Sweet Home Energy Saving Tips On YouTube!
 

I thought I would do a shout-out on this site about these awesome videos on YouTube. It's obviously political in context, but there's some great tips on saving energy around the house :) .

I absolutely LOVE this guy's water heater replacement in his home. So ingenious! :thumbup:

Those things are great :thumbup: They also make point of service (POS) versions too. So you can have your hot water heater right under your sink (sometimes more convenient and/or cheaper than a full house conversion) :thumbup:

Unfortunately, I can't change the tank heater in my apartment... More unfortunate, my other half would never go for no a/c :p

You know, after watching the video on electric lighting, I find it interesting that he didn't mention motion-sensored light switches. My sister has one in her room (which is great because her and I are real bad for leaving lights on in the house). I wonder if the energy required to operate the switches outspaces the potential energy wasted when the light is left on?

Meh... nothing that everyone doesn't already know. Or damn, I would sure hope that everyone knows...

I must say, Japan is also way ahead of the western world in this area. They never even HAD tank-based water heaters. They have always been on-demand. My model in my house has three different settings (one for the bath, and two different settings for the showerhead). These temps are within arms reach of the bath and the kitchen sink. It even has a power button where you can turn off the pilot. This saves a ton of energy in and of itself.

One problem with America is that people there are short sighted. If a tank-based heater is $1000 and an on-demand system is $1500, they will choose the tank-based system. A big factor in this though, is that energy prices in America are ridiculously low, compared to the rest of the world. People would think twice about leaving their computer on 24/7 if they were paying 22 cents per kWh like I am.

I found these videos two weeks ago. I am subscribed to them on my youtube account, but I don't really think they are going to add any more videos.

I was actually thinking of making a thread about it, but peakster beat me to it.

love those vids. we are thinking about getinga solar water heater anyone have one here?

Has anyone ever heard of an "open direct system" where your heat (radiant) and domestic hot water is the same system and you have just one hot water heater run the whole deal (with no heat exchanger.) Super efficient (96% thermal efficiency on my water heater blows the flue off just everything else :) ) inexpensive and simple with just a bunch of PEX for the radiant tubing, the water heater and a simple manifold with a pump... all do it yourself type stuff. Also, free limited summertime cooling and water preheating by running the same system fluid as a coolant
pretty cool, huh?

I just found out that FPL (Florida Power and Light) stopped offering rebates for air conditioner heat recovery systems.... Basically, a heat exchanger right after the compressor but before the condensor that heated up tank water... You can have the tank heater off for 8 months out of the year with it depending on the efficiency of your a/c (the lower the better). And that water would be scalding hot!

That's something I really want to calculate on day... Does a lower seer rating a/c with a heat recovery system on a tank heater use less energy than a very efficient a/c with heat recovery on a tank heater... Taking into consideration that the heat recovery also increases the COP of the a/c system...


Then again... I still like my parent's water tank system.... It's a solar feed heat system... Takes in "warm" water from the tank - passes through a solar panel -- feeds back into the tank. All powered by a PV panel/pump. The tank never turns on during the day. Now if I could convince them to put it on a timer to shut off at night...

On demand water heaters aren't really that good. They create a massive power spike that is much higher than that necessary for a tank based heater. This means that if everyone bought one, power companies would actually have to build more plants in order to satisfy the increased load due to these spikes. Solar heaters are a different story though. That has a bright future, especially in Florida where I am.

I would also like to add the FP&L sucks monkey nuts. They're currently building two power plants in very delicate parts of the everglades on the coast of Lake Okeechobee. One of them is a coal plant, and there are six more proposed for the state. **** FP&L. Earth First!

Har Har... And I'll tell you what... We were the only house for miles with hot water (without a generator) after those hurricanes knocked out power for a few weeks :thumbup: :thumbup:

Some other people down the street have a solar heater... But it uses an grid powered pump :thumbdown: