OT! Energy saving tips! Options

[Qarl]

Our electric bills are killing us.

It doesn't help that our house is ON 24 hours since we have nurses in the house taking care of Hunter, and they of course want to watch TV.

Background info...

Our house is 5,000 sq. feet, masonry, with tile roof, and reflective film on the main windows. It was built well, and insulated well (in the walls and with blown-in insulation in the attics). We have gas water heaters and cook with gas.

Our house has three ACs (due to size) and for our son's special needs.
We also have 4 refrigerators (one huge main fridge, one regular fridge in the pantry for sodas and pizza and misc. crap, a wine fridge, and a mini-fridge for Hunter's medications (in his bathroom)

This is what we've done over the past year to help curb the bills...

1. Main House AC is at 80 all the time
2. Hunter's AC is at 78 full-time
3. Third A/C (my bedroom) is at 80 in the daytime and 74 at night (when we sleep)
4. I replaced about 24 of our ceiling can lights with compact flourescent bulbs
5. I replaced our two nightstand bulbs with compact flourescents
6. I replaced the six bulbs in Hunter's bathrrom with compact flourescents.
7. Pool pump runs only 6 hours per day to circulate chlorine
8. Spa pump runs 2 hours per day
9. Front yard lights (low voltage) are on for about 2.5 hours.
10. A/C filters are changed regularly
11. Rear yard lights are not on at all
12. Only one light is on in the kitchen at night (for the nurses)
13. The rest of the house has "nightlights" which are LED nightlights
14. Adjusted the fridges to medium cooling setting (vs. max cool)
15. Ceiling fans run on slow to circulate air.

All this has been in place about a year with negligible results.

Our most recent bill... $1,183.00 WTF! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/blink.gif)

Our bill at this time last year (before changes wer made) was around $800.00.

That being said... I do know that the utility rates have gone up 22% in a year.

So today, we decided to add to the list...

1. Keep the blinds closed in our masterbedroom permanently (they are light-blocking, foil-lined horizontal blinds)
2. Disconnected the mini wine fridge
3. Turn off the three PCs and monitors in the house when not being used
4. Reduce the number of loads of laundry by 25% per week.
5. Search for a few more bulbs to swap out with compact flourescent

What else can we do, besides move?

I don't want to live in a cave. I want to be able to enjoy the house and watch TV and have it comfortable inside. It's kind of hard when it's 95 degrees out and 90% humidity!

Your suggestions of things to look for, adjust, turn off, is appreciated

Thanks!

[highways]

Reduce number of fridges. The fridges that you do have- keep them packed (even with just bottles of water). Filling the fridge space with water is much more energy conservative then leaving the fridge filled with air. You should be able to tune a good fridge to turn on very infrequently, yet stay nice and chilly if it's packed with water like stuff.

Double paned windows- do huge energy savings (particularly for heating houses) and I assume it must be the same for cooling houses, because you'ree only going the opposite temperature direction, but a degree is still a degree. Check out some of the studies using infrared cameras compairing heat loss (or in your case cooling loss) between single pane windows vs. double paned.

Seal air leaks at all openings. There's some tricky ways to test this (I forget how exactly) something like use a match or smoke at the seam to 'view' the draft traveling in or out like around doors frame ect... then weather strip like a mad man. All the supposably closed openings around the house will add up to quite alot of leakage which is bad.

Airconditioning sounds like your number one energy monster. Check out swamp coolers. My dad has one (in a hot area) and supposably it's the chit. I haven't seen it but supposably uses water and some sort of radiator type stuff (I think) and evaporates into nice cool air.... Sounds like a much more green type of AC.

Paint the roof and house white. Nuff said.

Solar- definitely the direction this country needs to go in. Could be awsome but quite a project.

LED lights- have an almost immortal life span AND are like 3-5 times more efficient then flourescent. Not cheap, but immortallity never is. They don't generate heat.

Water heater recirculation pump. Combined with insulation on your water pipes. You set the clock to circulate the hot water for the times of day that you use it. Keeps it moving and returning to the tank, helps conserve heating energy overall.

Ummm, that's all I can think of. There's tons of info out there to research and it's fun going green!