Over the last couple of months, we have installed a Trane programmable thermostat. We have also logged energy usage and verified the energy and cost savings from the thermostat installation. So far, it has been doing a brilliant job of saving energy, and in only two months has already saved enough money to have paid for itself.
Now, Trane was also nice enough to give us an extra XL800 thermostat to give away! We are very happy to give things to our readers and members. In fact, we’re so happy that we are going to sweetening the pot a bit with a couple extra things. We will add in a smart power strip, and also an online subscription to homepower magazine.
So, lets go over the rules:
There will be three winners of the giveaway. The first winner will get his or her choice of the prizes. The second winner will get his or her choice of the remaining prizes, and the third winner will get the last remaining prize.
The winners will be randomly chosen from a list of active forum members. So, if you aren’t signed up on the forum, you need to sign up and post at least once before March 18th.
On March 19th the winners will be announced on the forum.
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A few months ago we installed the Trane thermostat you see above in a house that previously had an old manual thermostat. Since then, we have been monitoring the energy usage and are now reporting back on the energy savings from the thermostat.
The thermostat was installed in early November. Thankfully, the billing period for that month started right at the beginning of the month too, so using the utility bill as a measuring stick should be quite accurate. Anyway, here are the numbers:
October:
Heating degree days – 626
Gas usage (therms) – 388
Gas usage per heating degree day – .358
November:
Heating Degree Days – 858
Gas usage (therms) – 405
Gas usage per heating degree day – .289
December:
Heating Degree Days – 1638
Gas Usage (therms) – 422
Gas usage per heating degree day – .307
So, with a little bit of math we can see that the thermostat reduced energy usage around 20% in November. We can also see that as it gets colder out, the house becomes less efficient at staying warm. This is quite normal. Even still with it being over twice as cold out, the new thermostat is still providing a 15% savings in December. That is a really huge savings for one simple install that you can do yourself (and if you think you can’t, join our forums and we’d gladly walk you through it).
All said and done, this thermostat has already saved the home owner almost $150 in heating costs (using 20% and 15% respectively on the bills). That is pretty incredible for only having two months of usage under its belt. To keep this in a bit of perspective, this is an old house (over 100 years) and the energy usage is on the high side. So, the cost savings might be a bit high, but the energy savings as a percentage are likely quite accurate.
So, how can you get your hands on a Trane XL800 thermostat? There is a locate a Trane dealer feature on their site. Just plug in your zip code and it finds the nearest dealer. It also looks like they float around on ebay a bit, so you could snag one there. Lastly, Trane was kind enough to give us an extra thermostat to give away to our readers. More details on that in a few days.
This article was originally posted by one of our forum members, Ben Nelson:
Wow, I just crunched the numbers, and realized that I am now saving $162 per year, for about 5 minutes of work.
How is that possible?
Well, start with the “low-hanging fruit.”
Conserve as cheaply as possible whatever is most expensive. At my house, it’s waste water. Where I live, we have a well for our incoming water, but a “holding-tank” for waste water. That’s basically a buried tank in the backyard that all water from the toilet, sink, washer, shower, and any other drain in the house goes to. We live just down the street from a lake, and have a high enough water level that water actually oozes out of our front yard, about 2 feet from the road. Neither sewer or a septic system are options here. (Actually, a mount septic system would be possible. It would cost $15,000, and literally take up the entire backyard.)
The holding tank is 2000 gallons. When it is full, it cost $90 for a pumper truck to come out and empty it.
If my wife and I were both AVERAGE AMERICANS, using 69 gallons of water per person per day at home, we would fill that tank in 15 days. Paying $90 TWICE a month ($180!!!! monthly!) is NOT my idea of a good time!
So, what can we do about it?
We have already taken various water conservation measures, involving the clothes washer, and toilet, the two biggest water-wasters in the home.
The third largest home water user is the shower.
Our existing shower head pumps through 2.5 gallons of water per minute. That’s pretty much the standard. At the Home Improvement Store, nearly EVERY shower head was rated at 2.5gpm.
Now lets think about this. Say I take a 5 minute shower. Everyday. So does my wife.
That’s:
2.5gpm x 5 min = 12.5 gallons per shower
x 2 people = 25 gallons per day
The tank holds 2000 gallons / $90 pumping fee = $.045 = 4.5 cents per gallon. I spend almost 5 cents per gallon to throw water away!!!
