Plug-in Meter

If you’ve ever hung around with management types, you’ve probably heard Peter Drucker’s famous saying: “what gets measured gets managed.”  If Drucker were alive today, he’d probably have a home energy monitoring system.

I can testify to the truth of Drucker’s statement from personal experience.  When cars didn’t provide any kind of feedback about gas mileage, I didn’t really think about how the way I drove affected how much gas I had to buy.  But when I got a car with a monitor that showed the MPG I had averaged over the last 30 minutes (in 5 minute increments, no less), that had a big impact on how I drove.  No more jack rabbit starts, and no more driving 80 on the interstate.  I couldn’t ignore it anymore, and I changed my behavior.

I’m sure the same would happen if I got a home energy monitoring system.  I wouldn’t be able to ignore the many thoughtless things I do around the house, like leaving lights on or lowering the AC, if my house had a power consumption display like the one in my car.  Seeing the consequences of what I do at home would almost certainly change my behavior.

Research bears this out.  Studies, mostly done by power companies, show that providing real-time energy usage information can result in real savings.   For these trials, the power companies installed special prototype power meters that could report on energy usage as frequently as every 20 seconds.   What they learned is that this approach is effective: tests of these approaches have shown savings of as much as 20% simply because people see what’s going on and change their behavior.

There’s even a story of how one gadget freak, obsessively checking his home energy usage using his smart phone, discovered that his teenage daughter was throwing a big party while he was traveling overseas.  The dad saw that his home power usage had jumped suddenly even though the house was empty — or so he thought.

But here in Atlanta there’s no easy way to monitor your power usage.  The Georgia Power Company offers what it calls a “Smart Energy Report,” but that averages your usage across an entire month, which is much too slow.  It may help you decide you need better insulation, but it won’t really change your day-to-day behavior.  Google and Microsoft each had opened businesses aimed at home energy management, but both companies decided the market wasn’t ready and shuttered their ventures.

That brings us to DIY solutions.  A few examples are listed below.  They range from the small and easy to the large and expensive (as in requiring an electrician to install), but if you want home energy management at all, you’ll have to do it yourself for now.

Easy:  one-outlet power monitors are widely available, not very expensive, and easy to use.  For example, the Kill-A-Watt meter (love that name!) simply plugs into an individual electrical outlet and monitors appliances and other things plugged into that outlet.  If you want to see how much that old freezer in the basement is costing you, this will do it.  Kill-A-Watt meters come in a variety of flavors (basic, wireless, simple  display, elaborate display, etc.) and are available through Amazon, Wal-Mart, Home Depot, and many other retailers.  Prices begin at about $20 and go up from there depending on the features.

Midrange:  there are whole-house power monitors that you can hook up to your electrical panel (we’d recommend hiring an electrician) and which work a little like a Kill-A-Watt meter for your entire house.  Probably the best known of these is TED: The Energy Detective, which hooks up to your breaker panel and provides real-time data such as kilowatts per hour, projected power bill based on usage, monitoring of specific appliances, etc.  Black and Decker has now come out with a power monitor for the entire house as well, which I consider to be a good sign for the future.  Price range: from around $150 to several hundred dollars and up.

High-End:  at the cutting edge are so-called “smart home” systems that monitor power usage, provide remote control of individual outlets, and can automatically run your appliances at off-peak hours for cheaper rates.  If you had solar panels (and if you could sell it back to the power company), these systems would manage that, too.   To see what that kind of future looks like, check out Agilewaves.  Smart home systems are complex, highly customized, and pricewise the sky’s the limit.

Of course, someday we’ll all be connected to a smart grid that will manage all of this for us automatically.  But until that day (which your children’s children might or might not see), you’re more or less on your own.

by Rob Aaron

Fortunately, there is a simple and inexpensive way to prevent the pollution and flooding.  Small, decorative rain gardens that will prevent storm water from leaving our property can be part of our home landscaping .

Rain gardens are inexpensive and relatively easy to install.  There are five steps to follow.

1)   Find a level or moderately sloped area in your yard that is at least 10 feet from your home.  (The 10 feet is so no water seeps into our basements.)

2)   Dig a six inch deep pit and fill it with water.  If water sits in the hole for 24 hours the soil is not suited for a rain garden without putting a layer of sand beneath the garden.  We will assume we have loamy soil that percolates well.

3)   Now we need to figure out how large to make our rain garden.  Determine the roof area drained by the downspout that will conduct rain water to the garden.  The way to do this is measure the foot print of that roof area.  It doesn’t matter what the slope of the roof is.  Take that number and multiply by 0.20.  So, if we have a foot print of 400 square feet, the rain garden will need to be 0.20 x 400 = 80 square feet.  An 8 foot by 10 foot garden will work.

