Please take one hour out of your evening on Saturday, March 28th, at 8:30PM, to join millions of people worldwide in an event called Earth Hour.

You can read all about it at the Earth Hour website here: www.earthhour.org

It’s a worldwide, voluntary rolling local blackout!

Is your house, neighborhood, township, city, region, county, state signed up? Make some calls and send some emails; this is a good way to spread the word about energy consumption!

~Ben
altE U.

My 3rd electric bill came in at the same usage as the 1st full month: 73kWh.

My latest natural gas bill also came in and, though it wasn’t as low as I’d anticipated in my last blog entry, it does show a substantial reduction over the previous tenant’s usage. The actual meter reading showed about 86 CCF of gas used in January and February combined (72 {estimated} and 14 CCF, respectively).

The usage history for this apartment for February (the month for which I have the longest record, 3 years), shows a much steeper decline than what I suspect actually occurred. In 2007, the previous tenant was billed for 111 therms (CCF) for February; in 2008, the figure was 34 therms. I suspect that the apartment was unoccupied for a substantial part of the month (or it was unusually warm in Columbus!). If we assume my own consumption was about the same for both January and February this year, then I used about 43 therms in February (though I think it was somewhat lower than January’s usage).

As it is, the graph, going from 111 to 34 to 14, could be a poster child for conservation and efficiency! But 111 down to about 40 is still a 64% decrease– that’s nothing to sneeze at, and I haven’t even done all that I could do to minimize consumption and maximize efficiency.

~Ben
altE

I finally had a visit from the plumber, as promised by my landlord. It happened while I was at work one day last week. I found out he’d been there after I got home when I turned on a water tap in my apartment and was startled by the loud burst of air and water that indicated the pipes had been partly emptied. I knew right away what must have happened and went down to the basement to see the result. Indeed, my hot water tank had been plumbed backwards, as evidenced by the fact that the plumber had refit the pipes to switch the hot and cold connections.

So last weekend I set to work installing the insulation I’d purchased earlier, for the tank and the hot water pipes. Here are some snaps of the process and results.

Fitting the insulation blanket

Wrapping the tank is easy enough, but I’m fortunate in having the most accessible, isolated tank in the basement of my building. Some of the others are pressed right against one another, making the prospect of wrapping them individually somewhat less than rosy. As it was, access to the back of the tank was tight enough. I passed the blanket inside the gas pipeline (which descends from the basement ceiling right beside the tank), but outside the pressure relief downpipe, which was plumbed very close to the tank.

The only unfortunate part about these blankets is that they’re not designed to cover the tops of the tanks, where heat loss is substantial; that’s to avoid interfering with the exhaust port. So some heat loss will continue to occur from the top of the tank. Still, I expect it’s a winning proposition.

The blanket installed

Above is a shot of the finished tank. The insulation kit (purchased a Lowe’s) included vinyl tape to close the jacket.

Thermal pipe sleeve

Next, I installed thermal sleeves on the exposed hot water pipes, starting at the hot water tank. The plumbing is a mix of copper and Pex (or equivalent).

There’s something of a spider’s web of 1/2″ pipes on the ceiling because each unit has hookups for a washing machine, resulting in a lot more plumbing. I’m not using my hookups, so the hot water lines are basically just unfortunate radiators in my case. (Well, they would be in any case, wouldn’t they?)

I purchased the cheaper insulating sleeves and used up three 6′ lengths but ideally need more. I covered the main line going to my bathroom, but skipped the line to the washer/sinkhookup and the line going toward the kitchen. I can do those later when I buy more lengths of insulation. In some places, I’ll have to separate the hot and cold lines, as they were sometimes anchored together, in contact, probably for the plumber’s convenience.

Freshly sleeved piping

Here’s a shot of my work, showing the compromises I had to make to get around the flush-mount pipe hangers. Using this ready-made product is very simple and takes very little time (unless your plumbing is awkwardly placed). Learning how to make turns can also be rather fun!

In any case, it’s a good starting project and can be done by almost anyone with a scissors and reasonable manual dexterity.

And it puts you one step further along on the road toward energy efficiency. Conservation and efficiency are often achieved incrementally. Start now!

I mentioned earlier that the back door weatherization needed a bit more tweaking. I finally found the problem.

I’d been put off the scent by the presence of a door sweep screwed to the inside of the inner (wooden) door. It was new, so I figured it was A-OK. Searching for the source of the remaining air leak, I looked at the door edge-on when it was open and discovered that, just like my front door, the back door had a huge gap at the bottom edge. Again, about 3/4″.

So I says to myself, says I, “This will not do.”

For this repair, I bought two thicknesses of red oak lath, 1/4″ and 1/2″ (not sure which I’d need), and another 3-finned vinyl bottom sweep. I couldn’t build up the threshold, as on the front door, because it has one of those aluminum thresholds with a compressible vinyl “speed bump”. It’s in good shape, so removal doesn’t make sense– it’s just not doing its job because it doesn’t meet the bottom of the door. Instead, I decided to build up (or down, as the case may be) the bottom of the door itself, using a hardwood strip.