$0.045 x 25 gals = $1.125 per day to shower
x 30 = $33.75 per MONTH to shower.
That’s more than my CABLE BILL!
Who knew showering was so expensive!?
I quickly headed to the store to find a flow-restrictor, new showerhead, or some other way to save water in the shower.
Looking through the rather large display of showerheads at the store – some costing over $100 – I could only find ONE water-saving showerhead. ONE. That’s it. No flow restrictors, no other showerheads. Just that one.
So I bought it.
Replacing the old showerhead with the new one took about five minutes total. Four minutes of that were to find a slip-lock pliers to help unscrew the old head. One minute to screw on the new showerhead.
The new showerhead is 1.5 gallons per minute.
1.5gpm x 5 min shower = 7.5 gallons
x 2 people = 15 gallons
x $0.045 = $0.675 per day for showering
x 30 days = $20.25 per month for showering.
Old showerhead = $33.75 monthly
New Showerhead = $20.25 monthly
Monthly savings = $13.50
And the best part? The showerhead cost $12. That means I have a return on investment of less than one month.
$13.50 x 12 months = $162 per year savings.
That also means I would have to pump the tank almost two fewer times per year, AND save that much wear and tear on my well pump.
Not bad for a $12 investment and five minutes of work.
About a month ago, my wife started saying our dryer hasn’t been drying as fast as it used to. Also, the auto moisture sensing feature has never worked well. I talked with a few people I knew and went to work. The idea being that the temperature sensor (and humidity sensor) has been caked full of lint and needs to be cleaned off to work properly.
So, going to work, I popped off the front cover.
Immediately, you can see this thing hasn’t been opened up and cleaned in a long time, probably never.
I initially thought the sensors were in the tube heading to the rear of the dryer.
So, I pulled it out and disconnected the vent.
Finding that the elbow piece was full of lint, I went ahead and cleaned it out.
I also went ahead and stuck the shop vac in the vent pipe in the dryer to clean it out. However, I didn’t see any sensors once I had it vacuumed out.
So, I moved back to the front and started removing more parts. This is the first vent piece that holds the filter in the dryer. Of course, another piece caked with lint to clean out.
With that vent piece out, I can finally see the sensors on the right side.
I removed both of them. I believe the black one is the humidity sensor, and the white one is the temperature sensor. The black one was fairly clean yet, but the white one had a bit of lint caked around the edges. I cleaned them both up with a clean rag and reinstalled them.
This whole process was pretty quick. It might have taken me 30 minutes all in all.
It is about a week later now, and my wife says that the dryer is working great again. The auto moisture sensing setting is working just as it should, and no doubt the dryer is running more efficiently now.
These days there are a lot of different gadgets out there for measuring home energy use, but one in particular has caught my attention. It’s called Wattvision and it allows you to see online, in real time, how much energy your home is using. It also gives you an energy usage history as well as lets you set up alerts to monitor when your home energy use spikes above a certain amount.
Besides being a piece of cake to set up, the joy of Wattvision is that it clearly and comfortably allows you to monitor your whole house, even the things you can’t plug in to your handy Kill-a-Watt. You can then check out the rankings (http://www.wattvision.com/rankings) to compare your home to others using Wattvision.
Right now Wattvision is brand new, so it’s not ready for consumers and there aren’t that many beta-testers set up yet, but this is definitely a neat product and we’re hoping to get it set up on the EcoRenovator house so that all our readers can follow along in real-time with the energy saving work being done!
These days there are a lot of different gadgets out there for measuring home energy use, but one in particular has caught my attention. It’s called Wattvision and it allows you to see online, in real time, how much energy your home is using. It also gives you an energy usage history as well as lets you set up alerts to monitor when your home energy use spikes above a certain amount.
Besides being a piece of cake to set up, the joy of Wattvision is that it clearly and comfortably allows you to monitor your whole house, even the things you can’t plug in to your handy Kill-a-Watt. You can then check out the rankings to compare your home to others using Wattvision.
Right now Wattvision is brand new, so it’s not ready for consumers and there aren’t that many beta-testers set up yet, but this is definitely a neat product and we’re hoping to get it set up on the EcoRenovator house so that all our readers can follow along in real-time with the energy saving work being done!
