Indoor fires (built in a fireplace) are a lot of fun. I’ve always enjoyed building them, sitting back and enjoying the warmth. What I didn’t realize was how inefficient fireplaces can be.

The Problems

There are two major problems. The first is where all that heat is going. A typical fire will generate thousands of BTUs of heat, but most of it will go right up the chimney. In fact, just about all of it is lost to the outside world. The second problem is what happens to the rest of your house. As fires burn, they draw air for combustion from inside the house. This leaves other rooms freezing cold. Also, for some reason fireplaces are usually located near the house thermostat. In our case, it’s only about 10 feet away from the fireplace. As our living room warms up (and the rest of the house cools down) the thermostat doesn’t even activate the furnace.

What Can You Do?

Here are a few options to keep the heat in your house:

1. Install a wood stove. It’s not as exciting as an open flame, but wood stoves are much more energy efficient. Newer models produce almost no smoke, little ash, and need less firewood to produce a lot of heat. The EPA has a list of certified wood stoves that provide excellent energy efficiency. Wood stoves come in different sizes and generate various heat levels. Make sure you install the right stove for your space.

2. Provide an alternate source of air. Some fireplaces have a vent in the back to allow outside air to reach the fire. Using outside air for combustion will help reduce the amount of air drawn from inside. This won’t eliminate the problem and isn’t an easy option to install for existing fireplaces, but can be achieved by simply tunneling through the back of the fireplace and adding a vent.

3. Circulate the hot air with a ventilator insert. Often referred to as a heatilator (for the most popular brand), fireplace ventilators pump the hot air back into your house. A ventilator uses the fire to warm the air and send it back into the house using a blower. These inserts tend to be expensive ($500+) but will definitely make your fireplace more efficient.

What do you think? What are you doing to keep the heat in your house?

We all know that using more energy means paying more money. But, even I (a math guy) find it hard to quickly calculate how much a device costs to run. So, I devised some quick do-it-in-your-head estimating techniques that can help. I used an electric cost of between $0.12-$0.13 / KWh for these estimates (pretty typical across the U.S. right now). If you pay substantially more or less, these equations should be adjusted. Even with slight errors, these equations give a good reference basis to work from when you’re deciding whether to plug in.

Estimating Equations

#Amps / 3 = $Dollars Spent Per Day (assuming 110 voltage)
(e.g. a 15 Amp space heater running all day will cost ~$5.00 dollars because 15/3=5).

#KW * 3 = $Dollars Spent Per Day (regardless of voltage)
(e.g. a 1000 Watt (1 KW) Heat Lamp running all day will cost ~$3.00 dollars because 1*3=3).

Some Useful Examples

1000 Watt Heat Lamp = $3.00 Per Day / $90/month
100 Watt Incandescent Bulb = $0.30 Per Day / $9.00/month
23 Watt CFL Bulb = $0.06 Per Day / $1.80/month
30 Kilowatt Electric Furnace = $10.00 Per Day / $300/month (scary, eh?)
15 Amp Space Heater = $5.00 Per Day / $150/month

Limitations of These Estimators

Rember, most items in your house don’t run all day (furnances cycle on and off; you turn off lights when leaving the room) so aggregate numbers can be misleading. You should adjust the resulting numbers by the percentage of the day you expect something to actually draw energy.

What do you think? Do you use some other way to quickly estimate energy cost?

Becoming more energy efficient is a great way to help preserve the planet and save money at the same time. Insulating your hot water heater is one quick way to do just that. All you need is an insulation blanket and some duct tape.

Note: You should always follow the insulation manufacturer’s instructions for installing hot water heater blankets. General information follows; but should not be construed as installation instructions).

The installation method depends on whether you have an electric or gas heater. Electric heaters can be wrapped the whole way around and even on top. You should make cut-outs for heating elements and any information labels. (Obscure labels are unsafe and will void manufacturers’ warranties).

Insulating a gas heater is similar but with a few important differences. You should not insulate the top or bottom and should be careful to keep the thermostat and burner compartment clear.

How Much will I Save?

Insulating your hot water heater could save you between $3 - $5 per month, depending on the age of the heater and other factors. Most insulating blankets cost around $20, so your investment will be returned in no time.

Why is Extra Insulation Needed Anyway?

Insulation requires space. Since water heaters tend to be installed in closets and other space-limited environments, manufacturers must consider both the energy efficiency and space requirements of a design. While modern water heaters have relatively thin, high-quality insulation materials with high R-values, older models do not. As a rule of thumb, if your hot water heater is warm to the touch, you can benefit from additional insulation.

What If I Have a Tankless Water Heater?

This advice presumes you haven’t switched to a more modern, tankless water heating system. Tankless heaters heat water on-demand without maintaining a resevoir. As a result, there’s no need for extra insulation on these types of water heaters.

What do you think? Have you installed a water heater insulation blanket? Was it worth the time and expense? What tips do you have for installation?

(Image is considered public domain, provided by EERE)

Back on my latest Energy Efficient Lighting post, Andy left a comment that really got me thinking. His comment was, “…and [I] will likely buy more [CFLs] when my other bulbs burn out.”

This raised the question for me: Is it more efficient to wait until your existing incandescent bulbs burn out, or is it better to toss them in the trash and upgrade to CFLs immediately? This calls for some analysis (something that Jim over at Bargaineering would like). Here’s what I’ve come up with:

We’re currently paying $.15 / KWH for electricity.

Burning a 100-watt bulb for 1000 hours uses 100,000 WHs or 100 KWHs of energy. At $0.15/KWH, that costs me $15.00.

