home electric blog index (new)

Ongoing series since 2014 about managing my home energy.
Click any picture to enlarge. Use BACK to get to this new index.
A work in progress. Comments welcome.

intro
home electric progress
home electric progress 2
home electric progress 3
home electric progress 4
mcmaster study
flexplan/blueline/energycloud/plotwatt update
measurement
the base load
my typical electrical day summer
my typical electrical day winter
my typical electrical day winter 2
measurement and control
measurement 2
major appliances
infrared camera
dishwasher
exposing my dishwasher energy hog
more on time of use electricity
more TOU and dishwasher continued
water heater
water heater inhibit to save peak time of use cost
the old water heater
the new water heater
water heater update
heat
heating degree days
heating degree days 2
heat
heat 2
heat 3
heat 4 - the new furnace
chimney cap
refrigerator
refrigerator
superinsulating my refrigerator
insulated refrigerator freezer result negative?
insulated refrigerator freezer 2
EnerGuide refrigerator test specifications
refrigerator 4
refrigerator 5
refrigerator 6
freezer
freezer
freezer 2
freezer 3
dehumidifier
dehumidifier
dehumidifier 2
other
the ontario grid - ieso and sme
conservation
efficient workshop lighting 2
clothes dryer heat recovery

Thank you for your interest.
George Plhak
Lions Head, Ontario, Canada

chimney cap

INDEX to the series

Before

Capping my old chimney will hopefully reduce my home energy use.

This chimney has not been required since the old oil burning furnace was removed.

Covered with a tin roof and screen, the old chimney was essentially an open tube from the roof down into my basement.

Although closed off at the bottom, this steel lined pipe was open at the top allowing convective flow from the top of the tube all the way down through the brick chimney core. In other words, some of my expensive heated air was rising out the chimney. Cold air was replacing it by sinking down to the lowest level of the house, right through the center of the house, without much insulation around it.

About stack effect.

The new propane furnace installed three years ago vents through the wall of the basement so this chimney is no longer required. In a major renovation, a chimney like this might be removed entirely from the building and covered over at the roof line but that is not in the plan.

So the next best thing seemed to be cutting the airflow at the top in a permanent waterproof manner. I finally got around to this job three years late. I hate working on my roof.

Above was the top of the chimney showing the 7 inch diameter stainless steel liner and the old chimney cap. That was a pretty large opening into my house!

I used a cutting disk in a grinder to cut through the steel level with the stone and discarded the cap.

On the level surface I laid a bead of mortar then set the patio stone onto the chimney.

Once the mortar had cured, I added a layer of fibre glass tape and roof sealer to the joint.

After

Thank you for your interest.

George Plhak
Lions Head, Ontario, Canada

INDEX to the series

infrared camera

INDEX to the series

In my never ending quest to reduce household energy use, I have added a Hti-Xintai HT-18 Thermal Imaging Camera to let me see HEAT.

First day reaction: this is VERY COOL.

I can now see an accurate temperature image from a distance on a small handheld display. But not thru glass.

In this picture, I am looking at an inside wall and noticing gaps in the insulation.

A whole new infrared world has opened for me.

This is my wood stove at moderate heat in the infrared (IR, below visible light).

The WHITE marker at the image center (126.2C) shows the temperature at that point. The value is also shown in the upper left. The measurement point is on the door, just off the window, where I happen to have pointed the HT-18 when I pulled the trigger to take the picture. This is the center of the instrument.

The RED marker above and to the left of center (145.7C) is the warmest point on the image. That value is also shown on the bottom line as MAX.

The GREEN marker at the top left is the COOLEST point on the image (14.2C). Also shown on the bottom line as MIN. The MIN is near the bottom edge of a window so it would be cooler.

When watching the HT-18 live, the red and the green markers move around on the screen as conditions change. They can be turned off since they can be distracting.

The bottom line can also be turned off.

Bottom right is the time of day.

At top center right is the emissivity setting. The default is 0.95.

Top right is the battery condition. I have been getting several hours at least on a battery charge.

