Does it make SENSE, to monitor your homes energy.
I did it! I finally purchased a Sense energy monitor. Some of you know I just installed a new AC unit. I also had that home efficiency audit. The audit is sponsored by the power company, and it is 99 bucks. but they give you 6 nice Led bulbs and a shower nozzle that has an auto shut off when the water reaches a certain point (do they know my wife or what?)
You have to install it on your mains and it can be scary. What is even scarier is the way my mains were positioned, I had to remove my meter (don't tell anyone) and install it on that side of my box. It was always 300 bux for the sense, but Camelcamelcamel showed the lowest price at $239. Recently it went down to $249 and I thought it would start saving me money right away, and I should just get it now, and it may never be $239 again for a while. Yep, I think it is expensive as hell. The thing that sets it apart from the DIY stuff I have seen is they use a database of all users to help detect what is going on in your home and to identify individual items in your home. So far the identification thing is good and bad. I have read that you need patience and it makes sense. Within a day, it identified my AC unit. Also, 2 of my 3 refrigerators. A stove top and strangely the boys bathroom light. (most my other light are now LED.) My water heater got picked up today, as did my dryer. I am a bit Leary about the dryer one because we don't use it that much and it Identified it before, but incorrectly. They are compatible with TP link and wemo sockets and they have a built in usage data that the sense can use to know individual items not yet identified. (like using a kill a watt). I found 3 for $24 bucks on amazon last night, cheaper that a kill a watt at that price. A couple of thoughts. I am mad that I even have to buy one. My power company has the same data. I view it everyday. The problem is, it is not up to the minute, it is a day behind. They have the data. There are no more meter readers. They get all the data from the meter and then boom, send you a bill. That was once someones job, and a good job at that. The least they could do is let you log in and view it. Saving money is a team effort and it is tuff to get my wife on bored. She hasn't even downloaded the app where you can see everything in real time. She just doesn't care. All she does is complain when during our peak time (3pm to 8 pm) where our power costs us the most and I set the thermostat to 82, that she is hot. :D Here is a pic off the internet of what the box looks like. It's in your breaker box though and you will never see it after installed. https://icdn2.digitaltrends.com/imag...-768x479-c.jpg |
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So, In an effort to save money, I decided to start with bulb replacing and using LED's to get going. The results are dramatic.
Here is my original light. Attachment 9008 Here is the new Costco special, 2 for 17 bucks or so, on sale of course. Attachment 9009 And here is the difference in the light, the hallway is so bright now! Attachment 9010 Very cool. According to the Sense app, they only use 46w to light up. Pretty darn efficient. |
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Okay, I just installed this:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07PP2KNNH/ I needed a water heater timer. I do not recommend this one, but I am not sure I will return it. The APP just plain sucks. The only feature of the app is that you can set a time. And even that is odd. I find it odd because you have to set the stop time on the left... and then the start time on the right. Any old used cheap timer off of CL or offer up will do, you do not need this thing. I had my hopes high because I recently (June 4th) upgraded my old outdoor sprinkler timer with a wifi enabled one. That item is a hit. The app it uses is called B-Hyve. Since all you can really do with this new one is set a timer, then I suggest that you just get a cheapy one. My Sense energy monitor is paying off though. Here is this months break down 83 bucks cheaper than same month last year. Attachment 9012 |
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Just get a contactor with a 120V coil and control it with a smart plug.