If I switch to a 23-watt CFL (100 watt equivalent output), I use 23% of the energy over that same 1000 hrs, or 23KWH. Again, at $0.15/KWH, that would only cost $3.45, a savings of $11.55.

For $11.55, I could buy a whole pack of CFL bulbs. But, that really doesn’t factor into the analysis, because I would have to buy the CFL bulbs at some point anyway (when the other bulbs burn out). So this really isn’t a difference. The small amount of interest I might earn if I didn’t buy the CFLs for another 6 months would surely be negligable.

You might ask, what if the incandescent only has 2 hours of life left? Even then, the numbers say to make the switch early.

The verdict: Throw out those incandescents and make the switch to CFLs immediately.

So the real question is: why is this so hard to do? I think it’s because most of us feel like it is wrong to throw out a working bulb, but we fail to recognize that we’re throwing away energy every day we don’t make the switch. I know that was my feeling. Putting a working incandescent in the trash just feels wrong. So I didn’t, I put them in a box and saved them for who-knows-what. Home improvement shouldn’t involve such moral dilemmas!

What do you think? Will you throw out your incandescents before their time?

We finally made the switch. Over the weekend, I bit the bullet and went to the local big box to purchase several different brands of energy efficient bulbs to replace our “dinosaur incandescents.” We installed the lights in several rooms with various results. As we work over the next few months to “go green” on lighting, we’ll be trying several different brands and styles of lights to see which ones best meet our needs in different rooms. As we do that, I will update this post with my findings, and I’ll periodically post updates in the current day’s post pointing back to this one. (This post is the aggregate).

I know many people across the blogosphere are switching to CFLs and other forms of efficient lights (I’ve chatted with a few of you via your blogs). I hope that you’ll add your experiences here, particularly if your experience differs from mine with one of these products. Feel free to link back, too. Without further ado, here’s my review(s):

1. Sylvania 23 Watt (100W Equiv.) Soft White Micro Mini “Instant-On” CFL.

My Rating: OK

Pros: Really, really bright white light. (Seriously, it nearly blinded me!) Lasts forever (12000 hrs). A little smaller than the other 100w equivalent bulbs.

Cons: Too harsh; Requires 1-2 minute warm-up time to reach full glow. Doesn’t really suffice as a traditional incandescent replacement.

My Experience: This CFL’s packaging claims that it is “Instant-On,” so I figured it might work great in our laundry room where we use the light for about 20 minutes each day in small spurts. The bulb definitely comes on immediately, but the light output is only about half the final output. It still takes about 1-2 minutes to warm up to full glow. This proved to be very annoying in a space where you turn the light on and start working immediately. At first, it’s too dim, then there’s an eerie feeling as the the light slowly increases while you’re working. On the plus side, at full brightness the bulb puts out A LOT of light. I decided to use 4 of them as temporary lighting in the basement during my refinishing project. I can afford the warm-up time there and the “harsh” light actually provides good visibility throughout the room.

2. Bright Effects 23 Watt (100w Equiv.) (Item# 153972)

Sorry, I couldn’t find a good picture of this one! I’ll need to upload a pic sometime in the future.

My Rating: Very Good

Pros: Casts a light that looks very similar to an incandescent. Lasts a long time (8000 hours).

Cons: Takes about 2-3 minutes to reach full brightness.
My Experience: We used these bulbs in 5 lamps in the living room and family room. There was certainly some immediate reward in realizing that when all 5 of these lamps are on, we’re using about the same amount of energy as we were on only 1 lamp last week. Better yet, these bulbs don’t make us feel like we’re sacrificing in the way of quality. Other manufacturers could take a lesson from Bright Effects. Of course, there is still the 2-3 minute warm-up time, which can be a bit annoying depending on the task you’re trying to perform, but in rooms where lights stay on for a good amount of time, these are a great substitute for Edison’s invention.

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What do you think? I know many folks out there are making the move to CFLs. What bulbs do you like the best? Which ones are the absolute worst?

Two of our close friends have ‘encouraged’ us to switch to energy efficient lighting. For a long time I’ve been reluctant for two reasons:

1. I’m stubborn. I like my incandescent lighting and I don’t want anyone (including the Government) telling me I can’t have it.

2. The few examples I had seen of these new bulbs left me wanting more. The first was a 75-watt “equivalent” compact flourescent (CFL) I had installed at our prior house. That bulb emitted a strange white-ish glow, flickered, and surely was dimmer than a standard 75 watt incandescent. The second was a series of lights installed in a fixture at our friend’s house. Those were 30-watt “equivalent” bulbs. All I’ll say is that they reminded me of prison lighting - a term that I have frequently used to describe these types of lights.

While I have disagreements with the Government mandating energy efficient lighting - it is nonetheless a reality. By 2012, nearly all bulbs will have to use 70% less energy. So, I figured I better read up a bit.

A simple Google search on energy efficient bulbs yields more information than I can digest. In the abundance of information, I found two articles worth reading.

The first is Earth Easy’s article on efficient lighting. In that article, they provide a buyers guide for efficient lighting and some additional interesting facts. They note that CFLs use 50-80% less energy than incandescents, and that vendors are beginning to overcome some of the initial limitations of these bulbs. For instance, Phillips has introduced a dimmable CFL, previously a major gripe about this technology.

The second is Julie Scelfo’s article in the New York Times. Her article gives an overview of the Government’s lighting efficiency laws, the general gripes from lighting designers, and an honest review of several compact flourescent lights.

We are going to make the switch to CFLs soon. I’m going to take some before and after pictures and post them here.

What do you think? Have you made the switch to energy efficient lighting? If so, what type of lighting do you use?

New Poll: This week’s poll is about energy efficient lighting. Vote!