http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/general.html#phantom
Fascinating website, kinda like a mix of About.com and HowStuffWorks, because "Mr. Electricity" tells you the specific NUMBERS that will result in certain activities and simple changes in how we use appliances and household technology, things we can easily do to save considerable amounts of energy i.e. $$$.
With some pretty pie charts to boot!
(http://img248.imageshack.us/img248/9751/electrictytypicalusagep.gif)
So the biggest areas to reduce electricity bills (and the ones where we don't have to do "much" to make a difference) include Heating, Cooling, Lighting, and water heating (especially laundry -- but I've been using cold water only for years so I don't feel guilty).
Quote
Effecting big change in appliances is not expensive or difficult. It takes no effort to wash your clothes in cold water instead of hot. It takes little effort to turn off the AC and use a ceiling fan instead. It takes little effort to use space heaters only in the rooms you're using rather than trying to heat your whole house. I have tons of practical tips on my heating, cooling, lighting, and other pages, all of which work, and many of which are decidedly easy to implement.
8)
BTW: the myths page (http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/myths.html) *does* make me feel kinda guilty, cuz I rarely shut down my home (and work) computer, and at home I use eSheep as my screensaver, instead of going into Sleep mode (http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/computers.html). :guilty:
Also the lighting page (http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/lighting.html) seems to play down the "lotsa toxic mercury" fear that I recall we half-discussed on this here forum a while ago... hmmm, well I still prefer getting bulbs from the Dollar Store :)
He also has a website dedicated just to batteries (http://michaelbluejay.com/batteries). Since he uses only 150 kWh per month, I'm not surprised he's also scrutinizing the non-plugin energy costs of life...
Weird, the first time I viewed this thread the pie chart image was replaced with a big black square with yellow text that said "I STEAL OTHER PEOPLE'S IMAGES".
Quote from: Thorin on September 04, 2009, 01:00:54 PM
Weird, the first time I viewed this thread the pie chart image was replaced with a big black square with yellow text that said "I STEAL OTHER PEOPLE'S IMAGES".
lol, I guess he's a bit paranoid or something...
changed above to a direct link to the thought-proking image itself (http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/images/users.gif). PS: yikes, you might have to CTRL+F5 to see the actual image via the direct link (since my browser seemed to have cached the old one, wtf...)whatever the foxcreek his webmaster did, it's retarded, and thus above I now did actually "steal" the image that any sane website would allow you to at least LINK to jebus what's the deal man...