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Old 12-24-14, 11:59 PM   #11
oil pan 4
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Originally Posted by thx712517 View Post
Cree LED bulbs to replace our incandescents. Faucet aerators to reduce flow down to 1 gallon per minute or less. Low flow shower heads. It's simple and cheap.
Use LED. CFLs have a really horrible power factor and draw around twice the amps you think they do.
For get those low flow heads, the first thing I do is strip out the restrictor in them.
I do this for few reasons.
I use full flow to wash my dog. A weak stream seems to ultimately use more water to rinse the soap out of their thick fur. The dogs really hate getting a bath, after a few minutes they want out and some times they do get out and it makes a horrible mess.
Next reason is to get hot water faster.
Then I can turn down the water flow by hand to a trickle, I don't need the shower head to do that for me.

In our next house the bathrooms are on the opposite end of the house from the hot water heater and it takes forever to get hot water over there and getting hot water over there wastes gallons of water every day.
So what I am going to do is install a circulating water pump with 2 control mechanisms.
1 a temperature switch when the water at the circulating pump gets warm enough there is no point in keeping the pump going.
2 install a timer switch in each bathroom that will only allow the pump to run when needed and automatically turn off after 20 or 30 minutes so when the water in the line cools off and no one is home there is no point in continuing circulation.

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Old 12-26-14, 12:12 AM   #12
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I saved a lot by converting to LEDs. All lights and appliances use LEDs.

Also, I disabled the flush on all toilets. We now do it by using a bucket of water.

Instead of using a dryer, we air dry our clothes. We set up a clothes line in a particularly sunny area of the house and the wet clothes "shield" the window from the sun, cooling the window down.
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Old 12-27-14, 05:10 PM   #13
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Originally Posted by oil pan 4 View Post
I noticed the crapper would flush, fill the bowl, and keep dumping water down into the bowl for a good 20 or so seconds after the bowl had filled.
Lower toilet cycle times would be nice for 2 reasons...
1 it would use less water.
2 it would get rid of those 2 flushers that much faster.

Wanting to fix the problem without spending any money I turned to my smalls plumbing tool box. (a big tool box with the smallest sprinkler and automotive vacuum hose fittings.
I found a vacuum line reducer fitting, stuck that on the end the hose that fills the bowl to try and reduce the volume and increase back pressure to fill the bowl faster. That didn't really work that well, it only knocked a few seconds off over filling time. Then I snipped the bowl filling water line and installed a tee fitting to dump water meant for the bowl into the tank. Both the restrictor and dump tee fitting together made it happen.
That worked perfectly. Now the bowl over fills for less than 5 seconds.

When the bowl was being over filled for 20 to 30 seconds that was nearly a liter of water going down the drain each flush).
I had my flusher crack and run constantly so I had to replace it. I went with (can't remember, review of it is available in gadget reviews forum) and it has a valve to dial in the precise amount of fill. And it's really loud if you happen to have a flapper leak, you'll know.
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Old 12-31-14, 04:24 PM   #14
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I saved a lot by converting to LEDs. All lights and appliances use LEDs.
Exalta-STA, did you really mean ALL? I put LED lights in my refrigerator and freezer, but do NOT have them in my oven, microwave, or clothes dryer.

I figure that hot and radioactive places are NOT a good fit for LED bulbs, which have a mix of metals and plastics.
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Old 12-31-14, 06:22 PM   #15
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Wow a cloths dryer with a light inside of it , not many people are going to get a benefit from that , unless they like to do laundry in the dark.

funny when technology bites itself like that
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Old 12-31-14, 10:23 PM   #16
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Wow a cloths dryer with a light inside of it, not many people are going to get a benefit from that, unless they like to do laundry in the dark.
It's a handy feature searching for items in the back of the drum. My HE washer and my dryer both have lights inside. The washer came equipped with LED. The dryer bulb is filament. I don't think the 10W the dryer bulb uses are much consequence compared to the 5kW my dryer's electric heating elements pull. At least 66% of my electricity comes from PV...
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Old 01-01-15, 12:38 AM   #17
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I guess it would have it moments , even if its not needed it would illuminate the load for picking items.

I still find it funny , although I do go poking around in the drier for a fast dry acrylic item often enough...
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Old 01-01-15, 12:36 PM   #18
oil pan 4
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A dryer with a light?
That is funny.
I try to stick with cheap roper brand dryer (Kenmore knock off).
Parts are cheap and they are easy to repair.

Simply removing the towels and pants from the wet clothes pile will reduce drying times from 45 to 60 minutes down to 20 to 30 minutes.

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