Interesting about the wood stove is the camera's inability to see through the glass in the stove door to the very much hotter embers of the fire inside the stove. This is related to the emissivity of the glass. Smooth shiny surfaces do not emit well. 

It is fun wandering around the house with this.

HT-18 has two cameras, one "sees" normal light, the other infrared (IR).

It is possible to see (and take pictures of) visible, IR or varying overlaps of the two on the built in display.

In this pic, I have shown the visible image of my gas furnace on the left and the IR image on the right as two separate pictures taken one after the other. The furnace has just finished operating.

The scale at the right shows the colour code from white (HOTTEST) to black (COOLEST).

HT-18 has 5 different color code scales, selected in the menu, two are B&W (no colour).

This GFI outlet upstairs has nothing plugged into it. It has no load yet it is slightly warm!

This is normal.

The tiny circuit which operates the GFI sensing consumes electricity and warms up.

When I put my hand on the outlet, it was barely warm. I don't think I would have detected it with my hand.

HT-18 was able to see the difference easily!

This is my electric water heater.

I have been wanting to add a blanket. Now I can see why I should.

 

 

 

 

 

The ceiling on second floor which has roof on the other side. Outside temperature is around freezing.

This is the HT-18 IR view with the colour code changed to white is cool and black is warm.

I can see the rafters and some of the nails.

Some gaps in the patchy (70 year old?) insulation show as white blobs.

Another part of the second floor ceiling.

I had previously identified this spot with a laser pointer temperature meter and marked spots with tape.

The insulation shows gaps (white blobs) clearly in the HT-18 IR image.

Interestingly, I had added the tape in mid summer, when the roof temperature outside was 60C. This spot was abnormally warmer than most of the ceiling, measuring with a spot beam thermometer. Much easier to see what is going on with HT-18.

A pic of my house from outside at night.

Notice how the basement is the warmest part of the house from outside.

This is probably not good.

This is one of my exterior doors from inside. Temp is -15C outside. I had thought this door was pretty tight. The door looks ok in visible light on the left.

Viewed with IR on the right with white cooler, black warmer mode reveals some problems.

The leaks at the bottom of the door are obvious.

Also the inside structure of the door is visible. This is a cheap hollow door and has cardboard strips glued inside to give the veneer panel some strength. The strips are clearly visible. This door is not a very good insulator.

Just above the waste basket is an electrical outlet which is glowing white. A light switch above it also glows white showing a cold leak.

I have much to learn. This is not a detailed review but a collection of first impressions and images as I learn. I am impressed so far. I think HT-18 will be very useful.

As a footnote, I have another Hti-Xintai instrument, HT-2000 CO2 meter which continues to give good service. I am a satisfied paying customer not a paid reviewer. Web ordering on Hti website, via Amazon or Banggood.

Thanks for your interest.

George Plhak
Lions Head, Ontario, Canada

INDEX to the series

freezer 3

INDEX to the series

A beautiful sub-zero sunny day.

A perfect day to stack all the frozen food outside while I defrost my freezer.

I'll save a bit of energy and reduce future ice buildup by checking the seal and door hinge adjustment. Easy to do.

Also a good time to inventory what I have on hand and check expiry dates/condition. And clean up a bit of raspberry juice.

The ice build up is all on one end of the freezer. I can see a finger of ice reaching up to where the moist room air has been entering the freezer.

Likely the hinge on the left side of the freezer is a bit too high.

[click any pic to enlarge]

The two hinges hide under plastic covers that snap off if pried gently.

Mine has four Philips head screws holding each hinge.

With the door/cover in the down position, I carefully loosen all eight screws about 1 turn counter clockwise. Because the screws are in slots, the cover is free to move up and down slightly. I could lift the cover off completely if I wanted to.

Instead, I lift each corner slightly and press down slightly to ensure that the cover is sitting evenly all the way around.

The hinges hold the cover securely but should not hold it UP or DOWN from its normal level seated closed position.

Now that I have it in that position, I carefully tighten all the screws alternating between the hinges - one screw on one hinge, the same screw on the other hinge, then the next screw on the first hinge etc.

The final step is to check all around the cover with a piece of paper to ensure that the paper is gripped firmly when the cover is closed.

