need advice on saving electricity

[Old Sew'n'Sew]

hey old sewnsew

Take baths instead of showers, you can bath two people or children with the same water, Take turns on who goes first. , and transfer the bath water to the washing machine for the wash cycle.

i cant do the kids in the same bath tub as they get filthy dirty but.....

besides the obvious....a bucket.... have you found an easy way to get the water from the bathtub to the washing machine cause that sounds doable

one more question about your ideas

the grey water thing

if i were to have a hose coming from the washing mashine, tub, sinks wont the borax (homemade detergent) kill the plants. Also if there is no water going back into whereever it goes will the well go dry or the septic tank not work right. I have no clue where water goes to once it leaves the house when you dont have city water.

Yup you guessed it , hand bail the water with a bucket. I do it all the time and I ain't dead yet. I did mention the word Chores.

I also hand carry fresh water in a bucket from a nearby spring to water my plants and chickens.

If the water is in a bucket you can put it any where you want it, just tip the bucket and pour it out.

You won't know where your water goes unless you start digging to find out. I Wouldn't.

Borax? in homemade soap? Soap is made with Lye and fat. Oh well, "When in doubt leave it out."

I grew up in a family of nine children, trust me you can still get them clean even if the water looks dirty. If the water is dirty that means success.

I think you are doing a good thing by caring that much for your family to make them more comfortable and trying to cut expenses.

I believe you will find your way to do it.

 

[elijahboy]

Borax? in homemade soap? Soap is made with Lye and fat. Oh well, "When in doubt leave it out."

nonono i havent gotten to the soap making phase i was referring to the laundry detergent

I grew up in a family of nine children, trust me you can still get them clean even if the water looks dirty. If the water is dirty that means success.

shoot my kids would rather not shower than get in their siblings dirty water i guess my other option would be low flow shower heads or turn the water on get wet turn water off then lather turn water on to rinse

i wish i had a spring around me so thats why i have 5 55 gallon barrels to collecting rain water. but hey they are black barrells so i could elevate them about 6' in the air on a stand wala outdoor shower

 

[Jaxom]

XPC's right. I only mentioned the film because we had still had the orginal sash single pane windows in our home untill summer of 2008. Drafty as all get out. Every fall I'd dig out this huge roll of 5 mil plastic to cover the whole thing up with or the living room would have been too darn cold.

 

[patandchickens]

Another thing that can help: put some shadecloth (as high a percentage as you can get, or even two layers of weenier shadecloth) on the OUTSIDE of your windows, by whatever means. I have done this for the big bay window in front and for the unshaded sliding glass doors on the kitchen, and it makes a HUGE difference. It drastically cuts down on the heat entering the house. Because the sun hits the vertical shadecloth at a steep angle, actually more light is blocked than the official percentage of the shadecloth, while breeze still passes through (albeit less freely) when you open the windows in the evening, it does not seem to impede the work of a fan very much, and you can still see out reasonably adequately.

I've used a strip held between two tension-poles (shower curtain rods) for the bay window, and pieces on large frames of 2x2 for the sliding glass doors; but if I did not have a brick-clad house and vinyl windows, I would seriously consider making frames that hinge onto the house or windowframe just above the windows.

Pat

 

[BlueMountain]

I would keep the metal roof and coat it with Cool Seal. My best friend and her husband have a metal roof that they installed using used roofing metal. The Cool Seal (which is white) not only reflects the sun's rays to keep it cooler inside but, it also helped to plug some of the nail holes in the old metal.

Have you thought about adding a big front porch to the home to help cool the front? I live in a big ole Victorian house and the front faces South (in Mississippi) but, it is always cooler in the front rooms downstairs due to the porch.

Be sure when you underpin to leave vents for humidity control. Our rental house, a brick one, did not have enough vents and we had to replace a lot of the sills and floor joists due to rot from mold. The plastic mentioned before is also helpful in preventing this (we added it when we had the floors open repairing them.)

I also vote for an on demand water heater. We have one waiting to be installed when we redo the laundry room and I can hardly wait. Now, I usually turn the breaker to the water heater off after doing the supper dishes and baths at night but, our kids are grown and it is just us two. That would be hard to do with three kids.

