Conserving Energy in the Home

we have switches on ALL sockets, nothing is left on standby, if I leave my computer for a few minutes I switch off the monitor

Flush the loo?? HA!
Is a loo a hole in the floor like in India? Here in Canada we have toilets.

The new toilets "save water". They flush with such a small amount of water that they don't work and then you must flush and flush and flush and flush and flush and flush ...
They don't save water and are a nuisance.

we have a normal loo unit but I'm as comfortable acurately throwing a bucket of water out of the last shower i had to flush it. we also use rain water when there is enough to go round

My water conserving "loo" tends to clog from time to time. I just use a little plunger action to get it going. I don't have to flush and flush. It's a little inconvenient. I'm sure technology will continue to advance on this front, however.

My old toilets use enough water to do the flush properly.
My son and daughter got their bathrooms renovated and they used new toilets that don't work. The old toilets that used enough water are not available anymore.

audioguru said:

My old toilets use enough water to do the flush properly.
My son and daughter got their bathrooms renovated and they used new toilets that don't work. The old toilets that used enough water are not available anymore.

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In Australia we have "dual flush" with 2 buttons. You can choose if you want a water saving small flush or a big one. Best of both worlds, AND you have freedom of choice.

Mr RB.... When you said 240v I was guessing you were in Aus.
And then you confirmed my guess by telling me in your last paragraph.

I have to agree with you. CFL's... wait a sec, What is a CFL... (haha)
Lets stick with good old understandable terms.... "Fluro's"
Fulros in a domestic situation are almost a complete waste of time.
At the moment.
Until the technology improves 2 fold, they are poo house.

Maybe they just have better ones in the UK, but here in aus we are lead by advertising that is full of lies, and shotty products to proove it.

They cost up to 8 dollars (4 pound, or 6.5US roughly) and the ones i have havnt lasted that long.
(because we can not buy incandesant anymore, i have reverted to halogens in a incandesent case... they go alright)

The claims on the box are misleading.
the 15W fluros that say 60W equivelant do not put out 60W worth of light compared with their incandesant brothers.
Thats just marketing so all the wanna be greenies and home owners trying to save a penny say "oooooo look, only a quarter of the consumption, lets get this one"
One quarter of the consuption, one quarter of the quality.

Fair enough in a kitchen or laundry where a lovely White Light is nice and the old style battern fluros work, good idea.
But in a lounge room where a white light is not wanted and mood lighting is, fluros do not suit.
And dont even start when it comes to dimming them.

Im all for saving energy (I'm acctually interested in working for electrical contractors who are going into the field of solar installation), but when things are done half hearted, go sell it to someone who'll buy them.



How's this for a story.
The Australian goverment is advertising a "target 155" campain because our dams are only 30% capacity and going into summer.
The idea is every person should limit themselves to 155 litres a day.
Sounds good.
Good idea.
Save the enviroment...
...Right

Save money...
...WRONG.
...A mates water bill....$197.
Guess how much water he used... 12 dolars worth.
The other $185 is for the connection and service.

So if he is to use HALF the amount of water, his bill will be $191 instead of $197.

As if they want us to save water! If they were passionate about it they would charge by the litre, not for the service.

Here's another thing.
Stan Meyers
Look him up on YouTube. Please.
For those who dont know, he invented a car that ran off ocean water, snow, fresh water whatever water!
(Through electrolosis, water is split into hydrogen and oxygen, then the hydrogen is used as fuel.. and guess what the by-product is... Water vapour. Now wouldnt that be nice coming from your exhaust.)
This was in the the 80's!
And we are still pumping unleaded (gas for those in US) into our cars....
Where's the goverment re-search into that.
If one man can do it, imagine what can be created.
Instead they develop "Hybrid" cars that take fuel as well as electric power so they still get a cut from the oil companies as well as keeping the greenies happy.

anyways if the major bodies were serious about saving the world, we wouldn't be complaining about stupid 'FCL's' popping, lack of water, and green house gasses.

jakeselectronics said:

Here's another thing.
Stan Meyers
Look him up on YouTube. Please.
For those who dont know, he invented a car that ran off ocean water, snow, fresh water whatever water!

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I suggest you research further - all he 'invented' was a con - it never worked, and he even proved it didn't work in open court.