I did this paper seal test before hinge adjustment and it was apparent to me that the paper was not held well on the left end of the cover. It is now.

Another sign of good freezer health is the vacuum that results when the door is freshly closed. When I open and close the cover now it snaps shut and holds tight. The warm room air trapped in the freezer cools and shrinks. Difficult to open for a few minutes! It did not do that before, at least not like it does now! All good.

While empty, I carefully cleaned and disinfected the seal and door. Some slight mold spots were removed.

The freezer is chilling and will be refilled with sorted frozen food in a couple of hours, kept frozen outside.

I will try to "read" the frost buildup over the next few months to see if I have reduced the seal leak.

Thanks for your interest

George Plhak
Lions Head Ontario Canada

Update June 6, 2020

Ice buildup has started around the left hinge but does not seem to be very severe.

At the right side, there is almost no ice.









INDEX to the series

my typical electrical day winter 2

INDEX to the series

Daylight savings time changed this past weekend.

I normally check my hourly electricity usage at my utility's website to make sure I've reset the water heater timer correctly so that my hot water heater does not come on during peak priced periods. The water heater is a big electricity user here that I can see easily on this chart. Since I have kept it off for twelve hours, it takes a big gulp when it comes back on, when it's cheaper after 7pm. Cheaper by half!

[click any pic to enlarge]

As a single person, I don't use a lot of hot water yet I NEVER run out of scalding hot water during the daytime. Even at 6:45pm after twelve hours OFF (graph of actual water temperature below).

Your mileage may vary. I have a relatively new heater which is a huge improvement over the old one. I am only one, relatively frugal person as a hot water user.

On the Hydro One website (pic above) I can see my water heater coming back ON (biggest bar in the green) yesterday, five minutes after the end of On-Peak pricing. I use a cheap but great timer that does the job perfectly. It is somewhat cryptic to set if you only look at it four times a year. The light is not very good and I need to remember a flashlight.

I did it wrong once and made the situation worse with the heater off for six hours (doing the right thing) and then coming back on in the last hour of peak price, costing me twice as much!

Because my water heater is a wired in appliance running 240 volts, I can't use the sort of web enabled timer/monitor that I was using for smaller plug-in appliances, like the Itead Sonoff S31.

Compare with the daytime winter electrical picture of three plus years ago. At the time, I was using my own smart meter reader which had higher resolution so it looks more jagged. The big spikes (marked W) from the water heater were easily seen. I was trying only a few hours of On-Peak inhibit at the time (marked C). I was also inhibiting the refrigerator and the freezer so the house energy draw drops almost to zero during C.

I'd like to get a web enabled wired-in device for the water heater but I'd still have to check four times a year that it is set correctly. My utility rate changes happen twice a year on a different schedule than the daylight time changes. Four changes per year to check.

Water heater inhibit is a big winner for me as far as savings on my electrical bill. I estimate that the new water heater and the inhibit technique save me between 15-20% on my electricity bill. This is possible because I use less electricity and only off-peak for hot water.

Off peak timing is quite different from lowering the thermostat temperature of the water heater which is actually quite dangerous.

I have the tank thermostat set at the recommended 49C so that Legionnaires’ bacteria are minimized. The tank cools about three degrees after twelve hours off. Returns quickly to the set point at 7pm until the next morning.

Sorry if the graph is difficult to read. It is from the top of my water heater tank today and shows the low temp for the day and the rise to set point.

I'd mentioned my ambition to leave the grid entirely during On-Peak in future.

Thank you for your interest.

George Plhak
Lions Head Ontario Canada

INDEX to the series

diy lamp update

Some learning from five years outside. I have taken down my lamps to make changes. Let's see how they are weathering.

My concept was to build simple safe cheap reliable rugged outdoor lamps using common materials: wood, found glass, cheap LED chips and "wall wart" power supplies, all re-used if possible.

It was important to me that my lamps give efficient light without drawing attention to themselves.

This one (Model upside down L) is shown attached to a corner of my deck under the railing. I mounted it low, about knee height off the ground. The light shone downward on the path and was limited upward to the horizon by the top of the lamp. There was no glare from these lamps as you walked toward them, just illumination of the path. Would the design be classed as "full cutoff"?

