 |
| My TED 5000 Dashboard (4/16/2013) |
Yes...I'm a little excited right now...but it looks like I'm on track for a new record low month.
Wait a second, you say? But the picture above shows you using more than the last record month (October 2012).
Hold onto your hats, I say! This month started out cold and I was still using heat until about April 6/7th! It's now ~10 days later and my heat is turned off. Check out the Day History below...
 |
| Historical Data |
From the pic above in the Daily History you can see 2 days where I was below 10 kWh/day. That one day (4/12) was my lowest energy usage day ever..and I was at home which includes the AM showers before work. Granted, I will concede, both days I ate out (Thursday after Ultimate, Friday after golf). Tuesday (10.3 kWh/d) and Wednesday (10.4 kWh/d) incldues cooking. Either way, take the last week (Mon 4/9--> Sun 4/14)..I've averaged 11.96 kWh/d.
Well..through today, I've used an average of ~15.3 kWh/day (221 kWh). I need to lower that to <14.6 kWh/day to equal my October 2012 record. I would need to average 14.44 kWh/day for the next 15 days to match that record. If I go conservative on my last weeks usage and I average 13 kWh/day for the next 15 days, then I'll average 13.88 kWh/day which will be a new record.
***GIGGIDTY***
Stay tuned for the official results.
BTW...you may have noticed the TED Monthly Historical my March 2013 usage of 25,219 kWh. Obviously this is a mistake given last months blog posting. This is a bug in the TED5000 software whenever there's a power outage. I'm not sure why but it registered that I used ~4,000 kWh from 3/18 (19:00 hours) to 3/19 (0:00 hours). The folks at Energy Inc (maker of the TED5000) know this and are working on a way to mitigate this issue (TED recognizes and skips or users edit it out or whatever). It's pretty annoying, yes...and I hope it gets resolved soon.
Another Update...my TED 5000 display charging base broke the other day. This is a case where I can actually blame the cat for something (yes, that was the cat farting....not me....). Shew was rubbing against the unit (happy kitty?) and it just fzzled and stopped working. The display works fine when I take it out of the charger as it goes to battery mode. But when I put it into the base, the screen goes blank. Although my unit was out of warranty, I'm lucky enough that the base is only $15 to replace. I contacted Energy Inc and a new one is in the mail.
Did you know Europe has heat pump clothes dryers? I can't wait for them to come to the US. They don't heat air and expel it, they use the same air over and over and remove the moisture from it, a very interesting concept. They claim they can save 50% on electric dryer operating costs.
ReplyDeleteNo kidding. I just looked it up. Very cool...it's supposed to start coming into the US market next year (2014). I'm not getting my hopes up too much because things move so slow in the US. Right now, running the dryer has a significant difference in my energy usage. Just look at my graph on Sunday's. Energy usage goes up from 10-11 kWh/day to 19-20 kWh/day due to laundry. And I even take a fair amount of the heavy clothes (i.e. pants, sweaters, sweatshirts) and air dry them. A heat pump air dryer could knock out 3-4 kWh on that day. Although...I'd like to run the numbers myself to see how often we'd be using the dryer to see if the ROI is as great as anticipated (4-5 yrs). Just talking out load here:
ReplyDelete3.5 kWh/week * $0.10 * 52 weeks/yr = $14.70/yr in savings. Even if with kids I double that to get $30/yr, it's a tough monetary justification...UNLESS...my current dryer craps out on me such that I'd be buying one anyway. Then I'd be only looking at the incremental difference.
Then maybe it would make sense...and maybe I'd also look at Time-of-Use rates also.
As a builder the heat pump clothes dryer solves a lot of issues. One is where does the make up air come from on a regular dryer? You could install a heat exchanger at over $1000 each, but 99% of homeowners just allow their homes air leakage to make up the air. Insulating around the exterior duct can also be tricky, and lint in the duct can become a fire hazard over time. I know I mentioned this before but my utility charges twice the electrical rate for anything over 500kwh in the summer ($0.22) I'm willing to consider any technology that will keep me below 500kwh. I'm amazed to find that Switzerland has already banned conventional dryers in favor of the heat pump dryer, talk about pushing innovation! The price of the dryer is very high right now however the GE hybrid water heater has dropped from $1800 to $900 over 3 years, I would expect the dryer to do the same. I doubt I'll get one as soon as they are available, but maybe in 3 years or so I'll swap my machine out.
ReplyDelete