Archive for the ‘Energy’ Category
April 27th, 2010 | 
Author: by Peter Lindemann
It is becoming a popular craze these days to generate your own energy to cut your power bills.
Solar, wind, and other sources can supplement your energy supply in whole or in part. But, wouldn’t it be great if you were able to do something that would allow you to get the same amount of benefit for a fraction of the cost or time required to install these other energy sources?
Of course you would! For example, it may cost you $10,000 for a certain amount of solar equipment to give you a certain amount of benefit. But what if you were able to get the same benefit for $1000?
How? This is the question that many people are asking because everyone is programmed to believe that turning down the thermostat so that you freeze in your own home and throwing a thin little bit of insulation around your water heater are the smart things to do!
Most people are also becoming programmed to believe that making your own electricity at home is also the answer. But I’m not interested in anything that takes a lot of time, money or effort.
If you want to know what the power companies, the green builders, and other so-called green thinkers aren’t telling you wouldn’t that be worth a few minutes of your time to find out?
Check out Save On Home Energy.
Join the growing number of people who are Saving on Home Energy costs right now.
Peter Lindemann has been educating thousands of people over the years in various renewable energy technologies and sciences. He also has the #1 searched website on Free Energy in the world.
Related Reading:
You often hear statistics about showers being more efficient than baths. A bath usually uses a lot more water than a shower, so you’re not only using a lot more fresh water, you’re using a lot more energy to heat that extra water.
But consider what happens when you take a shower. The incoming water might be 10 degrees Celsius (50 F). The temperature is then raised to say, 43 degrees Celsius (110 F). The water cascades over your body and then goes down the drain.
It is estimated that about 95% of the energy used to heat the water to a comfortable temperature is simply going down the plughole.
If you have an electric shower unit, you could actually recover some of that energy.
An electric shower connects directly to the cold water supply. A very powerful heating element (typically 8 or 9 kW) then rapidly heats the water to produce an almost instant supply of hot water.
In the winter time, incoming water may be colder than in the summer time, so you need to use more energy to heat the water to the required temperature.
So how can we recover the wasted energy?
The answer is a simple heat exchanger, which transfers the heat from the waste water to the incoming water supply.
Basically what happens is this: the cold water supply runs through a pipe that either coils around the waste pipe, or runs through the inside of the waste pipe.
As the shower starts to flow and hot water goes down the waste pipe, it starts to heat up the cold water inlet pipe. Heat has been transferred from the waste to the cold supply.
The supply water is now several degrees warmer than it was before, so the shower unit needs to use less electricity to heat the water up.
Heat exchangers of this type are commercially available, but it wouldn’t be beyond the capabililties of a competent DIY enthusiast to make one for himself.
You would need to ensure that the cold water supply had a check-valve to stop warmed water going back to the cold supply.
Your shower unit would also need to be thermostatically controlled. A standard shower unit would simply apply the same amount of energy to the warmer water, resulting in scaldingly hot water output. You might end up having to adjust the temperature manually several times during a shower to compensate for the changes in temperature.
Related Reading:
Posted in Energy saving, Home Improvement | 
Tags: energy efficiency, Energy saving, wasted energy | 
No Comments »
Yesterday, 28th February 2008, was the UK’s first “Energy Saving Day”. Results from the electricity generating companies indicate that electricity consumption for that day was
marginally higher than the average! So much for that idea.
Personally, I didn’t know it was Energy Saving Day until I read about it on the BBC News website at lunchtime – half-way into the day. I asked my colleagues if they knew if it was Energy Saving Day, and they didn’t know either.
We weren’t alone in our ignorance – comments on the BBC’s website indicated that other people didn’t know about it either.
Looks like the publicity department of the organisation that thought up this idea took the concept to heart and consumed no energy whatsoever in telling people about it.