4)  Lay out the area with stakes and a string and dig down about 8 inches.  If the area is sloped we will need to make the bottom nearly flat.  In that case the soil we dig out can form a berm on the low side.  Now add 2 inches of mulch to the bottom of the garden.  Add some compost to the rest of the soil that was dug out and the garden is ready to have the soil replaced.

5)   Now we are ready to plant our garden.  We need to find plants that will survive in wet weather as well as dry.  We need to choose an array of plants that will do well in each season so the garden will look good in summer and winter, in spring and fall.  Our local nursery or landscape expert will be able to advise us. Every state has an agricultural extension agency that has web sites where we can find more suggestions.

Here’s a good site for Georgia Rain Gardens.

Locating the Water Line

This is a multi-utility procedure because you can’t just start tearing up the concrete and dig until you find the leak.  There are other utility lines including gas, and in our case underground power, cable and phone.  Each had to be located and marked by the respective utility providers who came out with their sounding meters and spray painted different colored dashes on the driveway to mark locations of the buried lines.

Then the water leak technician located the leak by pumping nitrogen gas through the water line.  He had a sensitive microphone that allowed him to hear the underground hiss of escaping gas.  He marked a 4 foot by 4 foot area where he heard the leak.

Digging up the Old Line

Fortunately, our plumber was able to begin work immediately, dig up the driveway, find the leak, repair it and have us with a leak free supply of water in just two days.  Now all we have to worry about is getting the driveway repaired.

Nationally, it is estimated that 14% of residential water is lost through leaks.  We can see the faucets drip and can often hear the toilets leaking water.  More serious indoor leaks like broken hoses to dishwashers, refrigerators and clothes washers are readily evident when leaking water stains walls and ceilings.  Outdoor leaks are another matter.  Our leak, which was through a hole in the pipe about the size of a fork tine, was hidden.

Grass Being Watered by a Leak

Often, if the water line runs under the lawn, greener grass is an indicator of a leak.  The most obvious indicator, of course, is the outrageous water bill.

The good news is that the City will discount the sewage treatment part of the bill since most of the 28,000 gallons of wasted water didn’t make it to the treatment plant.

It’s simple and inexpensive to collect rainwater from our roof and use it to water our lawn or garden.  Here are a couple of set-ups our neighbor Frank McComb installed.  First he got some rain barrels.

stacked 275 gallon totes

50 gallon barrel

Frank uses totes and barrels that had been previously been used to transport juices and concentrates.  He paid $50 each for the 275 gallon totes on the left and $10 for the 50 gallon barrels on the right.

Slotted Inlet w/ Mosquito Screen

Flex pipe from downspout to barrel

A few feet of flex pipe connects the downspout to the top of the barrel.  A simple slotted leaf barrier  with a piece of screening below it keeps unwanted stuff out of the barrel.

Spigot

The last piece of the puzzle is a spigot.  A lot of totes come with a spigot or a threaded outlet where one can be added.

The Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper newsletter announced that Headwaters Outreach Manager Bonny Putney, who is certified in rain water collection, hosts a series of rain barrel workshops over the course of the year, and kicks off 2012 with workshops on Wednesday, Feb. 15, and again on March 7 at the City of Atlanta Water Works Lodge (655 Green St., Atlanta, GA 30318). New this year: The $40 fee not only includes a rain barrel, installation kit and instructions, but also is good for a one-year UCR membership. Workshops start at 6 p.m. Register:

https://www.signup4.net/Public/ap.aspx?EID=RAIN12E

measuring the number of gpm

If it’s a gallon (4 quarts) or more we can install aerators that only allow a half gallon of flow per minute.  They cost less than $4.00 at building supply or hardware stores.  The flow rate is marked on the aerator.

Low Flow .5 gpm Aerator

Unscrew your old aerator from the faucet tip and take it with you to get the low flow one (there are a number of tread types and we need to match the new one with the old).

We can make the same measurement with our shower heads.  Low flow ones are 1.5 gallon per minute (gpm).

The other measurement we need to make is the time it takes for water to get hot.  We already found out how much water is used in one minute (gpm) so all we need to do is multiple the time for the water to get hot enough by the gpm rate and we will know how many gallons of water are wasted.

A simple $7.00 wand-like device called an Instant-off Water Saver (available on-line or at Home Depot) saves water by shutting off immediately after you brush your teeth or fill a water glass.  The other thing it does is to allow hot water to circulate through the  pipes so hot water comes on more quickly.

