72 and Smart

Last fall, I wrote a review of the Nest Learning Thermostat that attracted a lot of attention. It turns out they just came out with Nest 2.0, so I thought I would take a look.

The new software update Nest 2.0 includes:

1.  Enhanced Energy History, a more in-depth look at your usage
2.  Airwave, a specific energy-saving application for the cooling season
3.  Additional remote features via web, iPhone and Android
4.  Updated internal menus
The software update will be downloaded automatically over the next couple of days through the user’s Wi-Fi connection. Users should also be sure to update the applications on their mobile devices as well.

Nest Labs was formed by industrial designers Tony Fadell and Matt Rogers, both formerly of Apple. They decided that applying some Silicon Valley magic to the lowly thermostat would attract tech-oriented homeowners concerned about saving energy and money and reducing their burden on the planet.

Controlling Smart Heating & Cooling

The Nest thermostat could be considered a 3G programmable thermostat that interacts with you like a regular thermostat, then programs itself based on your behavior. It does this by paying attention to the settings you choose and when you choose them, as well as other indicators of household activity, then once it gets your pattern, it repeats it for you, automatically. Using this process, Nest clams they can save homeowners up to 20% on their heating and cooling bills.

Perhaps most useful is the remote access feature that connects to Wi-Fi and allows you to program the thermostat with your iPhone or Android device. This means that you can check your thermostat or reset your temperature wherever you are, whether that’s in bed or a thousand miles away. These capabilities were upgraded in Nest 2.0.

The Nest has an Auto-Away feature which utilizes occupancy sensors to determine if anyone is at home. If there is no one around, it will move into an energy saver mode after a period of time. The Nest senses the amount of activity in the home in its first few days and continually updates its readings.

The Nest also tracks your settings, and then encourages you to use more energy efficient ones, providing feedback in the form of a green leaf when you have saved and showing you your percent savings in your Energy History.

Joining Smart Technology

Regarding the update, Nest had the following to say about their new Enhanced Energy History.

To maximize your savings, you have to understand how much energy you’re actually using and why. When we first launched Nest, we knew we wanted to do something special with Energy History, but doing it right took time. The enhanced Energy History we’ve launched today is for those of you who’ve requested more detail about your energy use and easier access to energy info. No longer locked inside your Nest, this deeper energy data is now available on the Web app, iPad and both Android and iPhone smartphones.

With this new application you can click on any given day and see the energy usage details for that day. This information should be very helpful for those that choose to take advantage of it.

What Airwave does is basically squeeze extra cooling out of your air conditioning system, by turning the compressor off a little before its done and then “coasting” using the fan only to extract all the remaining cold air from the coils.

Mobile app upgrades include better information retrieval, the ability to change “Away” temperature, activate a Range Schedule and pause Auto-Schedule and Auto-Away. They also increased the number of devices that Nest is compatible with.

The Range Schedule feature is for homes with both heating and cooling. It can be used to set a range, below which heating comes on and above which cooling comes on. Internal upgrades also include the ability to adjust the away temperature in the Settings menu.

For more information, check out the Nest website.

RP Siegel, PE, is the President of Rain Mountain LLC. He is also the co-author of the eco-thriller Vapor Trails, the first in a series covering the human side of various sustainability issues including energy, food, and water.

No, it’s not your imagination—it definitely is getting hotter. The eight warmest years on record occurred over the past decade. But staying cool this summer doesn’t necessarily mean you have to pay a fortune to keep the air-conditioning running day and night. Here are 10 tips—most costing less than $25—that will keep you comfortable and cut the typical $1,000 cooling bill by as much as half. What’s needed to get the temperature to drop? Only a little time and a few changes in your routine can beat the heat.

The Right Setting

Typical air-conditioning settings for a programmable thermostat at different times of day:

• • 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. = 75 degrees
• • 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. = 80 degrees
• • 5:30 p.m. to 11 p.m. = 75 degrees
• • 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. = 80 degrees

1.  Set the Dial Higher

If you have central air, set your thermostat above 78 degrees (all temperatures cited here are in degrees Fahrenheit). You’ll save 5 to 8 percent on cooling costs with each degree above that mark. For a typical household, setting the thermostat at 80 degrees saves 10 to 15 percent; raising it to 85 degrees will save 35 to 55 percent.

