Category Archives: Energy Saving Tips

Energy Saving Systems for Your Home

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We build and install small or large systems for back-up, grid assistance, or off the grid replacement. Solar, or Wind, Hydro (water), steam or other equipment for generator operation. Each system will require a storage source of one or more batteries and a power inverter to change over to your required AC voltage. Solar currently has the highest cost and longest payback time, but may become less expensive in the future. Systems are sized for the amount of energy you wish to produce, and can range from very small, for a few hundred dollars, to larger systems, from $10,000 to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Small back up systems with water or wind can be built for a few thousand dollars to produce enough energy for lighting and some small appliances. Wind is only available at certain times. I think for this area of the country we are subject to about a 30 percent availability with wind. Remember this is still a 30% savings on electrical usage and solar is less than 25% percent,  and solar is usually used with the wind unless you are in a location that has a constant wind source. Water, continuous flow from a creek, pond spillway, or spring can be use for a steady source of energy and can be stored in batteries for high demand use and converted with an inverter for longer transmission locations. A small water system of about 1,000 watts if done right and used carefully can power a small home. This is a small off-the-grid system and can be set up with the generator, water turbine, power inverter, switch and 4 storage batteries for under $14,000. Remember this is a small off the grid system. A  Solar Panel System for a 1,000 watt system will run over $12,000 and produce less than an average of 20 percent of rated watts. It would take between  4,000 and 5,000 watts of solar panels to make up the 1 Kw. system. Tracking systems will do better, but the cost is usually offset by cost.  Adding more panels is usually less expensive than the required maintenance and extra cost for tracking systems.

Reducing Your Energy Bill

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With the ever increasing demand for energy, now is the time to take your first steps in reducing your energy demand from outside sources and start using renewable, and readily available, resources of energy.  Whether you are adding small reductions one item at a time or going all the way off the grid, now is the time to get started.

There are several small steps that you can take at very little expense to you if you are a do-it-yourself type of person.

  • You can build a very inexpensive solar hot water system that will supplement or supply your hot water.
  • You can add a couple of 12-volt batteries and a power inverter with a solar panel and supply a single separate circuit  to your home. Make sure it is a separate designated circuit not connected to any other internal wiring and use it to supply specific items.
  • You can also use the batteries’ to supply a 12 volt or 24 volt DC lighting circuit that you would have to wire in and maybe some other 12 or 24 volt RV equipment for back up or addition’s.
  • By adding a small wind turbine you may be able to keep your DC back up charged and available most of the time – options and price ranges are of an endless variety.

Getting started is the first step to saving money and using renewable resources.

Let’s use our own energy and quit buying it all from other parts of the world. Harnessing our solar, wind, and water energy resources keeps the price of oil and other foreign energy cost down. Help keep our dependence on other sources of energy and fuels down, while keeping more of our money in our own pockets and stop paying others for something we already have available and accessible to us now.

Just thinking of ways to save and keep our money at home–Calvin Allen

Energy Savings Plan with a Payback

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With the ever increasing cost of energy, utility bill’s are expected  to double within the next few years, and are continually on the increase. NOW is the time to take control of your energy cost.

There are many ways to help keep down some of the cost of your energy bill’s and to remove most of the primary cost. Just by changing out your old incandescent bulbs and replacing them with CFL bulbs you would save about 75 percent of your lighting cost and that doesn’t include the savings of not replacing bulbs for several years…  And to save even more,  where able to, changing to LED lighting could cut as much as 90 percent of your lighting cost. But remember, this is only your lighting cost and not your total electric billing.

If you can make the investment, to save more on your total billing,  consider switching to energy star appliances throughout your home.

Some great and inexpensive ways to save on heating and cooling energy costs are to seal cracks and leaks in your heating and cooling systems,  clean or replace any filters, clean your outside unit (heat exchanger), and shade it from the sun (without blocking the air flow).  Other saving tips for your furnace are to have the  “A”  coil cleaned and the  freon charge checked by a qualified HVAC technician.  Make sure all windows are closed and locked, as well as sealed where possible, for less air leakage and temperature losses.

Another considerable investment would be to install motion detectors and timers in appropriate locations to save expenses over time,  but some of the best ways to save are to change habits which is also one of the hardest things to do for most of us.. BUT the savings would make it all worth while.  As long as you keep going forward, you can’t go backward.

Best to all–Calvin Allen