I am pleased with the result. They were bright! Each used only 2 watts at 9 volts from an old printer power supply. The cost was about $5 each for new and reused materials.

[click any pic to enlarge]

A gray connector box is barely visible on the other side of the post. The wire carrying low voltage DC to the lamp passes through a hole in the post to the connector box. I tried to hide the wires and plug entrances for rain and bugs. Not very well it turned out.

I liked using old glass telegraph insulators for the lamp lens although I tried all sorts of glass. Some, like the insulator, were difficult to mount, especially for outdoor year round use.

The idea was that the glass object would protect the LED chip from the elements yet pass the light in a pleasing and interesting yet effective dark sky kind of way.

A common material I used was 2x4 lumber, usually without any protective coating so that the wood weathered natural grey. I avoided cracking of the wood by selecting evenly grained sections with no knots or visible cracks. I pre-drilled all the screw holes. Cracks did form over the years but they were minor.

I had intended for the lamps to look rustic in a modern way if that is possible?

These lamps were not connected this past winter but had illuminated the pathway perfectly for the four years before that, five years total. I didn't know if they still worked.

On the bench connected to a power supply!

Perhaps I shouldn't sound surprised?

Let's have a look inside. To do that, I have to destroy them.

One of the lamps has been a bug home for a while, the other is clean, apparently a better seal.

The bug is alive. No bugs were harmed in this research!

The seal was a bead of silicone around the skirt of the insulator where it touched the aluminum sheet. I had trouble getting the silicone around where the wires went through the sheet.

The thin aluminum sheet is a piece of natural finish roof flashing. It serves as reflector, heat sink and support for the bale wire. The glass hangs from the bale wire so that the silicone has backup. The glass insulators are relatively heavy. The aluminum sheet with it's attachments form a sub-assembly that gets screwed to the wood frame enclosing the electrical part from the weather. There is a cavity in the wood to fit.

It was crudely done.

The back view before removing the bale wires and peeling the aluminum sheet away from the glass. I can see that I used both steel bale wire (the thinner rusty wire) and aluminum wire (thicker and shiny). I recall that the aluminum was easier to bend to the required shape. The steel, although thinner was more stiff.

The smaller rectangles are pieces of aluminum bar to improve heat transfer to the thin sheet. The LED chip is mounted on the other side with two screws. There is thermal compound between the chip and the bar and between the bar and the sheet.

They don't look the same because I tried a couple of variations. The one of the left was a later model. Notice that the silicone fills the holes for the bail wires but not the electrical wires!

I'll bet that's the bug entrance!

In this pic, the bug house LED is the bottom one. Surprisingly clean.

The top one has suffered some rusty corrosion to one of the two bolts but not the other.

Both LED's still work as I showed with the bench power supply. I wouldn't count on the top one lasting much longer just by appearance. There seems to be some darkening at the top corners of the COB array potting.

This LED is from the dark sky shielded lamp. As you can see, it did not do well at all. The LED no longer works.

I had used a small glass jar as a lens for this lamp. I found that it almost immediately showed signs of moisture inside the glass. None of the screws I used were rust resistant and the lid of the jar rusted badly.

The connector boxes were ok although 2 of 4 became bug houses. Corrosion of the cover screws was a problem. The screw used is an unusual fine metric thread (M4x0.5 15mm long) so finding a suitable replacement is difficult. I like these boxes otherwise for outdoor use. The one has been in direct sun and rain for five years.

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This autopsy of my lamps after their "life test" shows what needs improvement. My projects are never perfect the first time!

Your comments are welcome. Please browse the other articles in the series.

Thank you for over 55,000 pageviews of this DIY Lamp series so far!