When you leave home for more than one hour, set the thermostat to 85 or 90 degrees. Reset it upon your return, and the room will cool down in only 15 minutes. The system will use less energy during the cool-down period than if you had left it running at a lower setting while you were out.

Cost: $0

Benefit: 15 to 20 percent or more off your cooling bill

2.  Use a Fan

A fan which costs two to five cents per hour to operate, will make a room feel 4 to 6 degrees cooler. Also, a fan works well in tandem with an air conditioner because the dehumidifying action of the air conditioner provides drier air that the fan can then move around.

In frequently used rooms, install a ceiling fan (set it to spin counterclockwise in summer). You’ll save the most money by running the fan only when you’re in the room. A motion-detector switch (around $20), which turns the fan on when you enter a room and off when the room is empty, is a good addition. However, if you have pets that move in and out of the room, make sure the switch can be turned off manually. Otherwise, your pets can cause the fan to run while you’re away.

If nighttime temperatures drop into the 70s where you live, you might want to purchase a whole-house fan, which runs $300 to $600 installed. This type of unit goes in an upstairs ceiling, ideally in a central hall. When run at night with the windows open, the fan will pull cool air into the house as it vents hot air out through the attic. Most models are designed to slip in between joists for easy installation. Whole-house fans, which draw only as much power as a couple of lightbulbs, are usually outfitted with a variable-speed switch and/or timer. If you install one, be sure to get an insulated box to cover the portal in winter.

Cost: Ceiling fans range from $30 to $200. Floor fans cost around $20, and whole-house fans run from $300 to $600.

Benefit: Ceiling fans can decrease your cooling bill by up to 15 percent, while a whole-house fan can slash it by 50 percent.

3.  Practice “Texas Cool”

“Texas cool” is a morning and evening routine that takes advantage of cool outdoor temperatures at night and keeps the heat at bay as much as possible during daylight hours. It’s very simple to do: At night when the temperature drops, open windows and bring in cool air with window fans or a whole-house fan. As soon as the sun comes up or the air starts to heat up, shut the windows and shades and keep doors closed.

Cost: $0 (plus minimal fan use)

Benefit: 20 to 50 percent off your cooling bill

4.  Use Sunblockers

As much as 20 percent of summer heat enters your home as sunlight shining through windows. To cut “solar gain,” add curtains or blinds to rooms that get direct sun and draw them in daylight hours. With the shades drawn, a well-insulated house will gain only 1 degree per hour when outdoor temperatures are above 85 degrees.

Pay special attention to west-facing rooms late in the day. Shades and blinds to consider include roller shades (the least expensive option), venetian-type micro-blinds, reflective curtains and insulated curtains (the most expensive, at $100 per window). Two exterior options are to install awnings or plant shade trees.

Cost: $8 to $100 per window

Benefit: Up to 20 percent off your cooling bill

5.  Install a Programmable Thermostat

A programmable thermostat lets you preset temperatures for different times of the day, so air-conditioning is working only when you are home. The least-expensive thermostat models ($30) let you set four cycles that, unless manually overridden, repeat every day. Higher-priced models ($50 and up) allow you to create settings for each weekday and for each weekend day.

These thermostats come with complete directions and are easy to install. Just remove the old thermostat, unscrewing the wire leads attached to the terminals on the back. Reattach those wires to the terminals on the new model (in a system with separate A/C and heating units there may be four leads on the back, two for each unit). AA batteries maintain the settings if the power ever goes off.

Cost: $30 to $50

Benefit: Up to 20 percent off your cooling bill

6.  Cook Smart

Any appliance that generates heat adds to your cooling load. An oven baking cookies can easily raise the room temperature 10 degrees, which in turn jacks up overall cooling costs 2 to 5 percent. Save cooking (especially baking) for cooler hours, or cook outdoors on your grill. It is also a good idea to run the dishwasher and clothes dryer at night.

