Ok 'Home Owners Save Big on Electricity' should grab some attention huh? Well I'm fighting mad, so I did something about it. I was attending a 'Green New Life Expo' a few months ago. There was a vendor there, I won't embarrass them, but they had a gadget, or had invented a gadget that could regulate the electricity in your house; thereby saving you so much on your over all bill for the year or each pay period.
I was tired of paying inflated prices or actually overpaying for electricity that I didn't use or didn't order. So I studied their 'regulator' so-to-speak, which seemed like a good idea at the time. But a cheap one was almost $1000. WOW, that's a really large price, huh? Yeah, I said the same thing. So I put on my thinking cap and decided to figure out a way that I could save money on my electric bill, DWP here in California, and I set right down to find a solution.
I had been paying through my nose at using retail rates for years at the house I live in. So I needed to find a way to save paying for electricity that it seemed I wasn't using or was being overcharged for without literally turning off the power line to the house and just sit in the dark, use candles, flash lights, fireflies, etc.
You see I had heard from a news show that you are paying for power to an appliance whether it is technically turned on or not. SO since I rented out rooms in my house, I thought, hmmmmmmmmmmm, what if I did just that not only did I begin to unplug everything from the toaster, to washer and dryer, to the tv in my bedroom, to the lights I used for video production, but as time went on, I get even bolder and just plain turned off the breaker switches to the areas of the house I didn't need on. Hey can you do that?
Sure if you own the house and people leave during the day, whether they are green aware or not, I can be cause I know where the breaker box is and I can shut the damn thing off completely when not in use. Well lo and behold, it worked! The first pay period, I literally saved 50% on my bill. Is that crazy or what? Now I started to calculate how much I had over spent through the years and got sick. What if I could have saved 50% on my bill since I've been living and paying bills on my own in either rented housing or homes, condos that I eventually purchased and lived in.
You see current is being supplied to the wall socket from the outside line whether you have an appliance turned on, plugged in or not. You are still paying for power to the outlet. Now that's not fair is it? Sure it's not, but they sure don't teach that to you in school. Unless your going to become an electrician. Hey you can still get shocked messing with the power outlet; putting one in, changing it, you remember that right. Somebody in your family or you hired an electrician and they LITERALLY turned off the power from either the outside in the old days, but since now they break up the house into sections and add a specific breaker box to control each section, you don't have to turn off the power to the house, just the section by switches.
WOW too much money has been wasted. But there's no time like the future, so go ahead start your engines, or rather shut them down. SO you home owners out there, get busy. And you don't need those air conditioners on full blast. I was in amc movie theatre and they really get crazy in there. I know it was 100 degrees outside during the day, but it does cool down at night. So adjust accordingly. So I went in to see a movie and it had cooled down to maybe 75 but it felt a lot cooler because of the difference of the high during the day and what it eventually came down to at night. But really folks
I had to wear a sweatshirt, AND a pull over hoodie. Not I'm not a spring chicken although I eat them all the time, I get cold easy especially when the air is blasting just like an oven in reverse. I mean it was cold and blasting so loud, they have to turn up the sound, they do anyway, but to drown out the sound of this massive air blower. Hey get over it. I'm not saying go in there and sweat for your viewing pleasure, but most of the viewers were kids, I call them kids because there is such a difference or so it seems now more than ever as I get older ever minute; that they were wearing just t-shirts and the girls short skirts. I guess their outer skin temperature is higher than mine, must be. Because I have no clue how they could sit in that theatre and not feel cold.
Anyway, enough of that for sure, they can do what they want with their thermostat, but I can control my own at home and will and do. So you should also. I seem to have younger people living in my home at different time, like students from foreign countries that go to school here, or worker bees that just need a temporary living quarters, or in my case, my mother is 82; but the relative age range of the roomates in the house at any given time is much lower.
So I book them in by the month to make ends meet with the extra income, and they have no clue on how to conserve energy. Hey it's not their DMV bill, they just pay the rent and hope for the best. Well I tell you how I play it now. I seem to have Aquarius's that really take to water, they like to live in the shower. I'm sure some of you parents experience this phenomenon. The water is not to play in or either to shave one's legs in. It is primarily to let run when you are wetting your skin for lathering with soap, or to in fact rinse it off. THEN GET OUT> don't play in the water! The bad news is that running water uses three utilities besides water, you didn't think of that one did you?