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George Plhak
Lions Head, Ontario, Canada

diy landscape lamp reading list
a very bright 1 watt diy led garden light
making a lamp from a 2x4
best light at least cost - about testing bright diy leds at home
diy testing of led lamps
diy 1 watt led update
diy garden lamp progress
a shielded low power diy garden lamp
diy lamp update - this article

You might also be interested
shop lighting series

water heater update

INDEX to the series

This graph [click to enlarge] shows the big reduction in standby energy use between my old (blue) and new (red) water heaters at different basement temperatures. The new uses much less electricity, about 25% less. Same capacity, same size heat elements. 25 year age difference.

What's changed?

The new heater has better insulation, a DIY insulated mounting base and is time of use controlled so it does not use peak priced electricity.

I will show the key physical differences between the new and old. The old was produced in 1994.

My old water heater had been quietly making hot water in the basement here for 25 years. It was not leaking and did not require replacement. It had no maintenance during the last five years with me. It worked well but could have been more efficient.

I pay tribute to this fine Canadian product by Giant Factories Inc. It owed me nothing.

To become more efficient, I purchased a competitor's product from GSW (division of A.O.Smith). Although Fergus is on the nameplate, the GSW factory in Fergus hasn't made anything in years.

I might have made a better comparison by getting a replacement Giant. Local stock product was competitive in price.

In any case, I will compare old product to new product. Both are standard electric domestic hot water heaters, now called "Automatic Storage Water Heater". Both are the same size (give or take a cm or so, I lost my actual measurements). About C$350 cost now. The technology of even the most simple commodity hot water heater has improved dramatically. Much of the improvement is federally mandated to improve efficiency. My old and new have the same capacity and the same elements but are 25 years apart in manufacture.

In other words, GSW's Fergus product of 1994 is probably much like the Giant of 1994.

So if you haven't thought about improving your trusty old hot water heater, you might save significant electricity if you do. Here is what I found:

The top of the old with the cover removed. I can see the steel tank where there is no insulation.

I am holding the anode which does not help efficiency but adds life expectancy. This anode rod (aluminum or magnesium usually about the size of my little finger) is completely corroded. An anode rod is replaceable but who ever does that?

The anode protects the inside of the steel tank by being sacrificially dissolved itself as a dissimilar metal, like a zinc anode on the hull of a sailboat. When it is gone, the tank starts to corrode so this one is well past its best before date. 25 years old! Probably never been changed.

Note the iron pipe fittings out the top for inlet, outlet and pressure relief. Copper lines were attached to these fittings with no thermal break (insulated coupling).

These UN-INSULATED metal pipes had been heat radiators into my cold basement. The pipe from the hot water outlet (the one on the left with the pressure relief valve) was always HOT to the touch. Lost heat.

Note also that the insulation inside is a glass fiber wrap with lots of empty space/air! Particularly over the very top center. Perhaps I pulled some of it off with the top? It could not have been this bad could it?

I didn't determine how the steel tank was supported inside the steel can but there must be some metal support structure from the tank to the outside which would probably cause some heat loss.

The new heater has about 2.5in / 6-7cm of foamed in place insulation at the top near the center. I am measuring to the steel tank through the anode access.

In fact I had to dig out some insulation to get access. I wanted to look at the installed anode. The top of the anode rod bolt will be my measuring point for water tank temperature once I insert a sensor and cover/insulate the opening I have made in the insulation.

The anode access has a cute cover plug but once removed, you need to dig out the foam down to the hex head on the anode bolt.

Note the insulated fittings for hot and cold on the top of the tank. The pipes that lead to these fittings are no longer warm to the touch.

Likely the foamed in place insulation completely supports the tank mechanically (unlike glass fiber) so no need for a bridge structure hence lower heat loss.

The fitting to the drain valve at the bottom of the tank was an iron pipe to a metal valve. Both good conductors of heat to the basement.

The old tank used to sit right on the cold concrete basement floor.

"Verified for Energy Performance" in 1994!

The drain is now a recessed plastic valve, a much better insulator.

I've raised the tank off the floor on an insulated base, making it easier to do the annual residue draining and reducing the heat lost to the cold concrete floor.

The wooden base (about 8 inches high) is topped with a 1.5 inch foam disk.

The diameter of the base is larger than the water heater by about the thickness of a batt of rock wool insulation. It could have been a square platform to be simpler to make.

