Last week, we had the dishwasher switched out. The old one was stinky and I secretly wanted a new one regardless, because I knew a new one would decrease water and energy use.
It's actually a funny story, because I did all the research for it, consumer reports, home depot reviews, energy star, etc. The day after the landlord came to look at the old one I emailed my mom the link to the one "we" wanted and before she could forward the link they said they had bought one and it would get delivered in a couple of weeks. I was really nervous and excited. Yes we were getting a new dw, but I was really afraid it was going to be the cheapest, most wasteful dishwasher they could get. Low and behold I got home that night of the install and it was the EXACT one I wanted! Woohoo!
I was totally shocked!
Anyway here is the link to the one we got.
Home Depot Energy Star It seemed to be the best option for that price range (it was on sale at the time, to boot!)
I also today realized I had missed switching out a few light bulbs, so they were still halogen bulbs, not CFL. I've gotten all the other ones, except the ones in the living room, which I will switch out after winter (they do provide heat
). So the light switch controls two fixtures in my hallway, with both fixtures having two bulbs each (4 bulbs total). One fixture had both bulbs out and the other fixture had both bulbs working at 52W a piece (104W total for the system). So I put in 4-13 watt bulbs and now both sides of the hallway are properly lit for exactly
half of the total wattage before!
EDIT: I actually replaced two of the bulbs with 9W bulbs, so total wattage for the circuit is 44W.
I also did some temperature measurements today. My gf took a shower, so I got all of the temperature sensors set up. I took three readings, one in the hallway, one in the water heater closet and one with the temp probe taped to the outside of the water heater. I attached the numbers to this post. I can't really decide if the information is all that useful. Temperatures stayed the same or even went down at certain points. The tank temp definitely went up from pre-shower to post shower as well as the evening, so I am wondering if that in itself shows that the water heater is allowing heat to escape, or if the outside of the tank just warmed up after the sun came up and warmed up the closet. Hmmm...
I also switched out my shower head last week. It's not the country club on a white sand beach type of shower head, but it isn't bad and uses way less water than before.
Amazon American Standard It seemed like a really good compromise of decent water flow and as little water usage as possible. It has a pretty sweet feature where the standard setting has 1.5GPM usage and the other two are more, but when you turn the water off, it reverts back to the 1.5GPM setting so the next time you get in, it is already in the most ecological setting possible. I haven't tested actual GPM #s yet.
I finally found my kill-a-watt from the move, but I think it's broken. It will only display one function, but none of the other buttons will switch the display (so I can't see how many kWh a certain device is using)