Cost: $0

Benefit: 2 to 5 percent off your cooling costs

7.  Get Cooler Lights

Incandescent bulbs don’t contribute as much heat as unshaded windows, but they do add heat to a house and can raise the perceived temperature, sending you to the thermostat to seek relief. To reduce this hot-light effect and save lighting costs year-round, replace incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescents. They use about 75 percent less energy and emit 90 percent less heat.

Cost: $12 to $25 per bulb

Benefit: Up to 5 percent off your cooling bill plus electricity savings

8.  Snug Up the Ducts

Leaky ducts can cut into air-conditioning efficiency. Ductwork must be balanced between the supply and return sides of the system in order for it to work safely and efficiently, so making a repair in one section can cause a problem in another. Leak-prone areas include the return plenum; where branch ducts meet the trunk line; and where ducts attach to outlets. Also, insulate ducts that run through a hot attic with a blanket of R-11 fiberglass insulation.

Unless the duct repairs are minor, it’s wise to leave them to a HVAC pro. While the contractor is on site checking your ducts, have them tune up the air-conditioning unit by cleaning filters, unplugging coils, unblocking drains and lubing the fan.

Cost: $75 to start for a service call

Benefit: Up to 40 percent off your cooling bill

9.  Seal Air Leaks

The places where cold air infiltrates in winter are routes for hot air in summer. And what’s worse, hot air is often accompanied by high humidity, making you even more uncomfortable. Armed with a flashlight, exterior-rated silicone caulk and a couple cans of expanding foam insulation, hunt down and seal all leaks. Concentrate on the attic, basement and crawl space; pay close attention to anything that passes through a ceiling or wall, such as ductwork, electrical or plumbing conduits and kitchen and bath vents. Other common leaky spots are around windows and doors. If you can rattle a window, it’s leaking. Seal it with weather stripping.

Cost: $6 to $25

Benefit: Up to 10 percent off your cooling bill

10.  Defeat Attic Heat

The temperature in your attic can reach 150 degrees on a hot summer day, a situation that if left unchecked can drive up cooling costs by as much as 40 percent. If your attic has less than R-22 insulation—7 inches of fiberglass or rock wool, or 6 inches of cellulose—you should add more. (The U.S. Department of Energy says most homes should have between R-22 and R-49 insulation in the attic. To check what’s right for your region, go to the Department of Energy website.)

Before insulating, seal around recessed lights, vents, and plumbing and lay down a 6-mil polyethylene vapor barrier. When insulating, place boards across the tops of the joists to walk on, and as you insulate, don’t cover or pack insulation around a bare stove pipe, electrical fixtures, or any other equipment that produces heat, unless the fixture is labeled as suitable for direct contact with insulation. Otherwise you risk fire.

Also make sure your attic is ventilated. Gable vents (around $25 each, plus $75 per vent for labor) can lower attic temperatures about 10 degrees; a ridge-and-soffit ventilation system (an extra $200 during reroofing) will reduce attic temperature to around 100 degrees.

When reroofing, use white or pale-gray shingles instead of dark ones. These keep the attic cooler than dark shingles.

Cost: approximately $25 each for gable-end vents; around $200 for ridge-and-soffit ventilation in a new roof

Benefit: Longer shingle life, and up to 20 percent off your cooling bill

ENERGY SAVING TIPS

1.  Turn off everything not in use: lights, TVs, computers, etc.

2.   Check the furnace or air conditioner (AC) filter each month, and clean or replace it as needed. Dirty filters block air flow through your heating and cooling systems, increasing your energy bill and shortening the equipment’s life.

3.  During hot months, keep window coverings closed on the south, east, and west windows. In winter, let the sun in.

4.  Glass fireplace doors help stop heat from being lost up the chimney. Also, close the fireplace damper when not in use.

5.  Activate “sleep” features on computers and office equipment that power down when not in use for a while. Turn off equipment during longer periods of non-use to cut energy costs and improve longevity.

6.  When cooking, keep the lids on pots. Better yet, use a microwave oven instead.

7.  Dress appropriately for the weather, and set your thermostat to the lowest possible comfortable setting. On winter nights, put an extra blanket on the bed and turn down your thermostat more.

