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November Results of Our Energy Reduction PlansNovember has come to an end and it was a cold one here in the Midwest. In fact it was quite a bit colder than last year, so even with our efforts to reduce our natural gas usage we ended up using more than we did last year. We did however do great […] Building a Temporary SunroomI finally got around to buying the materials and constructing our temporary sunspace on our back porch. I had a rough idea in my head on how I would build it based on descriptions and articles from other people that have built their own temporary sunspaces. Here are the links that got me […] October Results of Our Energy Reduction PlansWe now have our second month of energy conservation under our belts and the results were pretty good. We did take a vacation during the first week of the month, but we had some people house sit for our dogs and cats, so I don’t think that we saved much energy while we were […] Keeping an Eye on Energy UsageIt can be hard staying motivated on your energy saving plans, unless you get regular feedback that your efforts are actually saving energy. Whether you are trying to cut back on electricity, natural gas, or any other energy source, waiting until you receive your next bill to see the payoff of your efforts will […] Great Deal on Compact FluorescentsOne of our goals this month was to replace most of the lights in our home with CFLs, and after a quick trip to Lowes we got a heck of a jumpstart on that goal. We went to the lighting department and picked up some of the normal spiral CFLs, and some decorative CFLs […] September Results of Our Energy Saving PlansWell we finally got our September electric and gas bills which show the first month results of our energy reduction effort. Since we were only able to install 8 CFLs most of the savings probably came from the new energy star washer and gas dryer that we purchases and installed at the end […] Plans to Reduce Our Heating Costs This WinterAs the temperatures have begun to drop, we have been thinking about what we are going to do to reduce our gas usage this winter. Our goal is to reduce our natural gas usage by 20% from last winter which could be challenging since we do not have the money to put insulation in […] Cool New Solar TechnologyAs I was doing a little research on solar power and refrigeration, I came upon a company, Matteran Energy, that has an interesting and promising new solar technology. It seems to be in the prototype stage currently, but the technology looks fairly sound. Compact Fluorescents Can Save a BundleAs you may remember from the post on our plans to reduce our electricity usage by 50%, one of our main strategies was to switch to using compact fluorescents. I believe that this simple change will give us a nice large decrease in our electricity usage, because most of our electricity usage in our […] Killing Phantom Loads to Lower Electricity UsageAs you may remember from the post on our plans to reduce our electricity usage by 50%, one of our strategies was to eliminating phantom loads within our home. How to Determine Electricity Usage from the Electric MeterReducing electricity consumption is easy once you determine the main energy hogs in your home. So how can you determine how much energy a device is using? One way is to use a Meter like the Kill-A-Watt meter, which will tell you the power consumption of any appliance plugged into the meter. […] Energy Star Washer and Dryer PurchaseIt is always dangerous for my wife and I to visit our local Lowes. For some reason we always end up spending money that we had not planned. Well yesterdays visit was no exception. Plans for Reducing our Electricity UsageIn our last post we made a goal to reduce our electricity consumption by at least 50% by the end of the year. We have been using an average of 1043 kwh a month which is 36% more then the average home in our region. To reach our goal we have to lower […] Starting Our Smart Energy JourneyOver the last three years, our family has been living in a 70 year old energy hogging home. Looking back over our bills for the last three years, I am ashamed of how wasteful we have become. Just how bad is it? Pretty bad - our household energy usage is way over the national […] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |