Lowering our Electrical Bill

[wintersun]

I asked these questions on another thread but no one replied so I thought perhaps I need to start a new topic.

Is it possible to put an internet router on a timer so it goes off at night?  Ours gets quite hot.  I have a few timers for lamps, could I use one of those?

Does the speed of the internet we have signed up for affect the power usage?

To reduce our pool pump hours what simple things could I do which would mean it would need to run for fewer hours?  I know nothing about pools, should I skim floating leaves every morning? We hire a pool service to come once a week. ( I know- but I am married to a non-mustachian spouse).

There seems to be some disagreement about the temperature at which a water heater should be set to avoid illness, and also about the minimum number of hours a water heater should be on to avoid illness.  Does anyone know of a website that looks into this? I would like to reduce the temperature and only have the bathroom water heater on for an hour per day.

One last question: we have a fat, four foot high water heater just for the kitchen for two people, would it be a good idea to change to a small one that is right under the sink instead?  We could swap with the tenants who have a tiny heater and probably would love to have more hot water. the main expense would be labour for a plumber to exchange them and I could get a  couple of quotes.

[Kernel Fielding]

Is it possible to put an internet router on a timer so it goes off at night?  Ours gets quite hot.  I have a few timers for lamps, could I use one of those?

Does the speed of the internet we have signed up for affect the power usage?

You certainly can use a timer on a router, or even put it on a clip strip that you can manually turn off/on.

The speed of your internet service should have nothing to very little to do with the actual power requirements of your router. If you're paying a rental fee for it with your provider, see if they can provide you with a router with lower power requirements, or better yet, find out if you can buy your own router (I did this a few years ago when TWC Roadrunner began charging a monthly equipment fee, and it's paid for itself about twice over since then).

Sorry, don't know the answers to your other questions...

[Mrs. PoP]

For the pool, it probably depends a lot where you live.  Our power company recommends ours be on for 4-6 hours per day.  I'd check your power company energy conservation page for suggestions as they are likely to know your climate specifications rather than asking the pool guy (ours tries to change it to on 12hours/day every once in a while).  There are variable speed pumps that use less energy as well that you can upgrade to, but they are pricey so you need to do the calcs on the energy savings yourself. 

For water heater, I've heard the rule of thumb is 120F for most people is fine, but to go higher if you're doing things like washing cloth diapers, etc.  If the insulation in and around your tank is fine, you're likely not losing a lot of heat from the hot water just sitting there, so moving to a smaller tank probably wouldn't save much energy since most of the energy is used heating up the water initially when it gets to the tank. 

[wintersun]

Thanks Mrs. PoP,

I appreciate your thoughts on this.  I have a timer on the water heaters but the little on/off thingies fell off so I am going to buy more.  I will turn the heaters down to 120 and see how that is. 

As for the pool, our electricity costs  are extremely high per kwH so I will check out the deets on a variable speed pump.  Nice to know! 


Cuthbert,

Excellent, I will put our router on a timer right away.  We already own it so buying one is not an issue. 

Thank-you both for your help!