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amdx[_3_]

On 1/21/2014 9:11 AM, Hank wrote:
On 1/21/2014 9:25 AM, amdx wrote:
On 1/21/2014 7:51 AM, Hank wrote:
On 1/20/2014 10:47 PM, wrote:
On Mon, 20 Jan 2014 16:22:07 -0500, Hank wrote:

Heres my avg monthly kwh for the past 5 years 2078 2301 2326 2089
1784.
Have fun with those numbers.
snip
Did you notice my 2013 monthly average was over $300 less than 2012.
Did you notice that 2013 was the lowest average in the last 5 years.
Prior to 2013 I was using incand., CFL, and fluorescent tubes.
I still have 8 4 ft tubes and 2 2 footers. The rest is LED.
I saved exactly $468 last year. Enough to buy 46 more LEDs @10 per.

Garbage in garbage out.
To many variables.
Heat and air conditioning used, hot water heater use.
More or less overnight company, Etc.
No saying you didn't use less for lighting, I just don't think you can
quantify it using overall electric usage.

How else would you do it?

I have a separate meter on my water heater and on another on a room
where I keep my business freezers.
I just think there are to many variables to rely on the monthly or
yearly changes to think those are just a change in light costs.
When I hurt my back, my electric use went up, hot baths and a heating
pad added to the use.
Mikek

Mr. Luddite

On 1/21/2014 11:34 AM, wrote:
On Tue, 21 Jan 2014 06:43:56 -0500, "F.O.A.D." wrote:

We have a 500 gallon buried tank, so it gets filled to 400 gallons. I
think our genny burns about 1.75 gph at half load, so at any time during
the month between tank top-offs, we should have at least a week of run
time, probably more if it is winter, because the larger of our two heat
pumps primarily runs off propane anyway, so if the power goes out, the
only additional load for heat from the generator will be to run the
compressor and furnace fan. The smaller heat pump is not on generator
backup.

... but your gas assisted heat pump is sucking propane out of your
generator fuel tank.
I agree with Dick, "feeding the monster" can be an issue in a long
outage. That term came from our Punta Gorda friends who were living on
a generator for over a month after Charlie.

My wife was prairie building when she brought her community out of the
ground and they ran the construction trailer off of a 36KVA diesel
genset. They got fuel delivered a couple times a week.

The problem up here in the Northeast would be when the last time your
tank was filled prior to a long term outage. When we get a major
snowstorm and lose power the propane delivery trucks are usually
grounded for a while as well until all the side roads are cleared. If
the power outage occurred when the tank was low, you're screwed.

If we had natural gas piped up from the street, it would be more
feasible. However, we've lived in this house for going on 14 years now
and the number of long term outages have been minimal. In fact, I can
really only recall not having power for more than a few hours as being
about 3 times in 14 years and they only lasted a day or two with the
worst being 3 days.

Now that I've said that ... we'll probably get creamed with the storm
tonight.

Hmmm... just had a thought. I wonder if they make a generator that
runs off of furnace fuel oil. Probably do. That would be more
practical as we have two 330 gal oil tanks and one 275 gal. We keep
them topped off.

[email protected]

On Tuesday, January 21, 2014 11:44:03 AM UTC-5, F.O.A.D. wrote:
On 1/21/14, 11:34 AM, wrote:

My wife was prairie building when she brought her community out of the
ground and they ran the construction trailer off of a 36KVA diesel
genset. They got fuel delivered a couple times a week.

The gas assisted heat pump, the water heater, the fireplace and the
stovetop were why we installed the propane tank. I'm not concerned about
running dry because the supplier is on top of things.