Filing away damage

First, I took the door off its hinges. The bottom was in poor shape due to water damage, so it needed some work.

The bottom edge of the center board was so weathered that you could flake it off with a fingernail, to maybe 1/4″ in some spots. The outer boards, because they’re vertically oriented and the grain is perpendicular to the threshold, were in much better shape.

I didn’t want to buy a whole new door, but also didn’t want to cut all the way through the bad wood on the center board. The goals were 1) To create a good mating surface to attach the hardwood strip to the door bottom, and 2) Accommodate the slight bowing in the floor surface, which meant the gap was thicker in the middle than at the ends.

Red oak strip in place

I used my router to cut away some of the vertical outer boards so I could attach the red oak strip all the way across the bottom. I used a half-round bastard to file away some of the damaged center wood and generally even the surface. With the new vinyl sweep, the 1/4″ strip was the best fit (I later returned the 1/2″). I had to narrow the strip by about 1/4″ to match the door, and also cut off about that much from the vinyl sweep (same on the front door).

Then I glued-and-screwed the red oak strip into place. Pretty solid, though I really out to get some weather sealant on it.

That pretty much took care of the air leak and I was able to free up the former inside sweep for use elsewhere in the building.

Placing the vinyl sweep

This fix was not expensive and, other than the router, did not require expensive tools. Cost:

Oak strip: $2.84
Vinyl sweep: $10.11
Wood screws: $1.05
Glue (on hand)
Time: Priceless

Tools: router, cordless drill, bastard, handsaw

I recently moved into an apartment in Columbus, Ohio, and, naturally enough, I’m looking for ways to save energy. Well, naturally enough for me. I’m told that not everyone thinks the way I do! Go figure!

Anyway, this four-unit building has natural gas air- and water-heating: four individual forced-air furnaces and four 40-gallon water heaters occupy a fair portion of the basement space. Of course I spent some time poking around down there, taking a look at plumbing runs and ducting. There’s a mixture of copper and Pex tubing for the plumbing—evidence of a plumbing overhaul sometime in the building’s past.

Something about what I saw there disturbed me. I traced the plumbing lines leading from my hot water heater (a standard, central-flume, natural gas-fired unit) and quickly became confused. It’s a bit complex since the plumbing is individualized for each unit and each includes a run to a separate utility sink and washing machine hookups. I don’t plan to install a washer or dryer, but still there was something very odd: it looked like the hot water run coming out of my tank was connected to the cold water supply line of the building.

Huh?!

I was temporarily stumped. I assumed I just didn’t know enough about household plumbing to understand what was going on. Meantime, I noticed that the hot water delivery to the shower was… less than ideal. You know how it is: you move into a new place and though you’ve put your outward efforts into getting the best deal and landing in the neighborhood you prefer and all that stuff, what you secretly hope for is that water pressure and temperature are good for hot showers! It’s a secret hope because one doesn’t want to be accused of being a waster of water and energy, especially when one works for a renewable energy company. Ahem! To my credit, I had already installed a low-flow showerhead with an on-off valve. I’d hoped the showerhead might improve the feel of the water stream at least, which is on the weak side. Well, the flow was acceptable, but the temperature was borderline. Personally, I don’t like a scalding hot shower; but even with the hot tap fully open and the cold off, I was not entirely comfortable.

I went back downstairs. “Hmm. Maybe I’ll just turn up the water heater’s temperature setting a bit.” Well, it was set slightly below the presumed “normal” marker. so I turned it up. The result the next day was slightly better, but still I was running all hot and no cold. I returned to the basement a few more times to stare at the pipes in bewilderment before it dawned on me what was wrong: the plumber had connected the plumbing to the hot water heater backwards. The cold water supply line was connected to the fitting marked “HOT” on the top of the tank, while the hot water line leading up to my apartment was connected to the “COLD” fitting! Doh!

“Is there a difference?” you ask. Turns out there is. The anatomy of a typical water heater tank includes a pipe called a “dip tube” that is connected to the “COLD” fitting at the top of the tank. The dip tube carries incoming cold water nearly to the bottom of the tank. This way, cold water from the building supply arrives near the (in my case) natural gas burner located beneath the water vessel. As it’s heated, the water rises by convection. This natural convection cycle assures that the hottest water in the tank is found at the top. And that’s where hot water is drawn out of the tan, from the “HOT” fitting, which has no dip tube. Except that, in my case, the opposite has been happening: I’m drawing water, through the dip tube, from the bottom of the tank, where it’s coldest, so my showers have been…. less than satisfying. The water heater, of course, doesn’t know the difference.

