to Home Depot, Lowes, and the little neighborhood hardware store without finding anything that met my simple requirements. Happily, I can announce that I found a decent programmable timer that met all my requirements: It's the Swylite LST100 . They don't seem to be available in many traditional retail stores. It works great, and it looks awesome. It was easy to install, and I've had no issues with it. Now I can sav...

Ever since my electricity savings kick, which started in October 2003, I have saved in a big way. In fact, I once used 170% more electricity than I do now. Here's a plot of my actual consumption: In 2001, the per-capita home electricity consumption rate for electricity in my state was 2,816 kWh per year - a number I managed to exceed by about 10% back then. This year I'm running at about 1,260 kWh per year - less than half of the average person. As always, there is room to improve.

My apartment isn't mine, but I pay for the heat... and heat has been getting expensive! So I decided I needed to do something to reduce my heating bills. Many claim that the easiest way to save money on heat is to install a "set-back" thermostat, but professional installation of a thermostat can be pretty pricey, and even then, the old thermostat was owned by my landlord.   This is how I went on a mission to replace my apartment's thermostat. After getting my plan together, I asked my landlord if I could replace the thermostat.  To my shock, he said "go for it".  He's a good guy like that.  I'm sure any kind of "management company" would have vetoed my request without any hesitation. My Apartment's Original Honeywell Thermostat My original thermostat was a basic round Honeywell unit found in about a zillion households. It worked, but it was completely manual. A timer-based thermostat promised to save me lots of money on my hea...

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 ...

With electricity quickly approaching $2 per watt per year, leaving a computer powered is a very expensive proposition. I found that I could power down my PC and save over $100 per year. Here's how to accurately estimate how much your computers cost to operate. Calculating Costs In order to calculate the cost, I first calculated my total cost per watt per year. With my recent electric bill in hand, I used the following formula: $ per Watt-Year = (bill's $amount) ÷ (bill's KWH) × 8.766 Given the following calculation, my electricity rate is a staggering $1.51 per watt-year: $30.29 ÷ 176 KWh × 8.766 = $1.51 With this watt-year value, it's easy to accurately estimate how much your computer (or clock radio or refrigerator) costs per year. Computer Cost per Year of Operation Mac Mini PowerBook iMac G4 iMac G5 eMac 700 WinPC On 19 [$25] 14 [$18] 38 [$50] 58 [$76] 91 [$120] 108 [$142] Sleep mode 2 2 6 4 7 55 Off 1 1 2 1 3 4 DVD View 24 22 53 74 107 115 DVD Rip 37 32 64 72 1...