I am facing roughly the same issue, however, finding the power using items to begin with is the tough part. Why go after the stuff that uses 4% of your electricity when you can fix the items that use 40%. In Florida, A/C probably accounts for 60% of our bill. Heating water becomes a close second. Finding out what uses the power in the first place is the difficult part.

Our situation is a bit odd because we have a hot water heater that has a heat recovery system and is fed hot water from the A/C unit. Newer A/C units don’t run the condenser temperature as high which means replacing our A/C with a more efficient unit, fixes one aspect of it, but, increases our water heating expense. We’re considering solar water heating to offset that.

Here’s an interesting article about a product that I was looking at

And the actual product that I am looking at:
http://www.save-electricity.ca/

There is also a product called kill-a-watt available at Home Depot, etc that allows you to plug something into a device that measures power consumption.

I haven’t seen Al Gore’s movie yet, but, intend to do so shortly. However, here’s but one of a few articles regarding his consumption.

I applaud the mission, I just think it has the wrong spokesperson. I don’t believe that buying green credits is the same as actually doing something about your consumption.

While we have reduced our kwh usage rather significantly, Florida’s electric bills have gone up over 70% in the last year, making our bill larger than it used to be. Had we not replaced bulbs with CF bulbs, etc., if we had the same consumption rate, our bills easily would have gone up $200+/month.

Also, having a ceiling fan that is energy efficient can make the temperature in the room feel cooler — allowing you to turn up the A/C another degree or two in the summer. Home Depot sells a very nice fan that has blades modeled around the Goassamer Albatross propellers (human powered aircraft many years ago), and has CF bulbs in the light fixtures.

Good luck on your progress. I have a few more things that I intend to try this summer to see if I can make further reductions on our electric usage.

Hi Sparky!

I haven’t read any of the articles on Gore, but I did hear about them & one thing crossed my mind. In 2001 I moved from a 2000 sq ft 3 bedroom raised ranch to a 5 bedroom 3000 sq ft house with a 1000 sq ft pool house & my electric & gas bills pretty much doubled. I assume that Gore lives in a massive house & the bigger the house, the more it costs for energy. I’d bet that is you broke things down into cost per sq ft, he’d be below the national average.

Thanks for the Home Depot tip - I think I’m going to go & get one of those to see what’s what as far as power usage.

I asked a repairman about indoor dryer vents. My first dryer came with directions for doing it, but my new dryer said DO NOT VENT INSIDE on it. I thought they found a way to make newer dryers cheaper if they produced noxious fumes, but no. I am told that the air from dryers has all kinds of pollution in it that is not good for you at all. It comes from dryers sheets, soaps, softeners, etc. I don’t know why he would lie, since he wasn’t going to sell or not sell me anything. In any case, I would suggest you look into it before doing it. Or not. This is America, and so, for the moment, the choice is yours.

The Round Man - I might have to pull out the dryer & take a look, but I find that kinda hard to believe. I base this on no hard evidence, but it seems strange that they’d sell a product like this if it could harm you (I can think of no other indoor vent kit for something that’s supposed to vent outdoors - like a stove, furnace, toilet, etc)

I also doubt the pollution thing is correct as well, since everyone in the world pretty much smells the soap, softeners, dryer sheets & whatnot on their clothes each & every day.

Tell your repair man I said he’s a kook

If you have an electric dryer it is probably an ok thing to do. If you have a gas heated dryer you may want to keep a carbon monoxide dector handy.

Good point Builder Boy! I have a CO detector in ther basement - no where near the dryer. I’ll hook it up next to it today & see what’s what.

Builder Boy - I plugged in the CO detector & ran the gay dryer for 15-20 minutes with the door to the room closed (the room is 4×6 or so) and the detector did not go off - read 000 when I opened the door.

Of course, now I have mold growing on the walls due to all the moisture…..

I can’t say I get it, either. I brought it up to the repairman because I had noticed the warnings in the literature and was just curious what the deal was. (A gas dryer) I’ll try to find out what the deal is and let you know. He did NOT say that CO was a worry. Something else worries me more, though. You really think no one would sell a product that could hurt you?

Well, I googled dryer hazards and found that, while there is not a lot of explanantion about the everyday hazards, it IS illegal under modern building codes to install a dryer that does not vent solely to the outside, hence the warnings on new dryers, etc. I’m sure there were incidents where people didn’t used their heads and got themselves into trouble. This does not mean that the homeowner can’t do it, of course. And, there were many more stories about dryer fires from not cleaning out the inside of the dryer once in a while. One site, dryerbox.com, has a lot of information after you get past the initial ad. And now, I will find some other, more pressing things to worry about!