Anyone build something energy related to reduce costs? I’m looking for a project that will decrease my heating/cooling bills. I have the house sealed pretty good. I believe that my furnace and air conditioner are the big ticket items. We have a house fan so perhaps a solar heater for the water heater or ???
Although I’ve never done a whole lot I’ve spent a whole lot of time planning and designing 
I’ll also share THIS which appears to be a pretty “Residence friendly” method of power production versus an actual windmill.
In my completely uneducated opinion it makes sense to go for the low hanging fruit first, which it sounds like you already have.
“Hot water” heat is a good next step, IMO, as well as it’s “Low tech” pretty much. The problem comes in mostly on climate of your location. It will be a lot harder to get “Hot water” when it’s -20F and dark out than it will be in the day during summer and 105F.
Also depends on how exactly you want or what you expect as far as ROI, performance usage etc.
Tons of things you can do though, just depends on whether you have “money to burn” and just want to be green, or if you’re doing it for purely fiscal reasons.
~Matt
Not energy, but I am working on a rain barrel project using reconditioned juice/softdrink barrels. The water will be stored for use in watering the gardens and lawn. Our water rates jumped 20% this year already and there is another increase in the works.
I have a relative who did this. I asked him if it was worth the effort and he said it wasn’t because the only time he had enough water to water things on a regular basis is when it rains and watering isn’t needed. He had a 55 gallon barrel set up with the thought of expanding it to 4 barrels. He has for the most part scrapped the idea.
I asked him if it was worth the effort and he said it wasn’t because the only time he had enough water to water things on a regular basis is when it rains and watering isn’t needed.
Did he have holes in his barrels or something? Where did the water that filled the barrels when it rained go after the rain stopped?
~Matt
I asked him if it was worth the effort and he said it wasn’t because the only time he had enough water to water things on a regular basis is when it rains and watering isn’t needed.
Did he have holes in his barrels or something? Where did the water that filled the barrels when it rained go after the rain stopped?
~Matt
He used the water that was in the barrel, but the capacity that the barrel provided was used up very fast when a dry spell would happen and during a dry spell the barrel is not replenished. And of course when the barrel is regularily replenished there isn’t a need to water.
Ahhhh, I was thinking somehow the water was disappearing.
55 gals isn’t that much. A 9’ x 10’ area receives around 55 gal of water with 1’ of rainfall.
All depends on what and how you’re watering. Not going to be able to keep the lawn alive, but with “Spot” watering you can keep the plants and or a small garden alive for some time.
~Matt
If you’re looking into heating water, look up ‘evacuated tube solar heaters’. These are vacuum sealed tubes that can heat water well beyond boiling and create a good medium for heating stored water.
A new furnace is a big ticket item, so unless its 25 years old or just POS, try looking else where. You could do tankless water heaters. Or look into geothermal. The geothermal initial cost is high - my ranch one company wanted $21k for the work, but it assists in heating and cooling.
As for electricity - looking into smaller solar panels with ‘micro’ inverters. instead of having a larger 5-10kva inverter and battery bank, the small 200-300 va micro inverter grid ties. When the sun is out, you’ll be saving money, when it’s not you’re on edison. The good thing about this, no batteries, no complex system (batteries are very expensive). The smaller 200-300 watt panels also eliminate shading as a problem. if one panel is shaded, the rest of the system still works.
Take care,
Scott
From what I’ve read, even on pro-wind web sites, the so-called ‘rooftop’ or verticale turbines are pretty useless
Unless your house is the tallest thing (building, tree, hill) in the area, you’d need to put it up on a pretty tall mast ( 2x the tallest thing) for them to work.
How about a beer can solar heater?
Here is an idea that I haven’t heard discussed. We all hear about waste vegtable oil as fuel for a diesel engine. Well why not use the WVO to run a small diesel generator. This wouldn’t work in a close neighborhood situation, but in a somewhat rural environment it might work. The enclosures that small generators sit in make them pretty darn quiet.
Before someone touts this as not being eco friendly, what happens to the oil otherwise? Honestly I do not know how/if it gts effectively recycled.
They tell us that we cannot dump used motor oil along the fence line to kill grass because that is not safe. So instead we dump some other toxic blend call round-up - oh thats very safe. Waste product being used, verses the creation of an entirely new toxic blend.
If you’re cost driven then the solar water heater is going to be your best bet, since you’ve already done the house tightening.
Have you had your ducts sealed? Remember, duct tape works on everything except ducts. Go with a mastic paste.
I think we’ve covered closed crawlspaces with you.
In the coming months, look for big dollar rebates on HVAC equipment installation from your utility or some government group.
Are you using your programmable thermostat correctly?
I’m sure it probably operates similarly to a normal turbine. If it’s completely obstructed it ain’t gonna work.
That being said it makes sense that it actually would work better under some circumstances, slightly turbulent, directed wind, etc than a normal turbine.
The thing that I like about it is that they are “Less complex” mechanically in that they don’t need a mechanism to direct them into the wind nor do they need to “Braked” or shut down in higher wind speeds.
Not sure how “Real world” the data is but the site claims that the vertical turbines, I’m assuming under similar conditions, are only 6-8% less efficient than the normal horizontal version.
~Matt
I have a pdf document on home energy projects. They are rank ordered on cost effiectiveness (cost vs payback) and fairly detailed instructions on much of it is included. PM me with your email, and I will send it to you. It is basically a home energy audit that you do yourself and it recommends the countermeasures needed based on the findings.
As a FYI, if you have not completely sealed off your house as tight as a dolphins a$$ and insulated every nook and cranny, you are pretty much wasting your time installing elegant systems. You have not provided where you are now, so there is no way to assess what your next step should be.
I think the technical term is “frog butt tight.”
Or, close all your windows and doors. Then, go to your front door, open it, then slam it shut. If your toilet doesn’t flush then the house is not really tight.
What fuels your HW heater and clothes dryer? That can be a huge savings with a <2 yr payback if you’re currently running elec and switch to gas.
I have an older home that has a lot of single paned windows (15-20). Unfortunately they aren’t a “normal” size. Each is 16 inches wide and 72 inches long separated into two panels with the lower being about 24 inches long and the upper 48 inches. I also have two sliding doors which are 12 feet long (six feet sliding over six feet stationary) and they are single paned also. Any recommendations on making my house “frog butt tight”?
4 year old electric dryer and gas water heater. I will check out the bennys of moving the dryer to gas.
Are they letting air through, or just providing a poor R-value?
If they are letting air through, you can try and add weather stripping to seal them, reputty the panes, or even paint them shut to prevent air from passing through.
If it is simply the poor R-value of a single pane window, there isn’t really anything that you can do to fix that except put insulation on the inside of the window (at which point it is no longer a window) or replace them. If you want to try and slow the spread of cool air draft that develops around the window, impeding the air from moving freely in the house will help. Heavy drapes or good shutters with little open gaps will help a small amount, but not a whole lot.
PM me with your email or email me at jameshwilson3 at hotmail dot com, and I can send you the DIY projects report. It is very prudent for older homes. Your single pane windows are far from ideal, but they really may not be as big of a problem as you might think, assuming that they dont have air leaks.