8.  In summer, use fans whenever possible instead of AC, and ventilate at night this way when practical. Using fans to supplement AC allows you to raise the thermostat temperature, using less energy. Fans cost less to use than AC.

9.  About 15 percent of an average home energy bill goes to heating water. To save hot water, take five-minute showers instead of baths. Do only full loads when using the clothes washer or dishwasher.

10.  Switch to cold water washing of laundry in top loading in top-loading, energy-inefficient washing machines to save energy and up to $63 a year–detergents formulated for cold water get clothes just as clean.

11.  Lower the temperature on your water heater. It should be set at “warm,” so that a thermometer held under running water reads no more than 130 degrees.

12.  Only heat or cool the rooms you need–close vents and doors of unused rooms.

Energy Conservation

Todays Power Trip - High Power Bill and Where To Save Energy

by Don Ames

When your reviewing your home energy bill and become  concerned about a rising power costs and energy conservation, don’t overlook the possibility of a malfunctioning thermostat. Rising home power costs can often times be the result of an older thermostat or a thermostat that is not wired correctly. To save energy, the thermostat needs to be matched to the heating and cooling system and needs to be wired correctly.

Recently, I visited a home where the homeowner was concerned with rising power costs. About 6 years ago, a heat pump was added to his electric furnace and within the last four months the power bill had shown significant increases.

Homeowner complaints included:

• Rising power bill reaching just over $300.
• Furnace that blows cool air from the heating registers.
• Furnace fan that seems to run often and long.

A week before I visited the home, the homeowner became concerned that the thermostat might be the problem. He changed the thermostat, replacing an older style, mercury bulb thermostat, with a new programmable digital model.  Proud of himself and increased energy conservation, he showed me the old mercury switch and I reminded him to dispose of it in an appropriate recycle facility. Don’t mess around with mercury.

I am concerned about whether or not the thermostat is wired correctly. Sometimes the older mechanical thermostats didn’t have as many wires connected to them as a newer digital thermostat requires.

Recommendation:

In order to keep your furnace and heat pump working efficiently, have them checked and serviced once a year.

• Have a Heating and Cooling contractor service the heating system.
• Check for efficient operation of both the heat pump and the furnace.
• Check to see that the thermostat is wired correctly.

Heating duct air leakage

To follow up on other causes of high heating costs,  I got out the blower door and duct blaster. The blower door will tell us how much air is leaking into and out of the house and the duct blaster will tell us how much air is leaking out of the heating ducts. Stopping air leakage from the heating ducts is one of the most cost effect, power saving measures we can do for a home.

The blower door test indicated 825 CFM house air leakage. Since the home is about 1400 square feet of living space, this amount of air leakage is OK. If the home was air sealed and the air leakage was reduced, the home might begin to feel stuffy or stale. A home needs to breath in order to have fresh air for the household.

The duct blaster registered 520 CFM total leakage with 315 CFM leakage to the outside of the home. The figure of 315 CFM to the outside is the important figure. I would like to see  this reading below 100 CFM. It will be beneficial to have a contractor seal the heating system to save energy.

Recommendation – Free heating duct sealing provided

Since this is a manufactured home and since the power company feels sealing heating ducts is a productive, cost effective way to save energy, a contractor can come and seal the heating ducts and the power company will pay for it 100%. Now there is a good deal.

For this home and this power trip, I will recommend that a heating contractor service the furnace and heat pump and check to see that the thermostat is wired and working correctly. I will also help the homeowner schedule a duct sealing contractor that is approved by the power company to test and seal the heating ducts.

I’m looking forward to learning if the work being done to this home will lower the power usage and the power bill. Thanks for checking out Today’s Power Trip, come back to detect energy soon, but I won’t leave the light on for you…

EcoFactor: Using big data to reduce home energy by 17%

By Katie Fehrenbacher ,  gigaom.com

EcoFactor, a startup that uses big data tools to act as a new brain for connected thermostats, has some stellar results from ten different trials where it automated the process of turning up and down consumer’s thermostats. The company, which launched at the end of 2009, says that on average its services can reduce a person’s home energy use by 17 percent compared to a programmable but non-optimized thermostat.

