The Money Mustache Community
Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Ask a Mustachian => Topic started by: Comar on March 18, 2016, 02:53:43 AM
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For the past 12 months I have been able to reduce my electric consumption by 500 kilowatt hours. I did this by turning off lights in vacant rooms and electrics that no one was using. This got me excited and I want to do better. I googled a bit and decided to "heat" up my refrigerator a little bit (it's still cold). Maybe I can get the electric bill lower still.
I know close to nothing about the thermal technology in my house. It has a bunch of pipes with warm water, that much I get. In the picture you can see the controls, which is from sometimes in the 70's. The little black thing in the upper right I can turn to increase or decrease water flow. When I feel the house is too warm or cold I turn it up or down a little but this method is very inefficient and temperature fluctations are so rapid that when I have turned down the flow a bit in warm weather it suddenly gets cold outside and the house turns chilly.
Do you have recommendations? I am wondering if it is a big deal to upgrade this system to an automatic thermostat or something else more efficient. Thank you.
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So it sounds like you have a gravity-driven hot water heating system. What does heat come from in the rooms, radiators, or baseboards? What fuel do you pay for?
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So it sounds like you have a gravity-driven hot water heating system. What does heat come from in the rooms, radiators, or baseboards? What fuel do you pay for?
The heat comes from radiators. I believe they are in good condition and are working properly. I am not facing very big fluctuations in temperature, I just think the temperature could be more stable and not dependent on my "feel" of what are the correct adjustments.
We heat the house using water that has been warmed with geothermal power so I'm not sure your question about fuel applies.
Thank you for replying ShoulderThingThatGoesUp.
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The very easiest way to reduce your heating bill is to wear a sweater and turn it down. Also turn off heating in those vacant rooms and close the doors. The system itself is probably worth replacing as such systems have gotten much more efficient, but to know you should do some reading or measuring. Also, cutting down on shower time will save you a bunch as that is a lot of hot water.
Rapid changes mean the house is not well insulated. These types of system are not meant to be fast.