Power saving tips and ways to save money!?

[Reef Pilot]

Originally Posted by Baldy

Agreed. This hobby/obsession/lifestyle is definitely worth it.

Like I said before, go look for a cave,... or be happy and wait for the big asteroid...

[PFoster]

When smart meters were put into effect in Ontario I just reversed my light cycle.

I ran the Leds for suppliment in the morning and evening and ran the main lights (t5's) in the evening during "off peak hours.
My power bill decreased and I didnt spend $0.01 extra.

I did also get a programable thermostat and run the furnace/ac more during off peak hours

[mrhasan]

LED heater anyone?

Put waterproof leds on aluminium blocks and submerge them into the water. They are "efficient" at emitting heat too isinit?

Ok I shouldn't have said that being an electrical major But then again, its not a crime thinking outside the box (or inside the water over here)

[mrhasan]

Originally Posted by Reef Pilot

Like I said before, go look for a cave,... or be happy and wait for the big asteroid...

Think about it. People moving to caves but for their typical demand, they would needs:

1. Longer transmission wires (loss)
2. Lights (loss)
3. Heating (loss)
4. Hunt for food (loss)
5. Damage to caves (loss)
6. Bears would be homeless (loss); thegrizz will have answer for this I am pretty sure
7. Bats would be homeless (loss)
8. Batman would be ****ed (loss)
9. More losses (loss)

[Baldy]

Originally Posted by mrhasan

LED heater anyone?

Put waterproof leds on aluminium blocks and submerge them into the water. They are "efficient" at emitting heat too isinit?

Ok I shouldn't have said that being an electrical major But then again, its not a crime thinking outside the box (or inside the water over here)

Lol. Being an electrical major, you probably already know this but what makes leds so efficient is they put out more light energy vs heat energy than the other types of lighting. I never realized hoe much heat t5 can produce until I saw a buddy's 6 bulb fixture. Wow.

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

I switched to an LED tv which uses a quarter the electricity or less compared to my LCD tv (under 50w compared to over 200w). I've also switched out almost all my tank lights (fw & sw) to LED and my house lights are either 9w LED or 13w CFL bulbs. Went from over 2000w MH at my worst MTS to under 400w of LED over the tanks alone.

My oven/toaster oven has convection heating which cooks food faster and more evenly, so save power & works better. I also built a covered pergola over my deck so on hot summer days, instead of turning on the 12000 btu AC unit in the house as much, we now go outside and turn on a couple of fans which use a fraction of the electricity.

I only buy and use EnergyStar appliances, which will pay back the purchase price in energy savings. The Bosch dishwasher uses only $28 worth of electricity for a whole year's worth of regular use and you can really save on power with a more efficient front-loader washing machine compared to top-loader. We also hang dry clothes year round (inside in winter, outside the rest of the year) because the dryer is an energy-sucker.

Even though Burnaby doesn't have the differential time-based rates yet, we usually run the dishwasher & laundry machine overnight anyways.

[sphelps]

Originally Posted by Baldy

I understand that the little things count. But the op is asking about what changes can be made to save money on his power bill.......

Originally Posted by ashr

Hey all

We all know how much power our tanks can run and the ugly power bill that fallows. I wanted to know if anyone has any tips to help save power and keep our power bills down.

Has anyone noticed since the switch to smart meter (if you have switched) Has your bill gone up? Gone down? Share some of your tips and help us all save a little money!

Sorry I guess I read the topic of the thread differently, figured suggesting ways that could relate to all of us was appropriate.

[Reef Pilot]

The biggest (or baddest) power draw we have is our hot tub. It runs from Nov to Apr, and the power bill always goes way up for the winter. We only use it on avg about once a week. Have talked to the wife a few times, about whether it is worth it, but she wants it, so... Talked to the spa shop about a timer, but they say it is not good for the motor to shut it off and on. And we keep the heater on all the time, because we use it more as a spur of the moment decision in the evening, and wouldn't want to wait for it to heat up again.

Speaking of money sinks, though, my Shaw cable (incl internet and phone) is costing us more and more, with all the HD and specialty channels (can't give up my Oasis). We're up to 200 bucks a month on that now!! I tried pulling the "we're switching to Telus" ploy on them, but it hasn't worked so far. Seems that until you actually put in a cancellation, they won't budge.

And not to mention my iPad and Smartphone costs.....

My SW tanks don't looks so bad, when I look at the above, but it does all add up....

Hope I don't run out of money before that asteroid comes....

[Baldy]

Originally Posted by Reef Pilot

Hope I don't run out of money before that asteroid comes....

Hey if you ask some of.the crazies in the US, it'll be a zombie apocalypse.

Sorry, the fiance and I are watching the walking dead atm and I couldn't help it

[asylumdown]

When people calculate out how much they're going to save on LEDs (or not, as the case may be), they always seem to use the total wattage of the fixture in their calculations.

My fixtures never hit their max output, so they're never drawing their max wattage, and even the max output that they do hit is only maintained for 4 hours a day. The rest of the time they're using significantly less than their listed power draw capacity. My radions trip my GFI circuits, so they're not plugged in to my apex unfortunately, but it would be interesting to see what that ramp up and down does to their actual power draw over the course of a day.

On another note, does anyone know whether it's better from an electricity point of view to run more watts of heater, knowing that they'll be running for a shorter period of time, or the less wattage possible, knowing that heaters will have to run longer to maintain temp? I've got 2 300 watt heaters on my system, and when the Apex turns them on, they're usually on for 20 minutes or more. I'm wondering if I should add the other 300 watt heater I've got sitting in a drawer as backup to cut down the total length of time the heaters are running.