He was just a con-man and a crook, stealing money for his supposed 'inventions'.

haha well the principal was good.
hydrogen goes off with a bang. 40,000 feet per second i think...
Yeahhh... I probably wont be experimenting with that again...

ok well my cfls still suck
haha.

agree to disagree.

He did the hydrogen based energy effort a huge disservice. Now many people associate hydrogen based energy efforts with fraud.

3v0

Nigel Goodwin said:

I suggest you research further - all he 'invented' was a con - it never worked, and he even proved it didn't work in open court.

He was just a con-man and a crook, stealing money for his supposed 'inventions'.

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Simple solution to energy conservation (that might make me sound like a not so nice person) - people use energy, so less people = less energy used.

jakeselectronics said:

Here's another thing.
Stan Meyers
Look him up on YouTube. Please.
For those who dont know, he invented a car that ran off ocean water, snow, fresh water whatever water!
(Through electrolosis, water is split into hydrogen and oxygen, then the hydrogen is used as fuel.. and guess what the by-product is... Water vapour. Now wouldnt that be nice coming from your exhaust.)
This was in the the 80's!
And we are still pumping unleaded (gas for those in US) into our cars....
Where's the goverment re-search into that.
If one man can do it, imagine what can be created.
Instead they develop "Hybrid" cars that take fuel as well as electric power so they still get a cut from the oil companies as well as keeping the greenies happy.

anyways if the major bodies were serious about saving the world, we wouldn't be complaining about stupid 'FCL's' popping, lack of water, and green house gasses.

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Uhh no he didn't invent anything useful. He did scam some folks though.

Jules_Theone said:

so less people = less energy used.

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well you can be the first to do humanity a favour ! :lol

we can all save enrgy. countless times EVERY day i see wastefullness in peoples attitude, some people do no deserve to walk on this planet as they care nothing for it

A very popular brand of 13W compact fluorescent light bulbs are selling for $.60 each in Canada. You guys down Under are being Royally Ripped Off!
They are guaranteed for 5 years so if one fails then the store replaces it.
I had one fail and the store replaced it with a box of 6 of them and an appology.

I haven't used a 60W incandescent "heater" for years so I can't remember how much light they make. My 13W compact fluorescent light bulbs are used where I had the 60W incandescent ones and their light output is fine.
I use a few 23W compact fluorescent light bulbs where previously I used 100W heaters.

My home is heated with natural gas that is inexpensive.
Electricity is made with waterfall generators and nuclear and is also fairly inexpensive.

I think here in England the quality of energy saving bulbs is very poor, yes they are cheap but thats not the point ! unfortunately the british goverment is a political and economical whore and will let people do as they please, we have to site here and let all the crap roll in from china and take it with thanks ! a decent goverment would make sure that all goods were checked to be "fit for purpose" before allowing sale of them. the gov makes so much fuss about being green and saving energy but they fail to point out that all this rubbish we buy in now is made from raw materials using energy to extract the materials and then manufactur (if you can call the production of garbage manufacturing) the goods and send them around the world using energy again. they get to the Uk and are often useless after a couple of months (hence me no longer owning a CD player). Then of course this tuff is dumped in landfill because we are too lazy to recycle and the gov is more worried about kicking up a stick about recycly more than not having the rubbish to dump in the first place. the one thing I'll always remeber the current british goverment for is trying to sort out the effects and stand by letting it still take place instead of fixing the cause. I was taught about a law called cause and effect when I was 10 ! it looks like the british goverment still don't know about this well kept secret !!!

audioguru said:

A very popular brand of 13W compact fluorescent light bulbs are selling for $.60 each in Canada. You guys down Under are being Royally Ripped Off!
...

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So true! But you wait until the Canadian government legislates to force you to buy CFLs. Then the price goes right up and the quality drops right down. Governments suck. If I wanted someone to tell me what to do I'd find someone SMART.

As for conservation, I don't see energy as being a limited resource! If you look past the recent mis-management of energy and think about the future, where should it go?

In 500 years from now is it going to be like Star Trek, with successful humans living in brightly lit environments with energy to burn for any purpose including building a nicer world to live in, or will humans be pathetic losers with 10 people huddled around a 3w light bulb in their cold dark room?

For the human species to ultimately evolve and be successful we don't need to limit energy... We need to use exactly as much energy as we want and generate exactly as much as we want. It's just another product that successful people can choose to buy.

