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It’s been a couple years since I mentioned Michael Bluejay’s fantastic Saving Electricity site. It’s a treasure trove of practical tips for household power management. Bluejay offers information on:
- The difference between natural gas and electric appliances
- How much electricity costs
- Electricity myths
- and much more
While doing research for an upcoming post, I discovered Bluejay’s guide to how much electricity different devices use. This single page can answer most of your questions about power consumption. The top shortcut? Look at the label!
But labels generally give power consumption in Watts. What you want to know is how much you’re paying to run your air conditioner. Bluejay explains the math so you can calculate costs yourself. If you’d rather leave the math to someone else, his site also provides a web-based calculator that can approximate how much that air conditioner in the family room costs you each month.
U.S. household electricity usage, 2001 (chart by Michael Bluejay)
Finally, Bluejay offers some basic strategies for reducing energy usage. The two top ways you can cut your electricity bill are:
- Use space heaters during the winter instead of central heat. (Save $1,000+ a year!)
- Use ceiling fans during the summer instead of air conditioning. (Save $500+ a year!)
I’ve had Bluejay’s electricity site bookmarked for the past two years. It’s my first stop any time I have a question about electrical usage and costs. (It was from Bluejay that I first learned about the Kill-a-Watt electricity usage meter, which I sometimes use when writing articles for Get Rich Slowly.)
This article is about Hints and Tips, House and Home, Tools Monday, 7th July 2008 (by J.D. Roth)
July 7th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
Beautiful JD,
thanks for sharing - this is a good resource that is going to come in handy!
July 7th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Is there something in particular to look for in a space heater? I used one 2 years ago and it would only heat the foot of space directly in front of it - not terribly useful. I used central heating this last year and paid the price - even with only having it on to about 65 degrees for limited hours, I still had a bill higher than summer’s bill with AC usage on it :-\
July 7th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Nice and very useful. Thanks for the link!
July 7th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
Wow, I never realized truly how much everything cost to run it. I’m glad my coffee maker doesn’t cost so much though haha.
This was very useful, thanks for the link. It’s time to insist that all light bulbs become the energy efficent bulbs in my house. I guess when it all comes down to it, you have to decide whether you want to be cool during the summer or if you can stand the heat. Vice versa for winter.
July 7th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
There is a spreadsheet on my blog which you can use to help figure out how quickly you’ll recoup the costs of new CFL bulbs.
http://richerandbetter.blogspot.com/2008/06/is-it-time-to-switch-to-cfls.html
You need to know your price per kWh, the cost of bulbs, how many of each type and the average number of hours you have each type of light on in your home.
–
We’ve been using fans a lot this year. Last year we almost only used the AC. We’re trying hard to save money where we can!
July 7th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
Isn’t “color” assumed when you say TV?
July 7th, 2008 at 6:18 pm
I need to check out this website too. Interesting that he says to use space heaters instead of central heat. We tried that one winter (live in Denver) and never did it again. Our furnace is gas powered. However, the electric space heaters were extremely expensive to run. I figured that that $.09/kwh it cost us about $.40/night for each heater. I couldn’t figure out what the cost per hour for gas so I couldn’tcompare until I tried it for a month to see what the difference would be. Our gas bill did go down a bit but our electric bill was about 50% more.
July 7th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
Hi. I’ve been reading this blog for a few weeks and have really made good use of some of your tips. I guess I’m here to share a couple of my own in regards to space heaters.
I’ve worked for an electric company for about a year. As a result, I’m no expert or electrician, but have noticed a few trends. One thing we noticed this winter is that a lot of peoples bills were taking a serious jump. What was happening is they ran out of oil, couldn’t afford to buy any more and started running space heaters 24/7. Space heaters, although very efficient, really aren’t mean to be a primary source of heat. They’re only really meant as a secondary sources, so you can turn the heat down and heat up something little, say a person. Not to mention, like any high watt item, they are going to impact your bill. Power’s now 15.5 cents per kwh in Maine (where I live) so it’s pretty pricey to heat your house that way.
I don’t mean to sounds like a know it all, but I saw a lot of customers fall into this trap this winter and are having problems catching up with their large balances. I can’t help but feel bad for them. I suspect that places with shorter, more moderate winters and smaller electricity costs may have different experiences.
July 7th, 2008 at 7:25 pm
Space heaters aren’t appropriate for all homes or all climates. But if, like me, you live in a place with moderate temperatures, and if you spend most of your time in just a couple rooms of your home, space heaters are an excellent solution.
During the winter, we tend to use just two rooms most of the time. Last month when we had our wiring replaced, we actually had a special circuit installed just for space heaters. We use the oil-filled radiator type.
But we haven’t actually experienced a winter where I was working from home yet, so I’m not sure how things will pan out.