I will wrap the entire new water heater with an insulating blanket after installing seismic straps. Not required by the code here but a good idea anyway for a 100 year event. Earthquakes do occur in Canada.

Time of use inhibit I wrote about here.

I plan to install direct energy metering for the water heater as it is one of my top energy consumers. NRCan on water heaters. Note that there are no storage tank electric water heaters that are Energy Star rated. I think mine will qualify when finished!


Thank you for your interest,

George Plhak
Lions Head, Ontario, Canada.

INDEX to the series

Nameplate for the old Giant.

The date code means the tenth month of 1994.

Nameplate for the new GSW lists Fergus, ON CANADA for address of manufacture?

measurement 2

INDEX to the series

My electricity - Where does it all go??

Ideally, I would have an individual energy meter monitoring each electrical appliance. But that is not practical because of cost and complexity.

I now measure about a third of my kWh use by appliance directly.

Some appliances I don't measure since they are hard wired (like the furnace or the dish washer) so I cannot attach a plug in meter. Or, the appliance uses high voltage 240 VAC (like the water heater or the clothes dryer) and plug in meters are not readily available or easy to hook up. Some appliances are used infrequently (kitchen mixer) or they are moved around the house (vacuum cleaner) or they use so little energy (CO2 alarm) that they aren't worth a dedicated meter.

Nevertheless, using plug in meters I have been monitoring about 10 of my appliances at their plugs. Monthly, I record kWh from the meters. The newer meters are wireless and can control ON/OFF as well as accumulate energy use. It has cost me between $20-75 to monitor and control each outlet as I have tried various meters. I want to explain my usage with my own measurements while learning things about my energy use. I can also verify that I am indeed using less when I make changes. It is difficult to see the change of one appliance in the total house utility bill (avg 300 kWh per month).

This is one of my TS-1500 workhorse plug in meters monitoring both my toaster and microwave. [click any pic to enlarge]

Compared with the grand total for the house, neither of these would qualify for a meter of their own but I dedicated a meter for the two of them. You can see the cube splitter to allow both appliances to be measured. The meter will show the total use of the two appliances which last month (Jan) was only 2.14 kWh.

It helps that I've taught myself never to use the toaster and the microwave at the same time or I would overload the TS-1500 which is rated at max 1800W/15A (and the circuit breaker!).

TS-1500 is a generic meter that shows up in web searches, made in China. I have the US version plug but it is available in other configurations.

This TS-1500 is in the top outlet. It might look as if the lower outlet could be used to plug in something else but in most cases, the TS-1500 blocks the use of the other outlet.

The top line of the meter is showing that the microwave is drawing a standby current of 0.010 Amps, just to run the clock. I can push a button and cycle the top line to see that this is 1W, or that the voltage is 117 Volts, the frequency is 60Hz and other measurements. I leave it at current (Amps) since this is also the only setting at which the meter will reset.

The second line also has multiple displays. I leave it at kWh used. This second line will accumulate until manually reset. If the power fails, the TS-1500 has a built in battery.

On the second line I see that between the two appliances, 0.84 kWh has been used so far this month.

On the first day of the month (sometimes the second day) I go around the meters and record the second line as the usage for the month. I then push the left most button (hold it down actually, for a few seconds) until it chirps and the memory is reset to zero.

The bottom part of the display which looks like a bar graph does nothing for me. I have never seen any of the bars "lit". Maybe I am not using enough through the meter? In any case, these give me a monthly total, are easily reset and are "inexpensive".

TS-1500 is available on Ebay and from Amazon. I see them now for about C$18-20 and higher.

The TS-1500 has worked for me. If you are not ready to wade into WiFi energy meters or you just want to measure an outlet or two on a trail basis as a test, perhaps the TS-1500 is worth trying.

The TS-1500 liquid crystal display is very low contrast. I use a flashlight to make it easier to read.

Two years ago, I wrote about some net-workable WiFi energy meter/switches. The early models I tried had a physical deficiency in that they blocked the unused outlet of a pair, like the TS-1500 does. They were also very expensive, upwards of C$75 per meter.