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I performed an interesting test this weekend. The temps this weekend were practically identical and my electrical rates are the same on the weekends. Saturday set thermostat to 78 degrees. It ran for a total of 533 minutes. Sunday set thermostat to 77 degrees. It ran for a total of 663 minutes. So what did sense tell me about the cost. The new plan I am on is 7.798 cents Per kWh. on the weekends. That is the cheapest that it gets. The sense allows you to see usage on device specific appliances. According to the app, my usage for AC only was. Saturday 78 degrees = 35.156 kWh x 7.798 = $2.74 ish for ac only. Sunday 77 degrees = 38.908 kWh x 7.798 = $3.03 ish for ac only. So was the extra comfort worth the .29 cents? Well... for me personally, no. In fact I wanted to turn it up but my wife's mother is staying with us and she just turned 81. We have to keep her as comfortable as we can. And we save dollars by doing it pennies at a time. I would never of had this data without the sense. One thing my power company does NOT do is break the data down by appliance. I would like to see your comments on my energy companies rate Plans This three card monty type of pricing is making us all pay more. I miss the old days when you had a meter.. a guy came and read it, and you paid a rate for what you used. They have a plan comparison tool that is supposed to show you which plan to use for your specific situation. It was a shame and showed customers plans with used the MOST money. You can read a bit about it here if you are in AZ you SHOULD read it. |
Hey gang,
I want to just show you a bit of the app that you use with your sense. I repeat myself a couple of times and it is a bit clunky, but it shows a lot of the features. I would like to upload a sample of the csv file. I use google docs because it is pretty simple, but not sure how to get it on this site. I sent a PM to Doax and I will do it when he gets back to me. Check out my vid though. https://youtu.be/U_qghZjB0j0 |
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Or just get a 220v contactor that has 220v primary coils and a 220v sonoff. Then no need for another outlet. Just use the hotside of the waterheater feed. What I find curious is why couldn't you put the inducters on the wires inside your panel. I have never seen an instance where that would be an issue unless it is a tiny little 60 amp panel. Units like this used to be very common in the restaurant industry. Every old Wendys still has the leads inside the main distribution panel. They abandoned using the systems as they didn't save any $ and just generated an ongoing cost to operate. One of the dumb parts of the energy code even requires lights near windows to be on a separate switch so they can be turned off during the day... Yeah like any business is going to turn off those lights when it's bright enough. If they do then there will be a lawsuit from someone stubbing their toe on a chair and they will win because the restaurant turned off their lights and did not provide adequate lighting. Having usage data is great but we already know what to do. Datalogging just just confirms what your changes have made. As for the temp at 82*... I'd go nuts cause I would never get any sleep. |
Right... 82.. I could never sleep. But that is for the hours of 3pm to 8pm. I take it to 78 at bed time.
Yep some do not like data logging and consider it a big time suck. I however love it. You can't change what you can't measure. It also allows me to balance comfort and cost. I can perform tests like I did in the above post. So yeh... If you don't want to measure stuff, then don't. The sense is not for everyone. The Roi may be a while, but I am happy so far. |
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Sooooo... this month has been a true test of other mods I have been doing. Air sealing and using timers ETC. The results have been great. The Sense app lets me know when my kid leaves the bathroom light on even. My fellow inmates (my family) are starting to think of me as the electricity Nazi and my son is turning the table on me, reminding ME when I leave something on.
I finally was able to view my Aug. bill.Big savings. Saved $109 and had 4 more days on this months billing cycle and the temps were higher this year than the previous year. Pretty happy with the app so far. |
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This months bill was $115 buck less. In case you are still following along
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Very impressive! What have you done recently to continue improving things?
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Good Question Doax. But to be honest, not a lot. I have been crippled by the heat this year. It has been mostly above 110 this summer. It just takes the fight right out of me.
Before summer I had replaced some fluorescent bulbs with LED bulbs. I replaced the receptacle with that kit from Costco. With each one replaced I airsealed them up as I replaced them. I replaced My rear door as it had a bad leak and no matter what i did, I could not get it to close easily and correctly any longer. ( the door had water damage at the bottom that I had fixed many times). I fixed a large window next to the door that also leaked. Sealed vents in rooms where I could get to them easily. When the fall is finally here I have some big plans. I am going to fix all insulation in my attic. I got a quote of 2500 to that... and it looks like doing it myself I can save about 2k of that. I will also cover my garage with spray insulation as I plan on installing a mini split in the garage so I can make it useable in the summer. The clink in my plans though is I am recently laid off, but I have enough savings to at least get the work in the attic done. Hopefully find an inexpensive mini split for the garage. |
Sounds like all good stuff. Look forward to any updates! I was just talking with my wife about re-evaluating our power usage. We have mostly CFLs in the house with LEDs in higher use areas. I don't think we have any incandescent bulbs left, but its been quite some time since I even looked.
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Sense is on Sale! Right now.
Now sure how many are interested in this thread but the Sense is on sale. I recommend if you want an easy way to monitor your electricity usage. As with any tool, it is only as good as your usage.
I paid 250. It is down to 240. Camelcamelcamel says that is the lowest price. Good luck with yours! https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B075K6PH...v_ov_lig_dp_it One thing I recently discovered is shutting off my coffee maker after the brew is a surprising amount of savings. |
Can anyone point me to the steps on how to embed a YT video instead of just link it. Anyway, here is the coffee maker info.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttCG...ature=youtu.be |
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Here are the lights I ordered.