That’s a 17 percent reduction in a consumer’s energy bill, too, and EcoFactor found it could reduce consumer’s bills by up to $56 per month when its service was used. EcoFactor did many of its trials during demand response events for utilities, which are times (like a really hot day) when a utility wants to turn down the energy consumption of some users to better manage the grid. EcoFactor also found that it delivered better demand response events for utilities, providing a 36 percent increase in yield for utilities during the event.

As I noted back when the company launched: finally a smart way to control thermostats. I’m not sure why every utility, energy service provider and consumer wouldn’t want to use this. The only requirement is a connected thermostat (well, and waiting for the service to be available in your area).

Here’s how it works: EcoFactor collects thousands of data points — from weather to regional building codes to home value — that give a clue about how an individual home might use energy and also respond to a service that promotes energy savings. EcoFactor then combines that service with the consumer’s ability to manually override the system (i.e., press up and down on the thermostat). When a consumer signs up for the service, EcoFactor uses the first couple of weeks to set a baseline for how that individual user prefers the temperature in their home: When a person pushes up or down on the thermostat, the original baseline starts to get set.

Then EcoFactor’s service automatically makes over 1,000 micro adjustments per month to the thermostat, bumping it up and down every so slightly, so that the user doesn’t notice the temperature change but also reduces her energy consumption. During demand response events on a particularly hot day in the summer, EcoFactor can precool some houses, turning on the AC a bit before the demand response event; then it can turn down the power use of the house during the event while the house acts essentially as a thermal battery, and the residents don’t notice the inconvenience of having their energy use curbed.

EcoFactor is first and foremost targeting consumers as its end customers, but it is working via distribution channels like utilities, broadband service providers (cable, DSL) and home security systems companies to reach those customers. The only reason EcoFactor isn’t in more widespread use today is probably because partners like utilities and telcos are notoriously slow-moving when it comes to adopting new services. EcoFactor worked with Oncor in Texas and other unnamed utilities for its trials.

It’s still in the early days for the service. The demand response trials included hundreds of homes, and EcoFactor says by the end of the year (after its summer trials), it will have been tested in “tens of thousands of homes.” In the utility world, that’s still a small footprint.

But EcoFactor is one of the only companies out there in the energy and utility world that is truly leveraging big data tools and the cloud to make energy use smarter. (To learn more about cloud computing, come to our Structure event on June 22 and 23 in San Francisco.) And for those not used to reading energy reduction metrics, 17 percent is actually really high for an energy management service. In comparison, OPower’s smarter energy bills on average reduce consumer energy consumption by 2 percent. EcoFactor is backed by RockPort Capital Partners and Claremont Creek Ventures.

Smart Electric Meters

Utility Will Offer a Smart Meter

by John Murawski

North Carolina utility will debut a true “smart meter” this year that lets customers adjust thermostats from an iPhone or any other Internet portal. On the basis of initial testing, the feature is expected to save customers about 6.5 percent on their monthly power bills.

But to benefit from the interactive utility feature you have to be a customer of tiny Wake Electric Membership Corp., the state’s first utility to offer this smart grid feature for its customers. 

This spring, Wake Electric will start offering its 34,500 customers in seven counties the Monitor and Manage Program. The utility, which serves parts of Wake, Durham and Johnston counties, will let customers operate appliances remotely and also check their household electricity usage in real time.

Don Bowman, Wake Electric’s manager of engineering, said the feature will let a customer adjust or turn off a water heater, or adjust heating or air conditioning, without getting out of bed, if the customer has an iPhone, iPad or other similar device.

Wake Electric’s Monitor and Manage Program will cost $9.95 a month, and 5 percent to 10 percent of Wake Electric’s customers are expected to sign up.

Wake Electric is using technology designed by Raleigh-based Consert, a 55-employee company that upgrades utility meters with two-way radio communication

 Thermostats Programmable

Thermostat Lowers Power Bill

Good Design Saves Energy; Bad Thermostat Design Is Throwing It Away

by Lloyd Alter, treehugger.com

In 1941 Industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss produced the first round of Honeywell thermostats. According to the description from a Cooper Hewitt exhibition,

• “By 1953, the thermostat was refined into its now-familiar form, referred to simply as the Round. Its low price and ability to fit most situations has made the Round one of Dreyfuss’s most successful designs. His continuing emphasis on ease of use and maintenance, clarity in form and function, and concern for end-use helped make Honeywell a leader in the field of controls both domestic and industrial environments.”