July 7th, 2008 at 8:41 pm
unfortunately, ceiling fans don’t eliminate humidity. it’s only 77F outside, but the humidity is in the upper 80% range. there’s no way we could sleep with that humidity level.
i’m an electric miser elsewhere though. i cut electric costs all i can. i could go lower by unplugging everything when i’m not using it, but i’m forgetful.
July 7th, 2008 at 9:29 pm
Thanks to the link to Mr. Electricity. I have been having an on-going debate with a co-worker over the last couple of days over if it is better to keep your AC on so the house doesn’t heat up versus turning it on when you get home (my belief). Mr. Electricity’s myths page will be emailed first thing in the morning, so that a new round of debates can be started and hopefully I will win.
As far as space heaters go, the thought of running them 24/7 shocks me. I also live in a mild climate and I live alone. I hardly ever turn on my central heat use a space heater whenever I need it. I have never done the math but I think it saves over running the central heat. I also bundle up at night with no heat what-so ever.
July 7th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
My husband and I have lived in the same home for almost 11 years. About 3 years ago, we realized how silly it was to have our furnace heating our entire house, when the two of us were typically sitting in the same room together on winter evenings.
So, we began using a space heater to heat the one room we were in at the time. When we went to another room, we took the space heater with us. We only run the space heater long enough to be comfortable in the one room and then we shut it off until the room becomes too cool and then we turn it back on. We wear a few sweaters. If I am sitting on the couch, I use a throw blanket.
Even though we live in the Midwest, we never had our central heating on once last winter….and our heating bills were much lower than prior years when we ran the centalized furnace. Interestingly, I am much more comfortable temperature wise with our space heating method than with the centralized heating –which never was warm enough to me.
‘Not sure if space heaters are okay for others, but it works very well for us.
July 8th, 2008 at 4:52 am
Very nice tips. I live in New Hampshire and I am going to try and help my fridge out this winter.
Going to make ice outdoors when the freezing temps come and continually through ice into a couple pots/kettles into the fridge… And I’ll rotate the ice as it melts. He got that tip from a reader. She actually turned her fridge off and the ice was enough to maintain the 45degree temperature. I am not brave enough to turn it off but at least the compressor won’t be needed as much.
I wonder if adding more ice to the freezer would help it or hurt it. It doesn’t get opened nearly as much but I wonder if having more ice to keep frozen is more work than the help the extra ice gives to keep the temperature freezing. Any physicists out there have a thought?
July 8th, 2008 at 7:01 am
You can save money by shutting off half your house in the winter, but you can save even more by getting a smaller house :). Just hurry, before they tear them all down to build McMansions.
July 8th, 2008 at 7:15 am
What all is in the “other” category. That is the largest user. I am assuming that would be electric clocks, instant on TV, any thing that you would have plugged in using a small amount of power, but when added together it amounts to the largest peice of the pie.
July 8th, 2008 at 7:48 am
@Mike, keeping your freezer full helps it. With a full freezer, every time you open the door, there’s less air to escape, so less new air to cool down.
July 8th, 2008 at 9:48 am
Not a physicist, but I remember my high school and college chemistry enough…
The ice in the freezer would definitely help. Water (ice) has a much higher heat capacity than air. When you open the freezer door, it lets in a given amount of heat. Without the ice, the temperature in the freezer would go up by some amount, which would raise the temperature of the items in the freezer, and cause the compressor to turn on.
But with the ice, the temperature increase of items (and air) in the freezer is much lower, as the ice you have sitting around takes on a lot of the heat without increasing its temperature very much (the definition of “higher heat capacity”).
However, the rush of warm air will cause the compressor to turn on anyway, but it will stay on a shorter time. You might try putting the ice close to the sensor so it is less subject to temperature changes… this could, of course, cause the freezer to be warmer than it should be.
July 8th, 2008 at 11:28 am
Instead of buying an A/C unit, we just decided to sleep and setup our TV in the basement where it’s cool all the time. Sleeping in the cool basement along with any TV/DVD watching is the way to go without paying for A/C & the electricity to run it.
July 8th, 2008 at 11:54 am
I used the space heater method this year and it helped a good bit. My apartment was heated with gas as was the hot water. Gas in my section of WV is expensive and the people at Mountaineer Gas are complete idiots. So, by wrapping the water heater with an insulation blanket and turning it on in the morning-eat breakfast-shower-get dressed-turn off, I managed to keep the bill very small. This especially worked well in the summer when I alternated months of only paying the monthly taxes(didn’t use enough gas to measure). As the the heat, yes, it gets cold, but I bundle up and sleep in my Uber Sleeping Bag at night and I keep quite toasty. Then again, I slept in my vehicle for three nights while at a missions conference in Michigan in January. Now that was cold.
July 9th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
I’ve followed Micheals advie for some time now and I think his site is excellent. But stupid me: I had an extra fridge that I wasn’t using and forgot to unplug it until last month. I couldn’t figure out why my bill wasn’t going down.