This is the story how I managed to cut my electric bill 74% over this winter. No I did not freeze my balls off. I kinda hate the cold so the idea of sitting around shivering or having to stay bundled up all winter did not appeal to me at all. No I remained nice and toasty all winter long while averaging a monthly electric bill of $55.32.
I’m a pretty cheap guy. I’m always looking for a way to save a buck or two. Well when I read about a way to save a few hundred dollars. I jumped right on it. Last year I had pretty high electric bills, right at a monthly average of $214! However I had a roommate at the time and his rent made up for the high bills. Well when he moved out I knew I had to trim the fat or face being homeless again. I went on a cost reducing rampage. Gym canceled, cable tv gone, and anything else I could find to cut. But the biggest expense was still the electric bill. I was desperate to cut that down to a manageable level. I remembered seeing an article written by Paul Wheaton on how he cut his electric bill 80% one winter. So I went and read the article several times and the thread about it on Permies.com. Not all of his measures would work for me but I could adapt most and invent more to help.
The first rule is STOP trying to heat your entire home. There’s no need to heat everything only yourself. Think a cozy bubble of warmth.To fulfill this I bought a small (twin size) electric heating pad and on electric blanket, total cost around $40. Since the majority of my time at home is spent either on my futon watching netflix or reading survival forums or asleep. I put the electric blanket on the futon. I would turn it on the medium setting and sit on it and wrap it over my legs usually sitting cross legged. with this it conducted heat into me very effectively and kept my entire body warm
The second step was I started turning off the electric breaker for my hot water heater during the times I wouldn’t be home. My job keeps me away from home about fourteen hours a day so my trick was to turn the breaker on for about an hour a day before I showered. On days I was off I would sometimes leave it on a bit longer if I needed the hot water for dishes. So maybe the heater runs fifteen hours a week. On top of the so I didn’t lose any of the heat I did get from the hour I wrapped the heater in R30 insulation. this will carry at least some of the heat several hours for small things like shaving at night.
The next step was maybe the hardest for my to adjust to. My beloved dishwasher had to stop being used. It’s just too much of a power hog. Even on a conservative mode it uses too much of the precious hot water and just energy. Now I was dishes in a large plastic tub with maybe a gallon of hot water and rinse with cold. At least my dishwasher makes an excellent drying rack. Also just as a precautionary measure
the breaker for that too is off.
The last step I did was to cover my windows in black plastic. Since my only windows are south-facing the black coverings absorb
heat all day long and radiate it out into the room. With a little fan blowing air from the top of it to evenly distribute it and even on the
coldest days it’s not too bad.
I think that the hot water heater and hand washing dishes, alone makes up for the majority of my savings. Anyone wanting to simply adopt just those two should see a dramatic drop in their electric bill.
Thinking that maybe saving some money on your electric bill is not Survival? Since I was saving about $150 a month in doing this lets see some of the things you could be doing with that instead: almost 400 rounds of .223 ammo, 1 Hennessy Hammock, 2 cases of MRE’s, A Buck Hoodlum knife…the list goes on and on with things that can help you survive rather than fatten someone else wallets.
So the choice is your get wrinkle fingers from doing dishes by hand with water that’s just got heated and enjoy shooting a few hundred rounds in you AR or throw money down the drain.
Yes you hate the cold very much. The cacoon of warmth is an awesome idea
I thoroughly agree with the ‘heat yourself, not the house’ principle. I’m not too sure about the black covering over the window and the fan on the ceiling though! I don’t know about the washing up either – you still need a fair amount of hot water, and it sounds like that’s being electrically heated.
The main electricity hogs are tumble dryers for your clothes and big desktop computers that are left on all day (but if you’ve got a laptop/netbook they’re very little).
Sounds like you’re heating a big house (that’s a huge electricity bill, do you have electrical heating?!) – just heating the rooms you use is usually good enough.
Thanks for the comment! Usually turning on the hot water heater for thirty minutes to an hour gives me plenty of hot water for a shower.
The black plastic principle is to use my south facing window to heat the air behind it and use the fan to blow the hot air into the room.