One other thing I can think of is to install ceiling fans in each room. In summer they help push the hot air out and in winter, you can reverse them and help keep the heat down in the room where it needs to be rather than up at the ceiling. We have them here and with 11 foot ceilings they are essential esp. in winter for heating. You can get ceiling huggers if you have short ceilings according to my hubby who is an electrician.

 

[meriruka]

This may sound silly, but I stand in two big buckets when I shower, then carry the water out to the garden. (After getting dressed!) The soil filters out the soap and there are no adverse effects on the plants.

There is also a big metal tub under the outdoor spigot, every time I change the chicken water, I pour the old into the tub & it also catches the rinse off water. Then that gets poured on the garden as well.

Nothing to do with electric....sorry for the derail. But while I'm at it, am I the only one who goes insane when people run the water the whole time they are brushing their teeth?

 

[Farmfresh]

the sun comes up from the back and goes down in the front and there is a huge sliding glass door that the sun blares into every morning which i was told is the worst door to have so thinking about switching out to a single glass grid door or french doors

We used to live in townhouses many years ago. They were cheaply built and we had one of those horrible cheap sliding glass doors as well. We did some looking around and found a glass STORM door for those doors that just screws on the outside OVER the existing crappy door. It provided additional weatherproofing, a second pane of glass with an air space in between, was very easy to install and a FRACTION of the cost of new doors.

Also do NOT underestimate the power of shade cloth! I made these shade cloth covers for my windows and they work amazingly well to keep out extra heat.

Also a temporary and cheap measure is to cover the house in vines! I grow climbing cucumbers, pole beans, and even sometimes trellis squash up the west side of our house to help with the beating Western sun that we get here!

 

[xpc]

Have you moved in yet?

You need to open the room where they sealed in the water heater and wrap it in an approved $15 insulation blanket, turning the heater on and off is a myth and may save you a few pennies a week at most. If it is still working leave it alone and budget for a new one, a 30 gallon single element mobile home unit is about $200 and the same one I just installed in my house. I repeat do not touch pipe fittings or elements until you have the money to install a new one, those old parts will not move and are likely seized and will snap and break.

A new 4gpm tankless will not only cost you about $700 but an additional $2000 for the electrical upgrade as you will need all new wiring from the pole, meter, and new circuit breaker box, add another $200 or so for the plumber. I say this as a guess as 1985 mobile home has either a 60 or 100 amp service which neither can be used for the new heaters 120 amp requirements. Gas heaters cost about the same but is usually much cheaper to install only requiring a larger gas line feed that may only cost a few hundred dollars.

 

[elijahboy]

oh no i wont move in until june 2011 but the remodel will start in a month or as soon as probate court is complete

there are many things im doing to this mobile home the first is rip the entire roof off and instal a new one and i cant live there when that is being done cause the dude who is doing it will get annoyed with the kids asking questions

Have you moved in yet?

You need to open the room where they sealed in the water heater and wrap it in an approved $15 insulation blanket, turning the heater on and off is a myth and may save you a few pennies a week at most. If it is still working leave it alone and budget for a new one, a 30 gallon single element mobile home unit is about $200 and the same one I just installed in my house. I repeat do not touch pipe fittings or elements until you have the money to install a new one, those old parts will not move and are likely seized and will snap and break.

A new 4gpm tankless will not only cost you about $700 but an additional $2000 for the electrical upgrade as you will need all new wiring from the pole, meter, and new circuit breaker box, add another $200 or so for the plumber. I say this as a guess as 1985 mobile home has either a 60 or 100 amp service which neither can be used for the new heaters 120 amp requirements. Gas heaters cost about the same but is usually much cheaper to install only requiring a larger gas line feed that may only cost a few hundred dollars.

 

[xpc]

i cant live there when that is being done cause the dude who is doing it will get annoyed with the kids asking questions

Tell me about it - last year I installed a new 200 amp electrical service for my brother who has 6 kids, while sweating in the basement bending wire the size of your thumb the kids decide its a neat place to see how loud they can scream because the echo sound cool.

Are you getting or do you need building permits?