Being forced to conserve is just a very obvious proof that we have been incompetent in our energy management. It's a loser strategy.

What if every new house built was legislated to have the entire roof made from solar panels? It might add 10% to the cost fo the house? But that house would be self sufficient, AND provide excess energy for the rest of the world to use, AND produce some continual income for the home owner year after year.

Now THAT is energy success. Conservation isn't.

Mr RB said:

So true! But you wait until the Canadian government legislates to force you to buy CFLs. Then the price goes right up and the quality drops right down. Governments suck. If I wanted someone to tell me what to do I'd find someone SMART.

As for conservation, I don't see energy as being a limited resource! If you look past the recent mis-management of energy and think about the future, where should it go?

In 500 years from now is it going to be like Star Trek, with successful humans living in brightly lit environments with energy to burn for any purpose including building a nicer world to live in, or will humans be pathetic losers with 10 people huddled around a 3w light bulb in their cold dark room?

For the human species to ultimately evolve and be successful we don't need to limit energy... We need to use exactly as much energy as we want and generate exactly as much as we want. It's just another product that successful people can choose to buy.

Being forced to conserve is just a very obvious proof that we have been incompetent in our energy management. It's a loser strategy.

What if every new house built was legislated to have the entire roof made from solar panels? It might add 10% to the cost fo the house? But that house would be self sufficient, AND provide excess energy for the rest of the world to use, AND produce some continual income for the home owner year after year.

Now THAT is energy success. Conservation isn't.

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you are very very misguided and seem to be having dificulty seeing reality and are beleiving in a fairy tale (a fictional story). Wastefullness is NOT the way it hampers success in so many ways. look at start treck another way if you have to make it your example. What if they are using energy so efficiently that they have plenty over to do all the rest ? making power takes space and money and weight/mnachinery, if you have an inefficient space ship it will never leave the ground and have to be bigger than neccesary because of its extra size to carry more fuel.

if make a laptop computer to inefficient of fill it with uneccesary gadgets just because you can how will you power it ? won't be a laptop for much longer will it ? are you really happy throwing money down the toilet ? your happy to have a huge energy bill ? can't you see how nuts you idea is ?

Where did I say I was happy to throw money down the toilet???

I was questioning the whole notion that "there is not enough energy". That's a loser strategy needed now because people have managed the energy badly UP TO THIS POINT. Conservation must be introduced AFTER people f%^$#ed up and wrecked something, so then they have to "tighten their belts".

If any resource is handled well there is a surplus. I bet you have a surplus of food in your home so your family won't get hungry, and a surplus of clothes so they don't have to wear the same old shirt every day and a suplus of fuel in your car so you don't run out on the way to work. That is because you handled the food resource properly and the clothing resource properly etc and you have as much as you want. It's a good thing - good management - having an abundance and not a shortage.

If the energy situation was handled properly there would be an energy surplus. I even gave a childishly simple example of how that might work, abundant energy so you can use as much as you like AND be good for the environment AND generate income in the process... Maybe you should read it again.

Mr RB said:

...
What if every new house built was legislated to have the entire roof made from solar panels? It might add 10% to the cost fo the house? But that house would be self sufficient, AND provide excess energy for the rest of the world to use, AND produce some continual income for the home owner year after year.

Now THAT is energy success.
...

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Sorry Mr RB maybe i misread your post ?

unfortunately there are too many people on the panet to have enough energy to have a life like many of us

This whole thread has me near falling off my chair laughing, conserve energy in the home eh, over 5 years ago we went off grid and were laughed at. Now people ask how they can do the same. Basically on real hot days is when the grid goes down and people in the burbs near melt as their aircons won't work, here we put the aircon on and dont worry about using the genset, as this is when we are making the most power. The otherday my missus rangup and said the inverter beeped then turned off. Apparently the inverter was over voltage so the missus did a heap more loads of washing, I told her well if it's hot enough throw the aircon on which she did. when I got home later that day the sun was just going down and the batteries were still on float voltage.

If people in the burbs really want to conserve energy forget the PV grid-tie crap, just go buy some PV panels, an inverter and some batteries then run all the smaller loads off that. Depending on the system used just monitoring the battery voltage and the appliances used will soon realise where power saving can be done.
<end of rant>

Cheers Bryan