John's Blog: March 2006
Everyone and his dog has a 'blog these days, right? So why not me? If you are interested in anything I'm saying, great! Let's talk about it! (Leave comments.) If not, try one of my other links. Better yet, why are you wasting your time staring at your computer screen, go do something real!
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Signs of Spring in Maine
Monday, March 27, 2006
In perhaps one more baby step towards being full-fledged "Mainahs" (a status we know we'll never actually achieve, except maybe Milo, having been born here), we welcomed the coming season Saturday night by eating out at The Lobster Shack restaurant, a picturesque little hut snuggled against the rocky coast. It closes for the winter, and last Saturday was its first day open for the new season. We also happened to eat there on its final day of last season. So we're starting to feel like real local regulars with all the insider information!Other signs of Spring in Maine we've noticed this or past years:
- A few weeks ago, James went ice-skating with a friend on a small neighborhood pond, and later the same day, spend time riding his new bike around the parking lot down the street, complete with winter coat and mittens. (Thanks to our rather dull snowless winter this year, which is probably thanks to global warming.)
- Every year, it's always a big deal when the little ice cream storefronts that dot the Maine landscape open for the season. You always feel that you've missed them, and need to celebrate by stopping in, no matter that it's still in the low 50s at the time. So you see these places doing a whopping business of people ordering their ice cream, then returning to their parked cars to eat it because it's really still too cold to eat it outside!
- And don't forget Maine Maple Sunday!
Labels: Maine
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Monitering Home Energy Use
Sunday, March 19, 2006
I'm reading the book "The Weather Makers" by Tim Flannery, a well-written book on climate change which also addresses the supply problems of oil, gas, and coal. In the back (which I skipped to!) is a "things you can do" list, most of which we know about, but it's useful to have it listed all at once and with estimated relative impact.So what it got me thinking is that a good way to get started is to have some way to monitor your home energy use at a finer level of detail than just the monthly aggregate use from your utilities bill. I'm thinking down to the level of "how many watts per minute does my computer use?" or "how much oil do I use per minute to heat the water for my shower?" or "Is it more economical to wash dishes by hand or use a dishwasher?"(Click title to read more...)
I can see two possible ways to approach finding this out. One way would be to research it for all your appliances and other energy users. This sounds like a heckuva lot of work, and not guarenteed to be complete accurate in your situation anyway. I think the better way would be if some kind of devices were available to monitor your usage at a very fine level of detail, like each minute or something.
Whichever way you do it, there are numerous advantages. Number one, this would give you an idea of your biggest current areas of usage, and thus what reduction actions could have the biggest impact. Secondly, when you do take actions to improve, the results are easily and prompty measurable, which is important to any improvement process. Related to that is the well-known management theory that anything measured natually tends to improve, simply because you are paying more attention.
So, how to do this? Well, a quick Google search on "electricity use monitor device" turned up this handy little $140 device for measuring electrical usage. It connects to your circuit box and transmits usage data wirelessly to a little LED panel which you can carry around with you. It displays real time kW usage as well as totals by hour, day, or billing period, dollar cost in the same increments, and will even notify you if your usage exceeds certain limits you can program in! Way cool!
So if you want to find out how much electricity a certain appliance consumes, just measure the usage for a few minutes without that appliance turned on, then turn it on and subtract the two numbers!
I haven't yet found a similar device to monitor my fuel oil, mostly because I can't figure out how to Google it without getting results for monitor heaters! smile Maybe someone else knows and can let me know. Maybe the furnace guy would know!
Labels: environment
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