And I’m in a tiny apt not a house unfortunately
The black plastic on your window is doing nothing to increase the amount of insolation (solar radiation) you receive – the same amount of heat from sunlight will enter your house whether you have black plastic or just remove the window treatments altogether. You can replace the black plastic with clear plastic, insolation will warm up your carpet / interior furniture instead of the black plastic, heat will still enter your house, you do not then need to run your fan to vacuum heat from the black plastic, and the clear plastic will prevent heat from radiating back through the window (since most clear plastic films will allow radiation in the form of visible light to pass through but will block infrared radiation). Another bonus with clear plastic is that you can see out your windows and it looks much better.
Winter here is around 65-70 degrees during the day, 50 or so at night. Its the summers that kill us, 90 degrees every day with 85% humidity.
Why hasn’t someone invented a solar powered AC unit? The higher the sun, the more we need it! It makes sense right? I’m not crazy am I?
I gotta do the hot water heater thing though, THAT is a golden gem of a tip!
db
You use to be able to buy something called the little grey box at Ace Hardware. You hooked it to your electric hot water heater and it had settings on it to make your electric water heater come on at certain times of the day. You could have it come on at 6:00 in the morning and go off at 8:00, you could set it for several times a day. We use to have it come on in the morning for a couple of hours and come on of a evening for a few hours and the rest of the time it was off and this alone was suppose to save on your electric bill 33 percent. I do not know if you could still buy this little grey box or not but it’s worth it’s weight in gold. I could never cover my windows with black plastic, I love light and I would never do this. I use cold water to wash clothes in not warm and not hot. I use my dishwasher but I don’t use hair dryers to dry my hair. These are a few ways I save money….
Informative but maybe instead of black plastic we use bubble wrap. Found the info on Pintrest and works great plus you still get the sunshine! I gave away the dishwasher years ago, I hate those things for one or two people. Big waste and whatever dish I wanted was always in it, dirty. We have a pellet stove, but would prefer plain old wood, but wasn’t my choice. I use an oil filled heater which costs practically nothing and really work well. Heat your living space, not the bedroom. It’s not healthy anyways! Always rinse in super hot water to kill germs, won’t cost much and could save you getting sick.
The little grey boxes are still available. I bought one last year, check ebay or Amazon. During summer months I’m on the smart rate plan. I have to curtail electricity use between 2-7 PM. I save about 25% during those months. During the summer I shade the south side of our house with (Coolaroo) shade “wings” they are a godsend and keep it so much cooler. They’re pretty expensive most places but Costco sells them periodically in summer months for $20 each.
The key with the water heater is to do it like Survival Punk says: turn it on about an hour before you’ll use the hot water, and then TURN IT OFF BEFORE you use the water. If you wait until after your shower or whatever to turn off the water heater, you aren’t really saving any energy (money). What you want is to use the hot water, thereby reducing the temperature of what is left in the tank. In this way you minimize the loss of heat from the tank (which happens even though the tank is insulated) as it sits throughout the rest of the day. You should also check to make sure the water heater is set to no higher than 120 degrees. Also if you are just one person, washing dishes in the sink may make sense, but if you have a family you are better off using a dishwasher. Newer model dishwashers are pretty darn efficient; the combination of detergent and high water pressure is what gets dishes clean, not a large quantity of water. Think about how many sinkfulls of water you’d have to use to clean the same number of dishes that a full dishwasher will hold.
Really? You don’t do much at home. My house is at 60 degrees, unless I have company. I dress appropriately. Cuddle duds under my jeans, heavy wool sox,long sleeves shirt under a sweatshirt and a scarf. You always see Brits wearing scarves in the winter, guess why? I like the water heater ideas. Do they work for gas heaters as for electric? I don’t leave lights on if I’m not in the room, but I have timers on a light so the house isn’t dark when I come home (9:30 pm) Good to share ideas, some things I just never thought of doing.
Pixie, most gas water heaters have a “vacation” setting on the dial. When you set it there, it keeps the pilot light burning but nothing else. So you could leave your gas water heater set to vacation and then an hour before you need the hot water, turn it to the setting you desire, dropping it back to vacation before you use the water. Speaking of vacation, a lot of people don’t think to turn off their water heater if they are going to be gone from the house for an extended period so they end up paying to keep water hot when they aren’t even there to use it. In the winter my house is at 66; I should try to get it down to 60 as you do!