Energy Savings Guide

•           They have reduced their family  expenses

•          The family is not dependent on fossil fuel any longer
  

• Producing their own off grid power
  

• A profound sense of joy at having taken positive long term steps to make a better life for their children
  

Think about it for a minute. What will our good Earth look like in 20 years, or 50 years? What will our children’s world look like? What about our grandchildren? Someone, somewhere down the line will feel the impact of the choices we make today.

That’s the end of today’s sermon- remember, out of passion comes action. We may make choices that save us a few bucks over the years, but real lifelong changes come from our passions.

Talk about renewable energy long enough and you will develop that same passion.

To start off with we’re going to assume that right now you live tied into the electricity grid.

We are going to make this assumption because that gives us a clear base from which to make changes in your lifestyle.
If we’re ever going to conserve energy at your house we’ll need to know how much energy you use on a daily and monthly  basis.
This is easily accomplished by simply getting out your electricity bill and doing some simple math.
The
average family of four uses approximately 20-30 Kwh per day. To give you a comparison on how much you can save… an energy efficient home can use as little as 4Kwh per day.
And as a further comparison, our home which is run entirely with renewable energy uses only 2-3 Kwh per day. Let's take a quick look at where you spend most of your energy budget each day...

How do I get my home energy consumption down to 4 kwh per day?

Home Energy Spending Chart

Heating/Cooling        42%

Lighting/Appliances  36%

Water Heating           14%

Take a look at this typical family energy consumption chart... Isn't that amazing!!
Nearly half of your energy budget goes to heating and cooling your home, and over a third of it goes to lighting and appliances. Isn't that the logical place to start to find some savings for you right now?
There are many ways to make your home energy efficient… some cost more than others.

This guide was written to specifically target inexpensive changes you could make, but will also include some of the more expensive changes as well.

Alright! Right now we’re going split up your energy usage and discover ways to reduce each part of it.

Admittedly most of the energy used by your home is wasted by heating and cooling it.
While most of the techniques that can be used to increase your homes heating/cooling efficiency are expensive we’ll go over the ones that aren’t going to break your bank first.

Okay, so the first tip is common sense and you’ve probably seen tons of commercials about it, but turning down your thermostat works! By leaving your house a little cooler in the winter you can easily trim $10 - $80 / month on your electricity bill.
Another important tip is to tightly seal the vents and close the door in rooms that you don’t use very often.
You can open the vents and door about half an hour before you use the room so that the room gets warm before you go in.

Lastly, you can buy a programmable thermostat for about $60. It will automatically adjust the temperature for you so you don’t have to worry whether you’ll forget or not.

The Insulation in Your Home (More Expensive)

Depending on your house design and style you may have a big empty space that’s not big enough to be an attic, or a full blown attic that just leaks heat all day long.
A well insulated home it much better in the summer at keeping hot air out and cool air in and in the winter they’re good at keeping the hot air in and the cold air out. You don’t have to go out and buy tons of insulation this very moment, but you could build it up over time. Jane and I call this time budgeting, just go out every couple weeks and buy one bale of insulation, install it and do the same thing in the next 2 weeks. It works great.

Please remember that installing insulation can be dangerous, where gloves and a mask as it contains small particles of glass and can harm your lungs. Jane can't even handle it at all, so the boys have to do most of the insulation work.

Well, this is a big one. I remember visiting my friend Craig some years back and helping him finish the building of his house. After a few weeks we were ready for the new furnace to be installed. It was a high efficiency gas furnace and it looked rather small to me after seeing mostly old clunkers from the time I was a kid. He assured me it worked great...

After the house was finished he invited Jane and I for dinner one night. The house looked great. As I sat there I could just barely hear the furnace kick in and run for all of 30 seconds and then shut off. The house was warm mind you...
Then about 5 minutes later it kicked in again, and the same 30 seconds... He explained that it has a very narrow range (which can be set) and it is actually 98% efficient. Then he showed me his heating bill, which was about half of mine for the month of January (this was back before we moved to our present home) January in Canada is, well... cold... and heat is a major expense, so saving a substantial amount is considered a welcome change. Check it out for yourself.

In our present home we have 20 acres of trees, so we burn wood, which is a completely renewable resource, and the new woodburners are very, very efficient burning all of the log.

To tell you the truth I've never been a big fan of air conditioners. I like when it's warm (contrary to most Canadians I guess).
If you live in a hot climate (in the summer it gets boiling here) you probably own an air conditioner. The bad news is that these are the worst energy hogs of all!

It takes a ton more energy to cool something down than it does to heat it up!

If you absolutely must have an air conditioner I can only offer these tips: try and have it run only when you’re at home, and don’t crank it way down so that you can leave a beer on top of the unit and it freezes.
If you are going to go out and buy an Air conditioning unit, get a new energy efficient model. It’s important to buy one that has enough BTU’s to comfortably cool your home. If it’s too big you’re wasting energy, but if it’s too small then it has to work overtime and becomes less efficient.

We don’t have an air conditioner at home, but we do use several tactics to keep our house cool. We open the windows up at night when it gets cooler and let the cool air circulate through the house. In the morning we close the windows and trap all that cool air inside. And we strategically located the house so that our large maple trees shade the house from about 2pm on in the summer, a simple tactic that works very well.