It was simple and easy to use. Yet today, according to Katie Fehrenbacher at GigaOm, the energy savings promised by programmable thermostats are being lost because they “are almost as much of a nightmare to figure out as confounding DVRs, and confusing TV remote controls.”

Katie points to work by Alan Meier: Usability of Residential Thermostats: Preliminary Investigations, that looked at thermostat use and writes: “The majority of users operated programmable thermostats manually (ie not programming them) and almost 90 percent of survey participants said they rarely or never adjusted the thermostat to set a program.”

She finds that data disturbing, noting: “If consumers aren’t interested enough to even learn the basics of how to save energy via an already installed programmable thermostat, it’s going to be a long road ahead for any energy-saving consumer-facing technology.”

I could not find the exact report that Katie references, but did find Thermostat Interface and Usability: A Survey From September, 2010, By Alan Meier. From its abstract, my emphasis:

• Recent studies have found that as many as 50 percent of residential programmable thermostats are in permanent “hold” status.
• Evaluations found that homes with programmable thermostats consumed more energy than those relying on manual thermostats.
• Occupants find thermostats cryptic and baffling to operate because manufacturers often rely on obscure, and sometimes even contradictory, terms, symbols, procedures, and icons.
• Many people are unable to fully exploit even the basic features in today’s programmable thermostats, such as setting heating and cooling schedules.

He concludes that savings from the thermostats is less than predicted and may even result in increased energy use.

Anecdotal information points to widespread user difficulties with programmable thermostats…. User complaints culled from the open literature cover misconceptions about energy use, the thermostats themselves, the operating manuals, and barriers to using programmable thermostats. …users complained about the thermostats themselves, they noted in particular their complexity, small size of buttons and writing, confusing terms and symbols, and the steps needed to program the devices.

This is just silly. Look at what happened when Steve Jobs and Apple design VP Jonathan took on the MP3 player, which was complicated and difficult to use, and introduced the iPod. The designers combined an intuitive, simple interface with solid software backup to revolutionize the industry. Henry Dreyfuss is gone, but where is the Jonathan Ive of thermostat design?

Living Green

Fight the Fat: As renters and homeowners, we get use to living in our homes the same way day after day, year after year. Most likely, in order to save energy and save money, we will need to “Fight the Fat”!

Here are some fat areas that that we might need to start dealing with to help lower our power bills.

“Fat Places”

Thermostat: Research has shown that lowering the setting on your thermostat 1 degree, equals $5 savings per month.

Clothes Dryer: Just let the clothes dryer run an hour, at least the clothes will be good and dry. Let’s see, clean the dryer duct and the lint filter, set the timer for auto dry and presto, 40 minutes later, the clothes are dry.

Clothes Washer: Wash in cool temperatures. With today’s detergents, you can break the hot water wash habit. Remember, it takes a lot of energy for the hot water heater to heat the water for the wash and rinse cycles.

Water Heater: The hottest water I ever measured at a kitchen sink faucet was 162 degrees, peel the skin right off a radish. The home owner simple commented, “Yea, the water seems pretty hot.” For best hot water use and for best energy use, set your hot water tank to deliver water at 120 degrees.

Shower Nozzle: Have you seen the shower nozzles that looks like a giant sun flower head? You could take them gold mining to wash down the hill side. Fight the fat with a shower nozzle that delivers less than 1.5 gallons a minute. Yes ladies, you can still get the shampoo out of your hair.

Big Honkin Flat Screen TV: Yep, the bigger the TV the bigger the electric bill. A new super hero has been invented considering all the electronics we have in our homes,’ The Phantom.’ You see, most of the modern electronic devices we have use energy even when they are not being used. It’s starting to add up, count the devices you have right now, I’ll bet there are more than you think.