Models now available cover only one outlet position. I am using the Itead Sonoff S31 to control and measure three appliances, my refrigerator, a small chest freezer and a dehumidifier.

The S31, as well as accurately measuring and accumulating usage also functions as a switch/timer all accessible through WiFi, supposedly "compatible with everything" if you want to use home automation. I don't at this moment, I just want measurements and timers.

S31 also allows you to download the usage history and display plots of monthly usage through the free eWeLink app from Itead.

This is the graph showing when I changed freezers, from an S31 via eWeLink. I added the yellow.

All new measured outlets I make from now on will use the S31.

Cost is about C$20 each.

If you are wondering, these plug in energy meters use between 1 to 2 watts each themselves. I measured.

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I should point out that these devices I am talking about are imported directly from China and are not yet CSA or UL approved.

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I've used what I learned to make reductions in my electricity usage and cost. For me, measurement is a key tool.

When I replaced my refrigerator I was able to show a 50% actual reduction, and for the chest freezer also replaced this year (graph above).

I compare my measurements with the total on my bill. Ideally, all my measurements would add to the billed kWh but I can't yet measure all of them. I want to measure all of my appliances but so far about a third.

My spreadsheet shows individual meter/appliance readings that I make and the total house usage from my utility invoice.

The total of my billed usage that I can currently explain with actual measurements is about 25-33% of the total bill.

I don't have a way to meter my lighting usage yet. All lighting here is now LED but I have no idea what my usage is for "lighting".

Thanks for your interest

George Plhak
Lions Head, Ontario, Canada

INDEX to the series

home electric progress 4

INDEX to the series

I have changed the slope of my electricity demand and it is quite easy to see with a simple tool.

This chart [click any pic to enlarge] shows my actual kWh/month graphed against how cold it got in the area for the last six years.

The three lines at the top are ancient history, my first three years here, before my changes described in this blog. They cluster well. As the outside temp falls I use more electricity (for various reasons but mostly the furnace motors).

The blue line is the 2016-2017 heating season. Parallel but noticeably lower.

2017-2018 (last year, purple) is lower still.

I've just plotted this year (black line) to date even though winter isn't finished. This year is different!

This year 2018-2019 I have a new furnace and six new windows. This line is not parallel to the others, it rises less (less electricity used) with increased degree days.

This means my house is less susceptible to cold from an electricity use point of view.

You can track your data to see the electrical effect of changes you make to your home in a very clear way. You only need one number from each electricity bill and the degree days closest to you.

Here's how I do it: I use a simple spreadsheet because that's the way I am most comfortable making a graph. I make a list of three columns to organize my data: the date, the kWh and the degree days.

The total kWh used each month is clearly shown on your bill. Here are mine, listed by month.

Next you add your weather data, the degree days near you. I get mine here.

Then I graph the points and add a regression line. You can do that with a ruler and some graph paper. I won't give you step by step since there are many ways and much software to do that - your choice. You compare the "best fit" lines of individual heating seasons, or cooling seasons using cooling degree days if you are cooling rather than heating (or both?!).

Then I show the regression lines but not the data. It's a whole lot easier to see what is going on without the data points in view especially when plotting multiple years.

Another view of my usage, December last six year kWh totals. I am using less electricity.

Update Feb 12: My usage of On-Peak has gone down! This chart shows my average On-Peak kWh per day for the months Nov-Feb for the past six years. I adjusted the figures for heating degree days to make all the winters equivalent.

Electricity used during the Peak periods often contributes to the need for my utility to run peaker gas generators producing more CO2. So they make it more expensive for me to buy.

This is my current pricing and TOU periods with HydroOne. On-Peak is twice the price (+103%) of the base rate. We also have a Mid-Peak rate which is 45% higher than the base rate.

My On-Peak is largely the "stuff I can't turn off", like the furnace in winter.

My On-Peak usage is an indication of the absolute minimum kWh I would need to produce in order to be electricity self sufficient.

I had hoped with the furnace and window upgrade that the latest reduction would be more significant.

However the chart suggests that my gains are harder to get from here on.

Thanks for your interest.

George Plhak
Lions Head, Ontario, Canada

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