Sure, the water needs to be heated with gas or electric power in my case, so there's natural gas to heat the water, but electricity to run the whole thing. Three hits on one function. SO I devised a solution to the problem. I found a tankless water heater to be the answer to that antiquated large dinosaur of a water heater that just ran all the time, just to keep water hot when I needed it. STUPID< who thought up that one? Must have been a utility company in the first place. Man do they get over.
So I decided to time my roomates once they got in the shower, coolest thing on the planet, really gives me a way to regulate without coming off as an ass or worse a scrooge. So write this down, take notes, I first go to the temperature gauge in the laundry and after 15 minutes which is surely enough time for a shower, unless you are just plain consuming uselessly and waste and a water hog; I shut off the hot water temperature gauge altogether. And if this doesn't give them a hint, I get rowdy and 'take it to the streets' and literally shut off the water completely if they continue. I love it, seems cruel to you does it. What if somebody did that to me? Hell yeah I'd be pissed, but I hold the key to the highway, get it?
So this is for homeowners, and parents alike who want to regulate and save money on all utilities. Hey I used to waste water, my parents never pulled that crap on me, but they should have. They should have talked to me about water and power conservation. But it was at a time when utilities were much cheaper, so we didn't think about them as much or at all. But as I grew up and moved out and began to pay bills, the ones that come in YOUR NAME, you start to think and change your behavior; maybe I don't need so long a shower, and can turn off the sink water while shaving in between. I mean one the water could be gone, you know. Just turn on the faucet and nothing comes out. So we really need to think about it.
And like I was saying, catering to teens and early twentyites is a trip, cause they have no clue. So they have to be taught in any form, shape or manner. Can I just mention to them casually that they should conserve power?
Maybe that's your stance and it's a free country, to each his own. But I will now shut off the power supply first through my breaker box during the day when my students are not at home; next the temperature gauge when they shower too long, after that a more extreme makeover is to turn off the water completely till they come out screaming with soap all in their eyes and all. Hey its a cruel world, and it's going to get more cruel as the power costs soar up even higher. I mean we got to do something.
Oh and here's another good one, you can actually shut down the frig, I happen to have two cause of a lot of food that needs to be refrigerated and frozen. So I just turn the power off at night. Now that might sound crazy to you. But I'm perfectly sane to do so. You remember when young kids would play in old refrigerators and get trapped inside and suffocate. Well thankfully, those days are gone because they took those stupid latches off the doors finally. But the damn things are still more airtight than ever. I know, they are supposed to be energy efficient and all, but still. I turn them off. And I notice that not even the ice begins to melt in just an 8-hour period. You might think OMG, he's creating mold and he'll die. Not a chance, the cool air in my newest frig, actually feeds the cold air from the freezer INTO the normal part of the frig, thereby keeping the food way cool enough to just flick it back on in the am.
Check it out for yourself one night, don't take my word for it. A refrigerator will turn it self on and off in cycles anyway because it doesn't need to be on running full blast all the time. Does that give you any hints? It tells you that unless you leave the frig off for a week, there is absolutely no problem to turning it off at night. That will save you money. Think about how many less hours per month just your frig alone will save you in electricity?
And I myself even turn off my own power, working down in the computer room on the first floor I can't save much, when I'm working; computer, lights, DSL, power to lights, and even a small amount of electricity to the phone jack in the wall, yeah, that too. I turn off the power now to my bedroom and am not going to shower at night, or do anything but get undressed and get into bed. Why do I need full production lights to show me the way. My cell phone is more than adequate for the job. I just keep opening it and closing it until I get into bed and shut it off. I already know where everything is. I could walk around the room technically with my eyes closed anyway. SO what's the big deal, get over it. I am mostly in there by myself so I wouldn't expect others to fall and trip over themselves or me. I got used to taking care of my business during the day anyway, why wait until the middle of a cold, dark, night?
PS I personally limit my showers to 10 minutes mostly shutting off the water completely between wash and rise cycles. More later.
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