I'm just going to give some helpful hints to those who have maybe just not thought about this, and would like to save money and also keep their electric bill from lookin suspicous. Offsetting Your Electric Bill: 1. Turn down you furnace 3degrees or more if possible - Can save 40+watts of all day electricity 2. Turn you fridge down a notch or more - Can save 20-70watts of all day electricity 3. Replace all old house bulbs with CFL's - If you have a 60w bulb turn to a 20w cfl thats 40w's saved on 1 bulb - You can do the math on your amount of bulbs I hope lol 4. Lower your water heater temp (Esp. if you water heater is old school and electric) - Can save 20+w's of all day electricity (100+w's if electric) 5. Unplug any chargers when not using (cell phone, shaver, tools etc.) - These types of devices actually use electricity even when not being used - Not sure how much this will save you depends on watts used - I saved about 2dollars a month and only had 2 chargers. (2 dollars doesnt seem like a lot but you can add 2 26wcfls on a 12-12 cycle with it) 6. Put your fans on timers - Once the plant has made itself sturdy from the wind I put my ocsilating fans w timers - I had it 15min on 5min off and repeat, saves a decent amount over a day - Its only off 5min at a time so air wont get stagnent - Never do it with intake/outtakes or your carbon filters 7. Use 18/6 cycle for vegging - Personally never do it I love the 24-0 cycle - If I really needed to save money I would do it 8. Turn your computer and monitor off whenever your not using it or dont need it on. - Yes pain in the butt sometimes but well worth it. - My power supply on my computer is 600w and used to run all day now about 8 hours - The monitor will use juice even if computer is off you must turn off manually. - If you must keep computer on use sleep mode instead of screensaver (sleep mode uses something like 25% of the normal power or less) 9. Use dimmers on alarm clocks - Not much but takes 1second to do - Also don't fall asleep with music or tv on. Thought this might help some people, when I did all of this I basically offset the whole cost of of my grow op. I have 400w HPS(12hrs), 250w fan for carbon filter(24hrs), 2 oscilating fans(timed), four t8 4ft flourecents(12hours), one 4ft t12 flourecent(24hrs), twelve 26w cfls(12hours), two 20w cfls(24hours). My electric bill has only gone up 15-30bucks a month from original I saved approximately $60 a month. Any more ideas lets hear about them, lets save us some green for our green, and stay below the radar at the same time!!!!
My general rules are "Keep the heat off and get a blanket" "Don't turn on lights unless needed" "Flourescent tubes use less electricity while providing more light than standard 60W bulbs" "Solar Panels FTW"
Thanks man I figured this can help us all, and i also forgot to mention I live in a small condo approx 750sqft 2bedrooms, and this is how much I saved imagine if you had a 5bedroom house, You could save so much money. This is smart for all of us not even just growers, in this economy everything helps.
One of the biggest things overlooked at saving on utilities is heating/cooling. Make SURE all windows/doors are caulked correctly, and there are foam seals on all of them that are tight. Couple things: -Leaving lights on in the winter isnt really a big deal since such a small % of energy goes to light, the rest goes to heat...which warms your house. -Computers these days have power supplies anywhere from 250w-1000w, and that sounds like a lot, but all modern computers will scale down the CPU and turn off components automatically, so the average power use is probably around 100-150w when sitting idle or surfing the web
This doesnt even make sense, if you turn it down then you would mix less with the cold to make it colder, and how low did you think I was asking people to put it to make algea lol. No1 wants to take a shower is 70-80 degree water, well i wouldnt say all but still. Maybe I'm wrong and just blitzed lol. Anyways great ideas for anyone.
While you would use less water to heat the cold water, you would use more gas to heat the water initially.
That doesnt make sense except the gas part, the higher your water tank is set the more gas and electricity you use because it has to run longer. A water heater is just a tank of water that is heated the less you heat it the less energy you use its simple. Lets get back on track anyways. Hope I'm helping a few of you.
Also remember that your computer's PSU isn't supplying max power at all times. It only supplies what the computer actually needs. That means that your 600w PSU definitely IS NOT using up 600w of power 24/7.