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2014/01/20/22372040-propane-shortage-adds-to-winter-woes?lite

amdx[_3_]

On 1/21/2014 9:27 AM, Mr. Luddite wrote:
On 1/21/2014 10:11 AM, Hank wrote:
On 1/21/2014 9:25 AM, amdx wrote:
On 1/21/2014 7:51 AM, Hank wrote:
On 1/20/2014 10:47 PM, wrote:
On Mon, 20 Jan 2014 16:22:07 -0500, Hank wrote:

Heres my avg monthly kwh for the past 5 years 2078 2301 2326 2089
1784.
Have fun with those numbers.
snip
Did you notice my 2013 monthly average was over $300 less than 2012.
Did you notice that 2013 was the lowest average in the last 5 years.
Prior to 2013 I was using incand., CFL, and fluorescent tubes.
I still have 8 4 ft tubes and 2 2 footers. The rest is LED.
I saved exactly $468 last year. Enough to buy 46 more LEDs @10 per.

Garbage in garbage out.
To many variables.
Heat and air conditioning used, hot water heater use.
More or less overnight company, Etc.
No saying you didn't use less for lighting, I just don't think you can
quantify it using overall electric usage.

How else would you do it?

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, 13 percent of
residential electrical energy use is for lighting.

The same agency states that the US average monthly bill for residential
electricity for June, July and August of 2013 was $395. Seems a
little high to me, but again, it's the average for the whole nation.

So, assuming those numbers are close, 13 percent of $395 is $51.25.

Switching to LED lighting that consumes a fraction of the power would
have a serious impact on that cost. So, Hank's numbers don't sound
totally out of the ballpark.

That would make an 11.6% reduction in the amount of residential
electricity used. I assumed the algore lights use 10% of the old style.
That may be to low.
That's an extra $550 a year in your pocket.
Mikek

F.O.A.D.

On 1/21/14, 11:50 AM, Mr. Luddite wrote:
On 1/21/2014 11:34 AM, wrote:
On Tue, 21 Jan 2014 06:43:56 -0500, "F.O.A.D." wrote:

We have a 500 gallon buried tank, so it gets filled to 400 gallons. I
think our genny burns about 1.75 gph at half load, so at any time during
the month between tank top-offs, we should have at least a week of run
time, probably more if it is winter, because the larger of our two heat
pumps primarily runs off propane anyway, so if the power goes out, the
only additional load for heat from the generator will be to run the
compressor and furnace fan. The smaller heat pump is not on generator
backup.

... but your gas assisted heat pump is sucking propane out of your
generator fuel tank.
I agree with Dick, "feeding the monster" can be an issue in a long
outage. That term came from our Punta Gorda friends who were living on
a generator for over a month after Charlie.

My wife was prairie building when she brought her community out of the
ground and they ran the construction trailer off of a 36KVA diesel
genset. They got fuel delivered a couple times a week.

The problem up here in the Northeast would be when the last time your
tank was filled prior to a long term outage. When we get a major
snowstorm and lose power the propane delivery trucks are usually
grounded for a while as well until all the side roads are cleared. If
the power outage occurred when the tank was low, you're screwed.

If we had natural gas piped up from the street, it would be more
feasible. However, we've lived in this house for going on 14 years now
and the number of long term outages have been minimal. In fact, I can
really only recall not having power for more than a few hours as being
about 3 times in 14 years and they only lasted a day or two with the
worst being 3 days.

Now that I've said that ... we'll probably get creamed with the storm
tonight.

Hmmm... just had a thought. I wonder if they make a generator that
runs off of furnace fuel oil. Probably do. That would be more
practical as we have two 330 gal oil tanks and one 275 gal. We keep
them topped off.

Isn't furnace oil fuel a variation of diesel?

Mr. Luddite

On 1/21/2014 11:58 AM, F.O.A.D. wrote:
On 1/21/14, 11:50 AM, Mr. Luddite wrote:
On 1/21/2014 11:34 AM, wrote:
On Tue, 21 Jan 2014 06:43:56 -0500, "F.O.A.D." wrote:

We have a 500 gallon buried tank, so it gets filled to 400 gallons. I
think our genny burns about 1.75 gph at half load, so at any time
during
the month between tank top-offs, we should have at least a week of run
time, probably more if it is winter, because the larger of our two heat
pumps primarily runs off propane anyway, so if the power goes out, the
only additional load for heat from the generator will be to run the
compressor and furnace fan. The smaller heat pump is not on generator
backup.

