How to fight climate change... for reals.

[Poindexter]

Is there a reputable website we can look up average or typical consumption of especially electricity either nation wide or by smaller chunks? I wouldn't mind seeing some data for say average annual electric consumption in Finland or Colombia or etcetera either.

With 2 responsible adults in 1200sqft of house I think we are doing pretty darned good drawing 500-700 watts continuous average. I know the dishwasher is the oldest appliance in the home by at least 5 years, but at this point I might as well run it until it breaks and then look for an efficient reliable new replacement at that time.

 

[stoveliker]

I need to decrease the heat load on the masonry too. It get over 120

No eves (?) ... When the sun gets lower and the eves don't work anymore, the
load should be less?

 

[stoveliker]

@Poindexter
600 W 24/365 equals 5.2 MWh.
Seems I'm not doing too shabby at 5.6 MWh working at home, and having (tv and gaming) a 10 and a 12 year old ..

So that's one comparison

 

[Poindexter]

Hmmnph. I guess we are all waiting for woodgeek to spill.

In the meantime, if this is a reputable datasource:

https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=97&t=3

Then both stoveliker and I are doing pretty good on our electricity use as Americans, but still using a lot more electricity than the global average on the few (possibly sketchy) websites I looked at.

 

[begreen]

Hmmnph. I guess we are all waiting for woodgeek to spill.

In the meantime, if this is a reputable datasource:

https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=97&t=3

Then both stoveliker and I are doing pretty good on our electricity use as Americans, but still using a lot more electricity than the global average on the few (possibly sketchy) websites I looked at.

You and stoveliker are doing ok. Compare our consumption of almost anything to a poor third-world nation and it is grossly out of proportion. We are gluttons.

 

[stoveliker]

A lot depends on e.g. cooking (electric for me, the inefficient kind), but most folks in e.g. The Netherlands cook on natural gas.

Similar for water heating.

Global averages, even for developed country, depends a lot on historical decisions.

Less-developed countries is a whole nother story.

 

[begreen]

Yes, a lot of the third world cooks on wood or dung fires. One light bulb in the house can be a luxury.

 

[Poindexter]

I went ahead and totaled mine up. For the year ending 07-06-22 we bought 7,038 kwh, average about 19.5 kwh per day. In the four warmest months with no heating of the insulation envelope or head bolt heaters on the vehicles we bought 1794 kwh which would put us at ~5400 kwh for the year/ 11.75 kwh per day "if there was no winter in Alaska."

We did have two kids home for two weeks each Christmas 21. We had one daughter here for the month of June 22. I can see both of those events on the electric (and the water) bill but it was worth it to have them home.

I don't think I am going to find any dramatic electricity savings without installing solar or moving to either a smaller house or somewhere south of here. But I am curious.

 

[Ashful]

Geez... I think I have five or six wifi extenders (4 MoCA + 1 cat5 + 1 wifi/wifi), and never even thought of switching one off. Seems like it'd cause more headaches, with so much other connected hardware relying on them.

Lighting is only a tiny fraction of the electricity you use, in particular when heating (washer, drier, water, dishwasher etc) are involved.

Interesting point, stoveliker. I wanted to see if you were right on that, at least for my own case, so I did some quick figuring below.

I'm like woodgeek, I seem to only turn lights off all day and night, the rest of the family takes care of turning them all on. As I look around the first floor of the house now, at the various lights, both in legitimate use and inadvertently left on by a busy wife and absent-minded kids, I see 3.9 kW of lighting burning away. Let's just pretend that my wife hasn't also left several lights on in the master bath, changing room, guest suite (she almost certainly has), and just focus on the 3945 watts I can see.

If left on 3-4 hours per night in summer, and 7-8 hours per night in winter, that's roughly 7835 kWh per year. Eyeballing PECO's crappy graph on household usage, it looks like I'm at maybe a hair under 2400 kWh/mo, so maybe 28,000 kWh per year. This means that more than 25% of my usage is lighting, even before we consider the huge hit each December for Christmas lights.

I guess that could still be called a small fraction, but not an insignificant one.

 

[Poindexter]

I seem to only turn lights off all day and night, the rest of the family takes care of turning them all on.

That is sure enough Dad talk right there.

 

[stoveliker]

Geez... I think I have five or six wifi extenders (4 MoCA + 1 cat5 + 1 wifi/wifi), and never even thought of switching one off. Seems like it'd cause more headaches, with so much other connected hardware relying on them.


