NoByter's BLOG!

Last Updated: 2:25 PM GMT on October 17, 2009 — Last Comment: 7:47 PM GMT on March 22, 2009

	Saving the Planet and Money #3

Posted by: nobyter, 2:25 PM GMT on October 17, 2009

Air Conditioners

I have been using a pair of Fedders air conditioners in my small house. Both were only around 6000 BTUs and were from my mother’s house where she got central air (after I left year ago). They were older than 1980 and surprisingly still worked.

I used my trusty KillaWatt meter and was shocked on the amount of electricity they were using. They used more than my refrig (which is over 15 years old), more than my water heater and water pump, more than all the rest of my house when it was hot outside. I replaced one last year with a Haier 6000 BTU 10.7 EER air conditioner from Wal-Mart. I used the KillaWatt meter and it used one fourth of the power. I still had one old one in the basement.

Then, this summer I went out and bought a Haier Paragon 6,000 BTU, 12.0 EER Air Conditioner. It was so quiet, that I put it behind me in the TV room. I really like its ability to restart after power interruptions. It also has air purifying UV light feature. I removed the old one from the basement when I had replacement windows put down there.

I have a Broan Guardian Plus (Model GSEH3K) air purifying system that takes air from the house and using a heat exchanger exhausts it outside. The air from outside is HEPA filtered, heated or cooled (by the exchanger), and pumped into the basement. This helps move air up and down the two levels of the house and keeps the temperature even.

Wood Stove

I have a Kodiak wood stove which just right for my house. I don’t know the model as I’ve had it since 1980 and lugged it around place to place until I bought this place and replaced the one here. It was great, you make a fire, turn the intake down and it would burn for 7 hours. It was in the basement and took a while to warm it to Florida heights. Upstairs, you would feel it around 2 hours after it start burning really good. I thought this was OK. Then, I saw an advertisement somewhere for the Magic Heat Reclaimer (Model# MH-6-R) for wood stoves. This is the best energy saving device I have ever bought! You have to make sure you clean it, along with your chimney twice a season to make sure deposits don’t block your flue. This is standard for any wood burning device. If the power goes off when you have a power outage, it could damage the electronics. I have a Xantrex Power 1500 on hand for this emergency. You could hook it up to a cheap power backup system. The most important thing is to pump the cleaning thing at least every time you load the stove. I’ve heard that some people didn’t do this and it would completely block the exchanger (that could be a disaster). Over all, I burn less wood, use less electricity in the backup baseboard heaters, and get quicker heat from my stove. You can find other brands now, so definitely look around. But, you have to get something because it will make heating with wood worth it!

I purposely didn’t add links to the products in bold above. Copy and paste them into any search engine and you can find them easily.

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	Saving the Planet and Money #2

Posted by: nobyter, 4:49 PM GMT on June 14, 2009

Light Bulbs I've replaced all of my light bulbs with Compact Florescent Light (CFL) bulbs and can't wait to replace some of those with LED bulbs when they become more available (and cheaper). I notice that my power bill dropped around 15% because of that. Then the rate and other fees raised it so now the electrical is the same as two years ago, but I’m using less. The life expectancy of the fluorescent bulb is about 5 years, so I will save some time and money by ...

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Updated: 4:49 PM GMT on June 14, 2009

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	Storm knocked out power to Access Point

Posted by: nobyter, 1:58 PM GMT on June 12, 2009

Sorry about that... Last night's storm knocked the ground fault breaker to my wireless access point. I just flipped the switch a while ago. Good news is that all the web cam picts are loading into Wunderground. Bad news that it will take a while to come up to current. I think its cool that its loading all the ones not sent last night and early this morning. I guess I'll have to figure out a better place to put the access point. It is in the sun porch and the g...

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	Saving the Planet and Money #1

Posted by: nobyter, 6:22 PM GMT on June 11, 2009

Windows and Doggy Doors! I thought I should start writing some energy tips as I really could have used this knowledge a couple of years ago... I'll try to use this to document what I'm doing to save energy and money (in the long run).I've started to replace windows in the heated/cooled basement of my house. The original ones were the crank open metal ones without screens. They were single paned and in the winter, when I have the wood stove with a evaporator pot ...

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Updated: 2:45 PM GMT on June 12, 2009

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	Down by the River...

Posted by: nobyter, 12:54 PM GMT on May 30, 2009

Well, we've had some days of drizzle and threatening storms, but we only got an inch and a half of rain. The river is up and now starting to clear from upriver bank erosion. The first hay has been cut and is drying in the field. The Elephant Garlic has sent up it's scapes and I cut most of them off. They should be ready to pull out of the ground in a couple of weeks. They look big! Anybody need some garlic? They will be cured around the first of August. I hav...

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