Energy Efficiency Month - last week check-in

[maskit]

Hey Team,

Sorry I disappeared. I will not bore you with my excuses...
My personal report is not good - i did not have the time to insulate my pipes yet, and that heating is in full swing it is easy for me to find all the places that require sealing - around doors and windows mostly. These will be my tasks for the upcoming week.

I apologize for my lack of participation while i was supposed to be the coach.
Hopefully you are all doing better than me. Please share your actions and inspire others!

- maskit.

[Gil Ben-Meir]

Hi All,

As the heating season started, I encountered some problems with my forced-air heating system. First, the termostate was 2 degrees off. I was wandering why it felt cold in the house when the termostate was set to 72F...Then I experienced colder temprature in the upper level than in the lower level (when the opposite should happen).
I called in Matt from Climate Control in Congers to check the ducts for leakage and balance. I learned a great lesson about balancing the duct system in order to maintain the right temprature in each room. Each duct has a valve. By opening or closing the valve you may control the flow of warm air through the duct. In my case I had to close the lower level ducts half way to make more warm air travel to the upper level ducts. I guess that the same idea may work if you experience unbalanced temprature in a steam heating system you may close the valve on radiators which deliver too much heat and open the valves in colder rooms.

Action I completed so far:

1.Replaced all but three lights to CFL's. The three lights left are dimmable and so far I didn't find real dimmable CFL, just dimmer compatible which didn't dimm at all...

2.Replaced the Refrigerator, Wall Oven, TV, and Washer to Energystar appliances (done back in April)

3.Insulated the hot water pipes with Home Depot pipe insulation foam (I still have some foam left if anybody interested...)

4.Insulated reccess light fixutre by taping insulation tapes oh the outside fixture ventilation holes

5.Insulated outlets and switches with foam that had to be trimmed to fit nicely.

6.Insulated cracks and holes in Soham's room with low CFC emitting coack (which doesn't stink either!)

7.Insulated the fireplace by installing glass doors. this is a chield safety measure as well.

8. Decreased the termostate setting one degree from 72F to 71F. I don't think it's a good idea to lower it too much or to lower it at night when you have kids...

9. Decreased gas powered hot water heater to about 125F (less than the "warm" setting since mine doesn't have degrees setting)

10. Got a professional energy audit to check combustion safety of the furnace and water heater. both seam to be tuned and work fine. The auditor also perfomed the "blow-door" test and pointed the air leakes which I mentioned above to be insulated. Finally, he predicted that the house is a good candidate for solar hot water system but not for solar PV system (for electricity)

11. Got my ducts cleaned and balanced by professional service.

12.Adjusted the refrigerator termostate to 38F and the freezer to 1F.

13. Most importantly - I agreed with my household energy users (Michal, the babysitter and the cleaning lady) about energy conservation measures: turning off lights and appliances (specialy TV's and the computer) when not in use, run full loads of clothes and dishes, set the cloths washer to "warm" and skip the "hot dry" cycle at the dishwasher.
These measures will help also to reduce water use, our very next topic...

Actions I still plan to do:

1. get an estimate to install insulation in the walls and improve attic insulation.

2. get an estimate for installing solar water heater.

3. program the termostate to lower temprature during the day once Soham starts attending daycare later this month.

4. get an estimate for planting an evergreen tree in the north part of my yard to block cold winter winds.


Once again, I am available next week to help anybody with finding leaks and showing how to seal them as well as explain more about the above mentioned energy conservation measures.

Stay Warm,

Gil

[maskit]

I will be happy to receive that extra foam for the pipes!

maskit

[Daphna Stern]

Hey everyone,

I learned just yesterday that it wasn't enough to merely join the site...but the specific group as well.

Things we have done around the house:

-insulated pipes

-turned thermostat to 68 for house(feels like more-radiators rock!!!) we have a clock that keeps it on only during early morning(the rest of the day...rarely turned on-only when needed). Lirone has a separate stand alone radiator set at 70 only for night.

-turned water heater down

-made full loads(never did the hot water thing anyway)

-hung Lirone's clothes to dry in basement rack

-fixed thermostat of refrigerator/freezer

-computer turns off automatically after 15 min if it's idle.

-Took down our window air condition units (better insulated window area)

-Refrigerator is energy star (since Jan.)


Still need to :

-Change some lights to fluorescents
-insulate outlets on outer walls


Daphy and Ronen

PS-we will not be able to make the Sunday meeting, as I've only learned of it yesterday and we have a prior commitment...keep us posted on anything new

[Thomas Daly]

Well.. . first.. welcome Daphy! glad you made it onto the group site...

Things already done:

- dropped water heater temp to 130º
- installed Energy Star appliances (when we moved in)
- installed programmable thermostats in both zones
- dropped our A/C temp to 68º during summer and now we're trying ito keep Heat set to a max of 71º
- we turn off all tv/video/audio components at night
- replaced 90% of the bulbs throughout the house wiith CFLs (replace 14 100 WATT ceiling floodlights with 13W CFLs!!)
- we try to only do full loads of laundry and dishes
- we line dry as much as possible
- try to wear clothes a little longer and wash them when they're truly dirty or smelly...

This weekend I plan on doing the following:

- insulating pipes
- checking for air leaks in windows and doorframes (with the help of Gil)
- add insulation to outer wall outlets
-

Next Week I will:

- get an estimate for a glass enclosure for our fireplace (gil, can you recommend the person who did yours?)
- insulate my ceiling light fixtures