If you still have incandescent lights get rid of them! They are highly inefficient and are the first thing we recommend when people ask us how to save energy. Switch all of your lights to Compact Fluorescent Lights (CFL’s). These are easily 4x – 10x more energy efficient than incandescent. And they don't cost any more than traditional units either. Turn off the lights when you are not in a room too.. every little bit helps.

Refrigerator / Freezer

The fridge and freezer can be a major energy consumer in your home.
The best thing to do is to make sure they are always full. Put jugs of water to freeze in there when it is not full of food.

Computer

Here's a little secret for you… did you know that you could cut down how much your computer uses by 75%? Want to know how? Trade it in for a laptop. It’s true; many laptops use less than 100 watts while your big desktop uses around 400 watts. I know there’s many more appliances we can go over, and I’ll get around to it in future updates.

Now let's deal with some more advanced changes you can make in your life

The very beginning of your off grid move of course will involve deciding on where you want to live. Some of you will want to remain grid tied, but this advice holds true in that case too, so please pay attention...

Tip #1 Buy Off Grid and Invest the Difference

Did you know that you can buy property that doesn’t have electrical lines running to it (off grid) for considerably less money than property hooked up to the grid? The savings in the purchase price can be anywhere from $10,000 to $40,000 depending on your location.

Most realtors expect you to want to run hydro lines to your ‘new’ property and the price of installation, which is usually in the thousands of dollars, is discounted from the purchase price.

After you buy an off grid property, you will simply exercise a different option. What if  you installed renewable energy in the form of solar panels, wind generators or bio diesel instead? Why?

You would never have another electric bill would you? Buy off grid and invest the difference, it makes sense.

By the way, for those of you who are interested in building your own home, we are posting a series of articles outlining exactly how to do just that (look for them in the future.

Of course, you can install Renewable Energy sources at any location, off the grid or even grid-tied. The choice is up to you. If you are starting off fresh make sure you investigate the possibility of off grid living.

We covered most of this topic above, but there are some other factors when you start using renewable energy that you produce yourself...

Living off the grid (or grid tie with renewable energy) is a lifestyle that takes some getting used to for most families. Most Renewable Energy Systems produce only a fraction of the power that a conventional tied to the grid home uses on average.
Will you have to sacrifice all of those modern conveniences to live off the grid? Not on your life. Our family and all modern off grid installations enjoy Satellite TV, internet, modern appliances, modern lighting and much more- just in a slightly different way perhaps.

It will probably mean an extended shopping trip, or perhaps just a slow conversion- that depends on you and your family.
Energy efficient appliances, refrigerators, freezers, compact fluorescent lights are all great places to start. You can even get started with these choices before your off grid move as we recommended above.
There is only one real large change most families have to make. You will probably have to start using a gas cooking stove, if you are already using electric. Power conservation is a major concern in the off grid home and anything that produces heat from electricity is a tremendous drain on your batteries and is very inefficient as well. Modern gas
stoves are very efficient and cost effective for the off grid home.

Who turned out the lights? Living off the grid elevates energy conservation almost to the level of religious study. In every family there always emerges a tiny fanatic who follows everyone around turning off lights that are left on with no one in the room.
We always had fun with conservation, made a kind of game of it. You will find many interesting ways to conserve energy once you begin. Your kids learn about it in school, along with recycling and Earth Day. Your off grid move is just a natural extension of their education in this area, only this time you are leading the way. Your kids will understand when you tell them what you want to do.

Tip #3 The Answer is Blowing in the Wind

Now that you have decided to start using Renewable Energy in your life what is the fastest way to get started?

After you initiate conservation methods what do you do next?

With 15 years of research behind us we are convinced that building your own wind generator is the surest bet to get started.

Modern wind generators seem to be technological marvels beyond the scope of the backyard builder, but that’s just not true.
With the right wind generator plans in about 2 weekends of work you can have an operating wind generator of your own.

The parts are easy to find and you don’t need any special tools either.

http://www.homemade-wind-generator.com/

It really isn’t that difficult either, we are presently building our third homemade wind generator with the plans we have put together for you. Check out the video of our very first wind generator on the website link.

What about Solar Panels?

When most people think of renewable energy or living off the grid they immediately picture an array of solar panels, and for good reason.

That makes sense because solar panels are very popular and are quite prominent in many areas now. They are also in the news quite regularly. Although a little difficult to install they are by no means out of reach of the average handyman’s ability to install.

The job needs to be done right though. The right sunny location where both maximum sunshine is available and easy maintenance access is a must.

Not that there is much maintenance necessary with solar panels. All that is usually necessary is an occasional cleaning of the outer surfaces so that the sun can reach the charging cells below. The other really important feature about solar panels is their modular nature.

You can start off small with only a couple solar panels and easily add onto your system later.

Since solar panels are quite expensive in the beginning, adding on later and starting with a small system at first may be necessary.

One other option does exist though; you could learn how to build your own solar panels. Yes, they are usually manufactured in high tech facilities with very expensive machinery but all of the components are readily available to you too.

With no special tools and a bit of time you can Build your own solar panels.

The cells that make up solar panels are easily obtained and as long as you wire them properly you will have your own solar panels at a fraction of the cost of new ones.

They will produce the same amount of power for your home too.

Anything is possible living off the grid with renewable energy and homemade wind generators and solar panels.