I put in a call to my new landlord, keeping my fingers crossed that he was willing to correct the situation (and knowing I am enough of a stickler to be willing to pay a plumber myself to get it fixed). To my joy, he was perfectly willing to send his plumber to fix the problem. The holidays got in the way, but I’m eagerly looking forward to a long, hot shower— er, to reducing my energy consumption! And after the work is done, I’ll move on to the next step: I have already bought an insulating jacket for the tank and a few six-foot lengths of pipe insulation that I will install on the exposed piping I can access there on the basement ceiling. If all goes well, I hope to engage the curiosity—and savings interest—of my three neighbors; perhaps I can get them to do the same with their tanks and pipes. And, yes, I already checked— their tanks are plumbed properly!

~Ben
AltE

Ben here. I’ve been on sabbatical for the past couple of months, taking some time to travel and visit friends and family. And though I was away from the office and the routine, it seems my mind was unwilling to join my body on vacation—wherever I went, I couldn’t help but notice details large and small about power consumption and conservation. In Dublin, Ireland, for example, I visited a “green” organization and store called Cultivate Living and Learning Centre (www.cultivate.ie), where I was pleased to learn about a growing community of sustainable movers and shakers in Ireland, as well as enjoy a store full of resources and products for sale.

In Ireland generally, there seemed to be good awareness of conservation. I got the feeling it was a matter of course for the Irish: the people have historically lived in impoverished conditions, though recently their standard of living has been rising, thanks in part, I suppose, to their membership in the European Union. Here in the U.S., though, it’s a different story. With the forced conservation of the Great Depression long in our past, the majority of Americans have become so accustomed to plenty that we routinely waste energy and resources, largely unaware of the potential for savings that is easily within our reach.

Case in point: I was staying with friends in Virginia and looked into their household energy consumption. Now, I consider my friends to be hip, savvy, progressive, and current events-aware. But they were doing almost nothing to conserve electricity, despite living on a very tight budget in an all-electric household. To their credit, they had purchased a pack of compact fluorescent (CFL) twist lamps; but they were only replacing incandescent bulbs as they burned out. While I admire the conservationist attitude behind that strategy, it seems to me that the urgency of the present energy crisis outweighs the minute savings of retaining working bulbs. Besides, they had already paid for the new CFLs and were getting exactly zero benefit from their purchase!

So I took it upon myself to set my friends on the path to lighting effiency. First, I made a detailed survey of their energy consumption for household lighting. I realized that lighting is not a major player in a house that also depends on electricity for heating and cooling (they have twin heat pumps in their 4-bedroom, 3-story house). But I figured it’s best to do what you can as you strategize other potential major changes. I recorded my survey in a spreadsheet, listing all lighting sockets in the house; that way, I could do a before-and-after comparison to account for energy savings. I recorded the lamp type and Wattage used in each socket. Now I’m not saying everyone has to do it this way, but it gave me very precise data for my comparison and it helped to educate my friends and their two young children about electrical energy use.

I broke down the lighting by floor and ran a grand total for the whole house. We purchased not only many different compact fluorescent lamps to replace incandescent ones, we also replaced a few light fixtures. As is common in their area, the house was built with many candelabra-style hanging fixtures that use those small candle flame-shaped incandescent bulbs designed for mini (Edison E12) sockets. Though there are candelabra-style CFLs on the market, my friends and I agreed that the fixtures themselves were unattractive and harder to keep clean than most standard ceiling fixtures. Besides, my friends are both very tall people and low-clearance lights can be a problem! We found inexpensive dome-style, flush-mount ceiling fixtures to replace the hanging hallway units. The new ones use standard E27 lamp sockets (2 ea.) that will fit the CFL twist lamps we bought. Here’s a screenshot of part of the spreadsheet, showing before (left) and after (right) values for one floor of the house:

Lighting spreadsheet

I was even able to conserve materials in one such replacement project (a wall sconce light at the head of the basement stairs) by using a flush-mount dome fixture I picked up at the local Habitat for Humanity Thrift Store in their town. It was a like-new fixture and small enough to remain out of the way on the stairway wall. We retired the old fixtures to the same Habitat Thrift Shop (but I have to hope no one will use them!).

After all the replacement work, the grand total reduction in lighting Wattage was almost 40%. And the project was not complete when I left: we intended to install motion sensors on the outdoor floodlights (I retired one of the four fixtures that offered redundant coverage) and there was that one remaining floor lamp in the family room that wouldn’t accept the wider base of a CFL… boy, that was a thorn in my side! All in all, a worthy project: educational and energy-saving.

I did the same lighting overhaul at my sister’s house in California (65% Wattage savings) and another friend’s apartment in Massachusetts (50% savings). My experience shows that this kind of electricity savings is easily within reach of almost all households. The quality and versatility of compact fluorescent product lines continues to increase: there are now dimmable CFLs, lamps for all common sockets sizes, and lamps that come in a range of color temperatures to suit a variety of tastes.

And if you’re interested in even greater energy savings, LED lighting is also expanding in the consumer market and promises to be the light of the future. Speaking of being the light of the future—why not take a critical look at your own household lighting and start saving energy today?

~Ben