Pull your dryer vent, and aim it INTO the house. That's 6,000 watts of hot air being sent OUT of the house in winter. If the smell or humidity is just a bit too much (which it isn't at all for me), then vent the first five minuites outside, and the remaining time inside. Also, don't bag up your lawn grass OR even think of bagging the leaves in fall. A Univ. of Mich. study showed that you can mulch 6" of leaves AT A TIME into the ground. In fact, it's better for your lawn. I usually mow over about 3" of leaves, then wait for another three inches. (You don't need a "mulching" mower for eaither process--just as an FYI) My lawn has never been healthier, and I'm not having giant trucks waste resources by carting away ORGANIC matter that's supposed to be put back into the soil. America is weird about both these things. ~jessie
Nice list. I started to monitor my electric bill before I put my grow room in use. With what you were saying and me just being a penny pincher, mine runs about $30.00 a month extra. With me being new to growing, I dont have much to contribute except what little I know so far.
I forgot to mention that CFL's vary dramatically in quality. Check the lumens per watt on the package, before you buy. Plus, the daylight bright ones (I think) are way more expensive and I'm not sure they're worth it. Plus, plus I have a bunch of different CFL's unopened five years ago, and they take a while (ten minutes, sometimes) to get decently close to their full output.
pnut420 im going to do some research on your point and get back to you. Any other good ideas out there??? OHHHHHH I forgot to tell you guys A good one for winter. I have a huge carbon filter vented into my attic, and I thought to myself one day how can i utilize this clean air to my advantage. Well what I did was put myself a flange in my ducting for my house and connect my carbon filter venting to it. When its cold out (when you furnace still runs) I have my filter pushing the hot air from the room back into the ducting which in turn comes out my heater vents. This works well in winter, fall and early spring. As for the summer I switch the flange and have the hott air blowing into the attic, obviously dont need to save that hott air lol. I love this idea might as well use the energy you already have instead of wasting it.
Another idea... Insulate your water heater most energy is lost due to the standby affect where the hot water sits cools and must be reheated. Ok pnut just for you Save Money on Your Home Expenses "Lower the temperature on your hot water heater to between 110 and 120 degrees. It's not necessary to have it any hotter and wastes energy" How to Save Money from Your Water Heater - Associated Content - associatedcontent.com ", simply turning down the thermostat can be used to save money." Water Heaters: how to save money with your hot water tank "Many water heating tank manufacturers pre-set the temperature of the tank to 60C (140F). You can lower the thermostat to as low as 55C (130F) to save energy" (even as low as 110 is fine i keep mine at 115) These are just a few that i found pnut not 1 even remotely supports your theory. Its simple the hotter you make your water the more that it needs to be heated. Think of it like this your water isnt running 90% of the time right??? Well that standby time makes your water get colder, so if your water temp is higher it will run a lot more throughout the day. Your arguement is flawed and I think you misread something. Another good idea besides lowering your furnace temp is to lower it even more before bed. Great idea i just read also is to put your water heater on a timer so in the 8 to 16 hours your not home it doesnt have to heat, just make sure you give yourself an hour of heating before you intend to use. If you wake up at 7 have the water heater turn on at 5:30 or 6. 45% of the energy wasted from waterheaters is heat loss and standby time.
Thanks for setting me straight. Untill i find that article i have deleted all posts made by me so as not to spread mis-information.
Well thank you very much lol, your idea just doesnt make sense, i mean I get the fact you will use less hot water which would be good if your looking to save hot water in the tank for everyone to shower with; but as far as saving gas and electricity definately wont help that. Think about it energy never disappears it only changes, so when you want to make more enegry(making hot water) you have to spend more energy(gas to heat electric to operate). Google it you will find endless answers saying turn it down, I do appreciate the input though always good for conversation although my points now wont make sense to people without your comment (He was saying it saves more energy to keep your water heater hotter, thats the jist of it he had a reason but i dont think it was right) Pnut if you do find that I would love to see it because if i do happen to be wrong I would love to adapt.
Thought i'd bump thread for people who didnt get a chance to check this out, I know this is important to a lot of people, still any1 have anymore tips Im sure the community would appreciate it!
This is not an easy one for most people, but I keep the TV off unless there is something specific I want to watch. Used to have it on most of the time, flipping or just running espn news or something, but keeping it off all but 2 or 3 hours a day has almost completely off-set the power for girls. It's a 52" plasma.