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What with rising fuel prices and all, I'd be interested to hear what others have done in the name of energy efficiency. I dont'mean buying a fuel-efficient vehicle, but rather what you've done around the house, such as insulation, changing heating schemes, etc.

Anyone live "off the grid"?

I already have a programmable thermostat that is configured to handle four temperatures levels each 24 hours. Up until my last heating bill, which was $340 for the month of December, I kept the house at 68 during the day and 65 at night. I've moved everything down three degrees to 65 during the day and 62 at night. It's bound to be more efficient, but with the wild temperature fluctuations we've been having, it will be difficult to guage.

schlepporello wrote:On our company trucks, I share a tractor with a linehaul driver who drives it to Abilene every night. I'm required to top off the tanks before returning to the dock in the evening. On the average I put in 74 gallons of fuel. This tractor hold 140 gallons. The fuel charges are well over $200 every time I get fuel.

Wayne, does that big rig have a separate "standby" setup to run things like the A/C etc. when you're parked catching some zzzzz's? There's been some talk in this neck of the woods about requiring them...

bloke wrote:ooh! ooh!! I do! I do!!...

No fireplace, but rather a wood stove here--one of those with an "afterburner" so it's clean and very efficient. Makes hardly any creosote in the chimney.

We've been supplementing our regular (heat pump) during cold weather for as long as we've lived here. Every September, we rent a log splitter and spend a day splitting a few cords of wood. It gets stacked over the next few weeks before the rains start. All seasoned for at least 2 years.

I rarely need to cut a standing tree. Between the utility clearing their right-of-way (they always leave the logs and the madrone, maple and willow stumps sprout like crazy) and normal storm damage, it seems we always have plenty of wood for heating.

Except for a few places where it wouldn't look right, all of the incandescent lighting has been replaced with fluorescent. Looks nice, uses maybe a quarter of the energy and lasts longer. The older 4' fluorescents in the garage and my shop have been re-ballasted (I found a great deal on a case of ss ballasts on eBay) to use the solid-state ballasts and 32 watt tubes, which use less energy and last longer but are just as bright.

Our utility runs comparisons between what you used this year with what you used last year and we've been consistently using about 20% less electricity than the year before.

I've got all the usual insulation etc, but recently I've swapped to a company called nPower nJuice which guarantees all my electricity to come from renewable sources, mainly an offshore windfarm in Wales.
I also drive a 1.2litre Nissan that averages 55mpg unless I need all my instruments!
My local town council recycles 70% of all our waste, which is a hassle having 6 different bins for glass, cans, paper etc. but has to be a good thing!

All UK councils are trying to achieve 70% recycling on their waste.

We re-tuned the programable thermostat in the house to 68 deg f dung the day and 60 deg f at night.This years bills are acctually lower than last years with that change alone (they were at 72 and 65 degrees).
In the car, Ive remeved all unnecessary junk from the car and slowed down from driving with the traffic flow (65-75 mph) to maintaining a speed of between 55-60 mph. This has added between 60-90 miles to the tank of gas (14.5 gallon tank on a 2001 Hyundai Elantra 5 speed). I have a 60 mile round trip each day to work. I used to fill up every 7 days. Now I can make it to 8 days plus one extra leg (30 miles) of my drive to or from work. Mileage gets slightly better if I only pump $20 of gas at a time.

we don't run much heat in the apartment, computers heat well.

We've started to replace bulbs with flourescents when they burn out for some things but some times, I don't want painfully white light.

I don't throw out batteries because I recharge them, and I'm a pedestrian.

however, this is winter, when summer comes, the AC is on 24/7

schlepporello wrote:We've replaced all of our bulbs with flourescents as well, mainly because I get tired of replacing bulbs. I've also switched to rechargable batteries because I see the savings over having to buy new ones constantly.

Ditto

It cost me $430 in fuel (including $50 delivery) this year. 1 ton of wood pellets and 1.5 tons of coal. This is all I'll need. I use a pellet stove mid-fall and mid-spring when the temperature is in the 40's at night as the coal stove doesn't draft well then. Mid-November to mid-March, the coal stove (fireplace insert) is going.

We use a mix of incadescent and fluorescents. My experience, and what I've read, say that fluorescents aren't so cost effective if they are turned off and on a lot - they tend to burn out. I had compact fluorescents ($$) that weren't lasting any longer than the incandescents. So for lights that are typically turned on and left on, we go fluorescent and stay with the incadescents for those lights that go on and off a lot.

When we lived in Sunnyvale CA, in the winter for heat, we just turned on a couple extra incandescent lights. Much better than a space heater (more spread out), and the extra light was welcome on those dark overcast days.

We use florescents but find them a bit dim for the first few minutes. We added a sun room to our South side and by noon on a sunny day, we open the sun room double doors and heat the rest of the house with it.
My own oak tree, blown down in Ivan, yielded over a chord of firewood. The rest of my trees blown away by Katrina will be well seasoned for next winter.
I run errands on a 400 cc. motorcycle and sail a sailboat with a ten horse diesel. My tuba only requires vast amounts of air from me my bicycle and
stepper use only a small part of the groceries that I pork down.

We are sort of limited in our options as we rent an apartment (can't get away with too many modifications). We also have a bird, who tend to be sensitive to fumes, so a kerosene heater is out. So we just bundle up around the house and keep the thermostat on 61 all the time. Throw a blanket on the bed, wear flannel pjs, and everything is fine. We have always used fluoresent lights and have closed off 2 extra rooms we don't use. We also sealed off several windows that were old and leaky, which will help.

We still have $200 gas bills but are doing better than some others up here have. Still, I wish we could install one of those wood pellet stoves, that would rock.

All this wood stove talk reminded me of the "Earth Stove" we had when I was a kid. They guaranteed it would keep a fire overnight. All you had to do was stoke it really well before bed... drink two large glasses of water... and when Nature called, stoke it again. Worked every time. Of course, now I would not even have to add the two glasses of water.

We replaced our old furnace with a two stage 94% efficient forced air unit. Since last October it appears we have cut our natural gas usage in about half. I'm predicting a 13%-14% return on investment.

Unfortunately, a previous legislature saw fit to deregulate our power supply here in Montana, so our rates are the highest in the region. Consequently the new furnace (plus additional insulation, new windows, programmable thermostat, etc.) lets us just stay even with our power bill (electric and gas) increases.

Dave "loving Winter in Montana" Thomas

Programmable thermostat: 48F at night 58F daytime. Wear flannel shirt and sit in front of electric heater. January has been very mild. December was on the cold side, and combined gas + electric came to about $250. Electricity around here comes from coal.

For summer, one 8,000 BTU window unit upstairs (split level house) running constantly. House temperature is whatever the unit can do (note my location). Electric bill in summer runs around $100 - $120.

I sleep more.