Interesting point, stoveliker. I wanted to see if you were right on that, at least for my own case, so I did some quick figuring below.

I'm like woodgeek, I seem to only turn lights off all day and night, the rest of the family takes care of turning them all on. As I look around the first floor of the house now, at the various lights, both in legitimate use and inadvertently left on by a busy wife and absent-minded kids, I see 3.9 kW of lighting burning away. Let's just pretend that my wife hasn't also left several lights on in the master bath, changing room, guest suite (she almost certainly has), and just focus on the 3945 watts I can see.

If left on 3-4 hours per night in summer, and 7-8 hours per night in winter, that's roughly 7835 kWh per year. Eyeballing PECO's crappy graph on household usage, it looks like I'm at maybe a hair under 2400 kWh/mo, so maybe 28,000 kWh per year. This means that more than 25% of my usage is lighting, even before we consider the huge hit each December for Christmas lights.

I guess that could still be called a small fraction, but not an insignificant one.

It's only one wifi extender, and my phone works fine without in my bedroom, so why have it on. It's automatically programmed to switch off. The main wifi access point will always be on, and can serve the whole home. The extender is meant for outside coverage. So no headaches here.

You, sir, are having a different home than I have. One zillion square foot, a million rooms, and probably inconsistent daylight coming in, many rooms and partitions etc. I have what used to be a basement+1200 sqft ranch, on which they added a 576 sqft (half) second story. The one fridge and one freezer will necessarily be less of the total than in my home. The big baseloads (one big audio/tv system, kitchen stuff, etc.) are baseline, while lighting scales with home size. So.

My attitude is the same as yours though. I keep switching those d*mn lights off.
My family is still overseas, at this point. I've been in the living room with one 7 W LED on (after my outside fire died out and I went in).
My fridge is purring away though. The washer did too earlier.

 

[EbS-P]

No eves (?) ... When the sun gets lower and the eves don't work anymore, the
load should be less?

More or less west exposure on the gable end. I had to take out a big tree that was starting to uproot which used to shade this part of the house.

It’s the later afternoon evening sun and that really bakes this side of the house.

 

[EbS-P]

Hmmnph. I guess we are all waiting for woodgeek to spill.

In the meantime, if this is a reputable datasource:

https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=97&t=3

Then both stoveliker and I are doing pretty good on our electricity use as Americans, but still using a lot more electricity than the global average on the few (possibly sketchy) websites I looked at.

I was sitting at about 800 kWh per month before the BEV. Now my 12 month average is 925 kWh last month my average comparable house was 1800!

 

[peakbagger]

A definite downside to optimizing for solar gain for PV arrays and wintertime building heat gain is higher day time structure temps. Landscaping with hardwood trees works remarkably well for heat gain as leaves are there during the summer and gone in the winter but not very good for solar. Proper overhang design can help but they need to be designed correctly and can be hard to architecturally integrate in many home designs. I will be playing around with them on my next house design. I have wall mounted solar array that shades an angle bay window and I do know that it really cut down on summertime heat gain in my living room.

 

[EbS-P]

Is there a reputable website we can look up average or typical consumption of especially electricity either nation wide or by smaller chunks? I wouldn't mind seeing some data for say average annual electric consumption in Finland or Colombia or etcetera either.

With 2 responsible adults in 1200sqft of house I think we are doing pretty darned good drawing 500-700 watts continuous average. I know the dishwasher is the oldest appliance in the home by at least 5 years, but at this point I might as well run it until it breaks and then look for an efficient reliable new replacement at that time.

Here is a state list. https://www.eia.gov/electricity/sales_revenue_price/pdf/table5_a.pdf

 

[Ashful]

Landscaping with hardwood trees works remarkably well for heat gain as leaves are there during the summer and gone in the winter but not very good for solar.

You've probably caught that I'm into old houses, and when I was growing up, several family members of my grandparents' generation were still living in houses on farms continuously occupied by my family for several generations. One thing I had noticed from this experience is that older houses took much better advantage of orienting the structure (and support structures), as well as landscaping, for natural heating and cooling advantages.

Often, you'll find old photos with deciduous trees planted on the southern and western sides of a home, with evergreens planted on the north and east sides. The deciduous trees of course provide maximum southern and western shade in summer, while allowing it thru in winter. The evergreens block our nasty northeasterly winds all winter.

