BESIDES MAKING OBVIOUS IMPROVEMENTS such as better insulating your home, investing in Energy Star-rated appliances, adopting solar energy, or upgrading to a more efficient HVAC system, what other kinds of technologies can help lower your household utility bills? Here are seven technologies that can help you save money without much effort.
1. Smart and Connected Thermostats
A heating and cooling system is a home’s biggest energy user, so this is a great place to focus your energy-saving initiative—by adding some smart control. You can do this by simply installing a programmable, smart, or connected thermostat—and take the time to actually program it! Per the schedule you set up, the thermostat will adjust its settings automatically, which is a sure way to curb energy use.
Don’t want to program it? Buy a Nest thermostat, which can learn your family’s usage patterns through motion sensing technology and program itself to regulate the heating and cooling automatically. While it’s truly a hands-off solution, if you feel more comfortable being able to adjust the settings on a whim, Nest comes with a companion smartphone-based control app.
Another smart thermostat option is available through Comcast’s Xfinity Home connected home service. Called EcoSavr, the service is comprised of Cloud-based software from EcoFactor and a connected thermostat. Together, the software and thermostat measure a home’s thermal envelope (insulation) and efficiency of its HVAC system to make micro-adjustments of heating and cooling settings of a half a degree or so. These small alterations won’t affect your comfort level and can add up to a recorded savings of 17 percent and more.
2. Be a Fan of Fans
Fans can minimize the workload of a home’s HVAC system by circulating the air and extracting heat. This means you can set back the thermostats and let the fans do much of the cooling. There are all kinds of fans on the market, from ceiling fans to whole-house fans to bathroom fans, all of which can allow you to use less air conditioning. And many fans are becoming smarter in the way they operate.
Big Ass Fan’s new SenseMe sensor technology turns its large ceiling fans into Smart Ass Fans, as the company claims, because they know to start spinning when you enter a room. In addition to circulating cool air, the fans can run in the opposite direction to draw hot air up and out of a skylight or cupola, effectively creating a cooling and venting “thermal chimney.” Some fans and motorized windows can even be connected to automation systems to turn on and open at certain temperatures.
3. Go on an LED Diet
Reducing household electricity use is as easy as screwing in a new light bulb—an LED light bulb to be more precise. Although LED bulbs cost considerably more than the incandescent bulbs you’ve been buying for years, they are 80 percent to 90 percent more efficient than those nearly extinct incandescents. And they provide better color of light without containing mercury. Moreover, LED bulbs can last 20 years and cost less to operate than compact fluorescent, incandescent, and halogen bulbs.
Be sure to look at lumens (brightness) of 800 watts per 60-watt equivalent (usually LED lamps that use 10–13 watts). Seek color temps in the 2700K to 3000K range if you prefer the yellowish light produced by an incandescent bulb. And look at beam spread if possible (the angle of light thrown by the lamp).
4. Motorize the Window Shades
Block that afternoon sun so your house won’t get too hot in the summer, or allow it in to help heat the house in the winter—and you can see the power and potential of motorized window treatment systems.
Motorized shades and drapes can be put on timers to open and close when you know it will be sunny, and now systems from Lutron, Somfy, and MechoShade can automate the shades based on solar sensors placed nearby.
Don’t unfairly factor in motorized shades’ higher cost as having no ROI on potential energy savings, though. You know you want those cool shades anyway. They also help protect furniture from UV rays.
5. Use Smart Surge Strips
Compared to your home’s HVAC system, water heater, and lighting, the other electronic components in your house don’t use all that much energy. But you can still save a few dollars a month by using smart surge suppressors that cut power to peripheral devices when a computer or TV is powered down. This will save you from keeping components like printers and audio/video receivers powered when you don’t need them. Monster, Belkin, and Schneider APC make excellent smart surge suppression strips. For home theaters, look for power conditioners with IP-addressable circuits that can be powered down, like BlueBolt systems from Panamax.
6. Actively Monitor Your Energy Use
Just knowing how much energy your home is consuming on a real-time basis may inspire you to cut back. Excellent circuit-based energy monitors are available from SiteSage and Savant Systems. These systems can be connected to whole-house control and automation systems and, with some professional programming, can be used to initiate automatic shut-offs of nonessential circuits, if desired.
7. Get Automated
Automating the operation of certain electronic devices in your home can have a big impact on household energy savings. And you won’t need a huge, expensive automation system to realize the energy-saving benefits. Many affordable do-it-yourself systems using Z-Wave, ZigBee, and other wireless technologies can automate light switches, fans, thermostats, A/V equipment, and more. And imagine the money you can save—by touching one button on a smartphone as you leave the house, you can have the lights switch off, the motorized shades close, and the thermostats set back.
Energy savings is finally in vogue and – dare we say – cool. EH
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