After my last rant I realized I just dogged on a few things and while it might get people to think it never actually offered any other alternatives to help keep some of your hard earned cash in your wallet. I've come up with a brief list of things, some of which I do and some of which I don't do, that you could put into practice and have the potential to save you more money than an LED bulb.
Most (if not all) of the recommendations I make should cost you less than $100 to do. Some of the recommendations may only be applicable for people who own houses while others will work for both apartments and houses.
First a study on water pressure.
Being as I have town water I get charged wonderfully for using it is the form of some BS tax. Even if you don't have town water you run a well pump which in turn uses electricity. Seeing as I don't have a well pump in my current house I could only preform my study on town water.
The water pressure in my house was around 55 PSI when I first moved in. This did OK but if I wanted run the dishwasher and the washing machine at the same time the system was a little taxed and the clothes would not be fully rinsed out. So I heading down the the basement I made an adjustment to between 75-80 PSI. Now everything ran like a champ. No Pressure problems at all. Unfortunately this also reflected in my water bill greatly and is fact just about doubled it. After this assessment I promptly dropped the pressure back down around 55 PSI and used the timers on my washing machine and dishwasher to schedule them not to run at the same time.
More on water conservation:
Much of our excess water usage comes from faucets and shower heads. Currently in my town you pay $4.45 for ever 100 Cubic Feet (HCF or CCF) of water < 1000 Cubic feet and $5.25 for every 100 Cubic Feet over 1000. To put in presepctive 100 Cubic Feet is about 748 Gallons of water. Finding out you many GPM (Gallons Per Min) of LPM( Liters Per Min) your faucets and shower heads run you can significantly reduce you water usage and while it won't seem like you greatly reduced your water bill your ROI (Return on investment) will be much greater because new faucet aerators cost only a couple bucks. Most faucets have the GPM writen on the aerators and in most cases can be reducts 0.5 to 1.0 GPM without much noticeable effect. Lets take an example:
Lets say the average house with 3 faucets (a $10 investment at most) runs their faucets for 10 minuets a day (a very conservative estimate for anyone with kids) and you were able to reduce only 0.5 GPM
So that's only 5 Gallons Per Day
NOTE: I HAD A MATH ERROR HERE BEFORE THAT MADE THIS LOOK WAY BETTER. SORRY I WAS HALF ASLEEP.
5 * 365 / 748 = 2.43 HCF
2.41 *$4.45 = $10.81
So Instead of saving the $15.33/Year from a $30 investment on a light bulb you can save over $10 a year and only invest $10 or a 100% ROI in the first year. Take the extra $20 invest it n a shower head and you will be even further ahead.
You can do the same analysis for a shower head
Next Time:Programmable Thermostats
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