Instant-Off Water Saver in on position

Instant-Off Water Saver in "off" Mode

These are things to do without changing behavior.  If we want to get real about saving water and money we can take shorter showers.  And we can prompt ourselves to do so by installing a shut-off valve on the shower head.  This means wetting down, shutting off the water with the valve, soaping up, and then switching on the valve to rinse off.

Shutoff Valve

The biggest water waster is our toilets.  Unless we have a new dual flush toilet we are needlessly wasting hundreds of dollars of water every year.  A new dual flush toilet will pay for itself in 18 months.  But first check out the dual flush kits you can get on-line or at the local hardware or home improvement store for around $25.

dual flush kit

If we install these inexpensive devices we can easily our cut our indoor water bills in half.

]]> http://greeningneighborhoods.com/2012/01/30/how-to-stop-wating-water/feed/ 0 http://greeningneighborhoods.com/2011/12/12/keep-your-outdoor-faucets-from-freezing-2/ http://greeningneighborhoods.com/2011/12/12/keep-your-outdoor-faucets-from-freezing-2/#comments Mon, 12 Dec 2011 22:20:36 +0000 george http://greeningneighborhoods.com/?p=1686 Cold weather is upon us.  The last thing we want to happen is for our outdoor faucets to freeze up causing pipes to burst and water to run wild inside our walls.  Here’s what you need to do to minimize potential problems:

1. Disconnect your hose from your outside faucet.
2. If you have a shutoff valve inside the house for the outside spigot, turn it off and then open the outside spigot to drain the water.
3. Go to your favorite hardware store and buy faucet covers and install them on all your outside spigots. They cost $1.00 at most stores.

We can keep our car looking beautiful AND save money! Taking our car to a professional carwash rather than washing it at home saves water and it saves money on our water/sewer bill. But not all car washes are created equal. Some make conservation a practice. The International Carwash Association keeps a list of member carwashes that meet the Association’s WaterSavers program guidelines. To learn more, go to http://www.washwithwatersavers.com. In Atlanta, Cactus Car Wash at 575 Ponce de Leon Ave. meets the ICA’s conservation requirements.

Jane

Low Flow .5 gpm Aerator

If you measure 1-1/2 gallons or more you can cut that by at least 1/3 by installing 0.5 gpm aerators on your facets.  For washing hands and brushing teeth this is enough flow.

We asked you to measure the gpm flow from your shower head.  You need a little more pressure for your shower than your lavatories.

Low Flow 1.25 gpm Shower Head

For most of us 1.25 gpm is enough.  During the test, if you measured 3 gpm, the 1.25 gpm head would cut your water use by more than half.

We also suggested that you measure the amount of water wasted waiting for the hot water to get hot.  You can install a recirculator for about $400 that keeps hot water in your supply pipes.

However, I use a $7.00 device called an Instant-off Water Saver.  This device does two things:

Instant-Off Water Saver

It immediately shuts off your water at the end of the faucet when you are finished washing your hands, filling your water glass or brushing your teeth.

I also found that it speeds up the time it takes for the hot water to flow.

These are things to do without changing behavior.  If we want to get real about saving water and money we can take shorter showers.

Shower Shutoff Valve

And we can prompt ourselves to do so by installing a shut-off valve on the shower head.  This means wetting down, shutting off the water with the valve, soaping up, and then switching on the valve to rinse off.

The biggest water waster is our toilets.  Unless we have a new dual flush toilet we are needlessly wasting hundreds of dollars of water every year.  A new dual flush toilet will pay for itself in 18 months.

Dual Flush Toilet Kit

But first check out the dual flush kits you can get on-line or at the local hardware or home improvement store for around $25.

There is a $3.00 device on the market called a FlexFlush that lowers the water use for liquid flushes.  It doesn’t do anything for solids, but will pay for itself in a week.

If we install these inexpensive devices we can easily our cut our indoor water bills in half.

New 1.6 gpf Toilet

Toilets — How much water does it take to flush your
toilet?
In gallons per flush (gpf)?

__________________
No. of gpf
 

measuring the number of gpm

Faucets — How much water is used in one
minute in gallons per minute (gpm)?

_______________________
gpm

measuring gpm of shower

Shower — How much water is used in one
minute in gallons per minute (gpm)?

_________________________
gpm

measuring water amount until hot water flows

All showers and faucets — How much
water is used before the water gets
hot?

__________________________
in minutes

All measurements should be made with the taps wide open.

For more information visit the “More Information” and “Tips” tabs above.