Sleep Warm And Save Energy

by Dale Y the Green Guy

If you are like me, you like to crawl into a nice warm bed when you are ready to go to sleep. In the old days, people used to heat up bed irons on the stove or in the fireplace, and tuck them under the covers. That way, when they did finally crawl under the blankets, it was nice, warm and comfy.

You could get away with that back then because almost everyone heated with a wood burning stove or a fireplace. But in these modern times of modern furnaces, hydroponic heating systems and forced air ducts, it’s a little bit difficult. You might still be able to do something like that, but it would be more hassle than it’s worth.

However, there is a way to get that comfy cozy feeling when you crawl into bed at night, and save energy in the process. It’s called using an electric blanket or an electric mattress pad.

Either an electric blanket or an electric mattress pad will heat up your bed to whatever temperature that you like. The best thing about them is that they will only use about 200 watts to do it, which means as a rough average, having an electric blanket or mattress pad on all night will cost about 30 cents worth of power, and some electric companies give discounts for after hours use. So it may even cost less than that.

Now, if you turn your thermostat down 10 degrees during this same period, the entire house will be significantly cooler, but you won’t. You’ll still be as snug as a bug in a rug, errr, a bed, and you’ll be saving money and energy the entire time.

Here’s why. First of all the fuel saved during that time may amount to a buck or two. Couple that with the energy usage of an electrically powered zone valves and pumps for a hydronic system, or turning a fan on a forced air system, and you’ll be saving another couple of bucks right there. Even energy efficient pellet stoves burn fuel and use electrical fans to circulate the air, etc. etc. See where I am going with this?

Warming up your space while keeping all the other spaces cooler, is incredibly efficient, even if you are using electricity to do it with. Granted, you can always pile on the blankets and achieve the same results by spending zero in energy costs, and that is a viable alternative, but for some that just isn’t practical.

Electric blankets are inexpensive too. They will pay for themselves in less than a month, and they can often be found at thrift shops for a fraction of their original cost. Using one instead of your heating system while you sleep is a win-win situation for you and your pocketbook. And if you have a programmable thermostat, set it at the time you wake up to heat-up the spaces that you will be using.

Some people think that being green costs money, but in fact, the opposite is true. After all, whoever thought that you could sleep warm and save energy at the same time? And now you know.

Rhode Island is helping keep people warm and conserve energy with blankets

by Don Ames

It is interesting to learn about programs around the country that help people stay warm and save power. For this program, we have to go up into the Northeast and visit one of the smaller States. Might want to say, small State has a warm heart.

According to Donna, a Rhode Island lassie, Rhode Island has a program called the HeatSmart Campaign. I am glad they didn’t call the program the Smart Heat Campaign. I have had my fill of smart this and that – smart homes, smart meters, smart grid, etc. And, by the way, the first time I read the word I thought it was HeadSmart – which rhymes with headstart, and there I was out in left field thinking this was a campaign for preschool students. But, not so.

HeatSmart is an initiative of the Northwest Woolen Mills. Yes, despite it’s name, it is in Rhode Island not Montana. The Woolen Mills are familiear with the federal program called LIHEAP ( Low-income Housing Energy Assistance Program ) and have been working with CAP agencies ( Community Action Program ) around the country. The warm blankets from the Northwest Woolen Mills have warmed the Navy, FEMA, and other noteworthy large groups.

At the household level, HeatSmart is a two part endeavor to help low income howmeowners save money on their heating bills.

1. Providing client education on conserving power.
2. Providing high grade woolen blankets at cost to each household occupant.

The theory is simple, the homeowners are more likely to turn down the thermostat if everybody in the family has a nice woolen and warm blanket. I hope snuggling is allowed.

The Woolen Mills work with CAP agencies and other non-profits around the country and provide the blankets at a cost of $12 each. And, to make things even better, the blankets are made of recycled material and are machine washable in cold water.

Hope I didn’t miss something here, so, the blankets are made from recycled material. If the blankets come from a woolen mill, then are the blankets made out of wool, like from a sheep. Is sheep’s wool considered recycle material? Hmmm!

Want to know more, www.heatsmart.net or www.northwestwoolen.com.

Hey, thanks for stopping by detectenergy, see ya soon, but I won’t leave the light on for you…Don Ames