... but your gas assisted heat pump is sucking propane out of your
generator fuel tank.
I agree with Dick, "feeding the monster" can be an issue in a long
outage. That term came from our Punta Gorda friends who were living on
a generator for over a month after Charlie.

My wife was prairie building when she brought her community out of the
ground and they ran the construction trailer off of a 36KVA diesel
genset. They got fuel delivered a couple times a week.

The problem up here in the Northeast would be when the last time your
tank was filled prior to a long term outage. When we get a major
snowstorm and lose power the propane delivery trucks are usually
grounded for a while as well until all the side roads are cleared. If
the power outage occurred when the tank was low, you're screwed.

If we had natural gas piped up from the street, it would be more
feasible. However, we've lived in this house for going on 14 years now
and the number of long term outages have been minimal. In fact, I can
really only recall not having power for more than a few hours as being
about 3 times in 14 years and they only lasted a day or two with the
worst being 3 days.

Now that I've said that ... we'll probably get creamed with the storm
tonight.

Hmmm... just had a thought. I wonder if they make a generator that
runs off of furnace fuel oil. Probably do. That would be more
practical as we have two 330 gal oil tanks and one 275 gal. We keep
them topped off.

Isn't furnace oil fuel a variation of diesel?

It's a variation but my understanding is that furnace oil does not
contain lubrication additives required for diesel engines. I don't
think I'd try it.

Mr. Luddite

On 1/21/2014 11:43 AM, wrote:
On Tue, 21 Jan 2014 03:51:13 -0800 (PST), Tim
wrote:

You can't make electricity cheaper than you can buy it.

By a factor of at least 5x. It can be way more for an old technology
generator.

A 5kw generator you might find at the home store with a Briggs engine
and a regular alternator will burn at least a gallon and a half an
hour. That ends up being about a buck a KWH.

That's what I discovered quickly with the 12kw generator I used in
Florida following Wilma.

The first day I ran it for about 6 hours (or less) and went through
about 8 gallons of gas. That's when I started recalculating things and
just used the little Honda.

The problem with them is that they have to run at 3600 RPM regardless of
load in order to generate 60 cycles. The inverter types like the Honda
can run at idle and still generate up to 6 amps of 120 volts (EU-2000).
If the load increases like when the refrigerator compressor kicked on,
the Honda would temporarily increase speed but then drop back to idle.

F.O.A.D.

On 1/21/14, 12:25 PM, wrote:
On Tue, 21 Jan 2014 11:48:22 -0500, "F.O.A.D." wrote:

On 1/21/14, 11:27 AM, wrote:

It is easy to figure out. What did you pay? How many KWH did you use?

I posted my last 12 months straight from the FPL web site. I can also
get that broken down by the hour since they put in the smart meter.

I'm not that anal. I know or can find out what the current rate per kwh
is. It varies seasonally between 8 and 10.75 cents. If I want a lower
bill, we can cut usage.

OK so you don't know and don't care.

I don't really care either but I did want accurate numbers if I was
going to cite them.

As I stated, the current rates for the various util companies are posted
on a state site. Our local util also posts the current rate on its site.

It's not that I don't care. It's that whatever the rate is, there's
nothing I can do about it. I can lower our usage, but I cannot change
the $$$ rate.

Hank

On 1/21/2014 11:27 AM, wrote:
I posted my last 12 months straight from the FPL web site. I can also
get that broken down by the hour since they put in the smart meter.

Don't you dare.

Hank

On 1/21/2014 11:45 AM, F.O.A.D. wrote:
On 1/21/14, 11:43 AM, wrote:
On Tue, 21 Jan 2014 03:51:13 -0800 (PST), Tim
wrote:

You can't make electricity cheaper than you can buy it.

By a factor of at least 5x. It can be way more for an old technology
generator.

A 5kw generator you might find at the home store with a Briggs engine
and a regular alternator will burn at least a gallon and a half an
hour. That ends up being about a buck a KWH.

Rather pay to run the genny than sit in a too cold or too hot house.

Well, you could go out and commune with nature instead of pressing your
nose against a cold or hot window.

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