https://www.costco.com/energetic-lig...100568811.html The color temp is 4k. |
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So for some reason on my power companies website, the comparison page is missing. In dollars though, my bill was $90 Less this month than January of 2020. ($200 vs $112)
Now you may be thinking that we must have a sealed house. That is not true and here is why. We have not turned on our HVAC for a few months. NO HEAT! And that is what is so frustrating about this month's bill. That $112 bucks is all plugins. I can not really control for that with insulation. My big expense is my hot water heater. I actually bought new insulation for it last month and rewrapped it. I did not have my sense last Dec. so I do not know what it was using. This billing cycle though it used 200KWH!!!! That alone is 24.5 percent of my electricity for this month. Now usually is uses around 3 kWh a day. I keep an eye on that as it is older. Well, yesterday it used 6.5 kWh. It has never used that much in one day. The unit itself is 9-10 years old. Last January I cleaned it out and changed the elements. I am going to clean it out again, and I think I will switch the elements as I know the bottom one does most of the work (I think) Either way I think switching them during a service is a good idea. My Anode rod seems to be on the outlet line. I have never changed ANY anode rod before, but this one seems tricky. The videos that I watch all have the anode rod that is separate. Also, I know that I will have to cut the old rod with a grinder and the new one will have to be segmented so it can go in because I have very little clearance above the tank. Anyone ever done this before with this type of system? Anyway that is my update |
Yup electric waterheaters cost far more to operate than the general public realizes. Usually you can assume it costs about $50 a month to operate for a typical household.
We will be going with a heatpump waterheater when I move the waterheater during the remodel. Use less electricity, cool and dehumidify the air yes please... As for the anode rod. If your water eats it away quickly most likely you won't have much of it left and it will just come right out. If there is any left it'll probably be thin enough to just bend. If it's bigger than that then it probably doesn't need to be replaced yet. |
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Today was a big surprise. This is the first bill we have had under 100 bucks. Quite a savings over the same month last year. Over $40 in saving and my wife still won't give me a cookie.
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Here is another thing about the sense device. Since it is connected to their servers, you get a comparison between all sense homes. Here's mine.
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Another good surprise. We have another bill, the lowest in history as far as this house is concerned. It takes a lot of discipline to not use power between 3 and 8 pm. I had to install a wifi-enabled outlet on the washer and I have it turned off between those hours. No more "accidents".Hope your spring is going as well as mine.
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The water heater was most used. Here is a youtube video showing a breakdown
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feYU...nnel=ACoustaDC |
One really good use of those is being able to record usage on a separate panel like a panel for a shop where you have the ability to write off the electrical usage on your business taxes.
I would like to know how much power I use in my shop so I could have an idea of the impact on the overall house bill. here is no way to use it to save electricity as there isn't anything you can cut back on. The air compressor is the biggest user followed by the AC which isn't really as bad as you would think, though it's an undersized 2 ton window unit. Really need another ton of AC in there. |
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Savings of 22 bucks this month... and another month just barely under a hundred. My wife came home and asked me to turn on the Air Conditioning today. I said, "I'm good" and she dropped it. Rare that she asks me, but I just have ice water. Think cool thoughts.
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So, something interesting. I have the ecobee. With that device, there is no way to set the AC to come on at a specific time. I have looked into this quite a bit and can find no solutions.
With my power company we have a time of use plan, and between 3pm and 8pm are our highest prices on electricity usage. Ideally I would run the AC during those hours for 10 minutes each hour and keep the house at a more even temp. As it is now, I go from a 75F setting at 2pm to an 82F setting at 3 where it remains until 8PM. The problem is the AC takes a longer time to recover at 8 and we are pretty uncomfortable from 3 to 8. To combat this I tried something a bit different. There is a setting to keep the air circulating with just the fan on. I have the fan running 24/7. Also I changed the temp for that time period from 82 to 80. We have been more comfortable as you can imagine. The hit to the power bill was 6 bucks more this month than the same month last year. I think Six bucks is worth it. OH, and according to Sense, my fan uses 100 watts an hour to use. No perfect but not bad. |
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The only way to run it like you want may be to use Smartthings. I know it has more control over thermostats than some apps do. As for running the fan continuously with the AC on that will increase the indoor humidity. If you want to cut back to running the unit less in those hours you will need to have a larger AC unit installed to cut down on the cool down time. The system is sized to maintain a constant temp. Without the larger unit it is going to take hours to recover as everything in the house now has to start cooling off again. What you can do if you want to run it less during those hours is to cool the house off more at night so the unit doesn't have to run nearly as much during the day and it won't be as warm inside so recovery time is much lower. |
The sense energy monitor is on sale. This is the lowest price it's been ever by 5 bucks. It normally sells for 300 but is on sale for 234. If anyone is thinking about getting one, this would definitely be the time.
https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B075K6PH...v_ov_lig_dp_it |
It has its own software in the app store and the web interface. From the web interface as well. In the web interface, you can download all kinds of data in a .csv file.
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If anyone is interested this is the cheapest I can remember the sense being and it is less than I paid. (it's 233 buck today) well worth it and there are no continuing costs.
https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B075K6PH...lig_dp_it&th=1 This is a NON affiliate link, I just love you guys and this device. |
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