More interesting, is the few remaining very old houses, built before there were roads, when there was no road to cause any bias which direction you faced the house or barn. Every single one I can remember has had the barn planted due north of the house, offering a similar wind break to the house, as the barn is nearly always larger than the house.

 

[peakbagger]

My house is not oriented to the street, its facing south with my garage to the east of the house set back so that its front door is roughly aligned with the back of the house. In my cold climate the morning sun keeps my driveway clear from snow an ice. To the west is a big softwood stand that shelters the house from the prevailing west/northwest winds. I have removed several hardwoods to the south of my house to improve solar gain but the trade off is an increase is summer cooling. I have plenty of PV to handle that.

 

[Ashful]

Good points. I should have said "most". There are still definitely folks who pay attention to this stuff, despite most builders just pointing the house toward the street.

 

[Sawset]

When I was researching building our house here, I recall something that some architects use. When drawing a house plan on a lot, set a 30-60-90 triangle on an east west orientation, then put the house footprint rotated at 30deg CW. The result is, all 4 sides receive sunlight. If the south exposure has overhanging eaves, then those windows receive no sunlight in the summer, yet full sunlight in the winter. The west exposure sunlight occurs very late in the day, and has minimal effect on solar insolation. Most hot summer days here only one 5kbtu window air will cool the place. We have 27 windows - 15 face south, 6 face west.

 

[stoveliker]

Good points. I should have said "most". There are still definitely folks who pay attention to this stuff, despite most builders just pointing the house toward the street.

Or this is just random chance; after all the options are not that many (N-E-S-W).

 

[peakbagger]

I took a Passive house course a few months ago and building orientation is very important as the only source of heat for a Passive house is sunlight in the windows. The trick is to maximize the winter sun and minimize summer sun. Note the combination of extremely tight construction and superinsulation means that the heating and cooling loads are already very low. After reviewing the extra cost and hassle of going with fully certified passive home, I decided that any future house would be zero net energy that uses active solar to offset added energy loads

 

[stoveliker]

I added a bay window on the (completely window-less) South wall of the living room.
I opted for (triple pane - was not that much more than double pane, so why not, and) the coating that takes advantage of the angle dependent reflection of IR light. When the sun is high in the sky in summer, IR gets reflected. When the sun is low, it gets through.

And I can tell you that it really works, judging by the temperature of the horizontal plane at the bottom of the bay window.

However, this is good for South facing windows, not for West facing ones, as when the sun sets, the IR would get through.

 

[woodgeek]

Or this is just random chance; after all the options are not that many (N-E-S-W).

My 1960 house was the first by a new/young builder. He clearly bought a very nice floor plan from an architect, so it has nice/wow design features. (and he cut a bunch of newby corners that I am still dealing with 62 years later).

Notably, the house is clearly designed (overhangs, indoor planters, large windows versus small windows) to face SOUTH, but it actually faces North-west.

 

[Ashful]

Or this is just random chance; after all the options are not that many (N-E-S-W).

I don't buy that. There are 360 degrees in a circle, 400 gradians for you architectural types. Moreover, nearly all of our roads in eastern PA are set roughly 45 degrees off the compass. meaning most houses built facing a road are actually NE, NW, SE, SW.

But I'm mostly speaking of those houses built before there were roads, the construction of which actually lead to the creation of roads. These are the ones where I see more emphasis on its direction relative to the seasonal solar advantage.

 

[begreen]

I went ahead and totaled mine up. For the year ending 07-06-22 we bought 7,038 kwh, average about 19.5 kwh per day. In the four warmest months with no heating of the insulation envelope or head bolt heaters on the vehicles we bought 1794 kwh which would put us at ~5400 kwh for the year/ 11.75 kwh per day "if there was no winter in Alaska."

We did have two kids home for two weeks each Christmas 21. We had one daughter here for the month of June 22. I can see both of those events on the electric (and the water) bill but it was worth it to have them home.

I don't think I am going to find any dramatic electricity savings without installing solar or moving to either a smaller house or somewhere south of here. But I am curious.

Our bill in summer is just the base fee due to solar, but in winter it goes up a lot. We have clothes drying, hw heating (of colder incoming water), a lot more lighting, and the heat pump. All in addition to charging the car.