Home Automation and Being Green

I was flipping through Time Magazine today (The August 26/September 2, 2013 issue). I came across a one page article in the Tech Section titled Home, Smart Home. I've had a soft spot for home automation for a decade or so now. I was among the "early adopters" when I started playing around with X-10 modules which would allow you turn on and off lights with your TV remote. I'm telling you ten years ago that was mind blowing stuff! Especially when you used it to turn on and off the Christmas lights!


It was all kind of cool, but in it early days was a bit unreliable. And while it was cool to turn on and off lights without getting up it was more parlor trick then actually useful to be honest. So after a year or so of messing around with home automation stuff I kind of forget about it.


So this article reminded me of the coolness of it all again. And apparently in the last ten years things have really improved. Especially because we all now carry little wi-fi connected computers in our pockets called smart phones. Most of the technology for controlling and tracking all these new cool devices are in our pocket all ready. This makes adopting home automation cheaper and easier to learn as we are all ready familiar with the interface known as our phone.


One cool item the author (Harry McCracken) mentioned was a new door lock which you could install on your entry door and could be operated with your phone. It works with bluetooth on your phone and automatically unlocks the door when you arrive home. You can also grant temporary access to friends who you want to access your house. It of course makes me thing of the possible security issues should you lose your phone on the subway, but that aside you can't argue with the coolness or convenience of the idea!


He also mentions the Nest thermostat which is available in stores now (I saw it on an end cap in Lowes a couple of weeks ago). Apparently this new gizmo starts to keep track of when you are home and not and figures out patterns of when to raise and lower the temperature in your home to minimize your heating/cooling energy use. Sounds pretty cool. I don't know the exact price, but I think it's hundreds though. I tend to be really conscious of my energy use, and very rarely forget to turn down the thermostat when I got to bed or leave for work. I haven't done the math, but I feel like since I tend to be good about turning it down anyway, it would take quite a while before I recouped the cost of the the Nest thermostat in energy savings. With that said it looks cool, and that is what a lot of tech is all about really. So at some point I'm really going to look into it closely, do the math, and will likely write a post here as well.


All of this got me to thinking about the tie in between home automation and energy savings. Being green and Saving Green! In fairness much of home automation is more focused on the cool of technology. Changing the color or lights in different rooms to create mood settings (cool but in practice, you'll never use it). Changing the radio station that is playing through out your house from a touch screen which is located in the kitchen, living room, and upstairs hallway. All of that is definitely cool, but likely is only going to use more electricity then you would have otherwise.

The stuff that I'm thinking about are the gizmos whose main function is to use less energy. The Nest thermostat is a great example of that. Whether or not it would pay for itself installed in my house, it's main purpose is to save you money. So sure it took ten years to pay for itself, but in the mean time you were using less fossil fuels and where there for saving the planet, even if it did come out of your pocket. I'd love to see home automation devices which would serve a similar purpose for your hot water tank. Or maybe something that would open and close your blinds depending on the time of day, amount of sun, and time of year, to help warm your house or keep it cooler. These are the kinds of items which can pay for themselves and help save the planet.

So I'll be checking out the Nest, and I'll be on the look out for other items which can be installed to save energy. Additionally I'll be checking out these items to see what the potential payoff would be. In other words home long do they have to be installed before they save you enough money in energy usage to cover their cost of purchase and installation.

Wasted Light

This morning I had a doctors appointment. I parked, and on my walk into the office, I noticed one of my biggest pet peeves. The parking lot lights were on. There was four lamp posts around the perimeter of the parking lot and they were all on. My appointment was at 9 AM, so there was plenty of light from the sun!

I was impressed to see that at least one of them had a CFL bulb in it (at least one of the others didn't though). It was one of the biggest CFL's I've ever seen! I would guess based on the size of it, it had to be at least 150 - 200 watts. Maybe more. So kudos for having the energy saving bulbs.

Now it is possible that the doctors (or building management) have done the math and based on the cost of leaving them on all day, just don't care about the additional price. When considered against the overall price of running a building like that, I suppose it is a small percentage. However if you do the math and see what it costs of a year, I'm sure they would rather have the money rather then just completely wasting it!

The best thing they could do it put it on a photocell switch. When it's dark out the lights will come on. Then when the sun comes up they'll go off. If the intention is to keep the lights on during dark all the time, they'll never be wrong. Nobody has to remember to turn them on when it gets dark (safety issue), and nobody can forget to turn them off when it gets light out (energy savings). Granted there is an upfront cost for having a timer like this installed but it will pay for itself over time with the energy savings.

Now don't take me the wrong way. I'm not perfect. I'm not saying there is never a chance you could drive past my house one day in the middle of the afternoon and see my porch light on. It would really bother me if that did happen, but I'm sure it does. I have two small kids that I like to blame things on, but either way, people forget things. So while nobody is perfect, I'm sure we could all do a little better.

So...turn off those lights during the day! And don't get my started on how my kids leave the lights on in rooms they aren't occupying!

Just Use Less Energy!

Just Use Less Energy, sounds simple right? So often everyone is thinking about way to cut down on their energy use, whether it be electricity, gas, oil, etc. That is great and necessary. The trick is I was thinking about this over all the other day. Most often I am always focused on new technology, or a new gizmo, or a new procedure, which will allow me to do what I always do, and use less energy in the process. For example a more fuel efficient car so I can drive the same miles and use less gas. Or a more efficient light bulb that will allow me to light the same room with less electricity.

Both of those are great examples of ways to save money and the planet, and I'm by no means saying that they aren't great ideas. The trick is I get so focused on being more efficient in that way, that I lose sight of the one more obvious option. Just plain using less. So instead of just getting a more fuel efficient car, I should try to find way to just plain drive less miles. And while getting a new LED bulb is great, but making sure to turn off that light when nobody is in the room is a win every time!

A big one that I'm a huge culprit of is the long hot shower. I'm not going to lie, I LOVE taking long hot showers! I've certainly put lots of thought over the years into the ways to get the most hot water for the least energy. And of course wrapping my hot water tank in more insulation is great. But if I would couple that with taking shorter showers then I am really onto something! And yes I love taking the long hot showers, and thinking about taking really quick showers is hard to digest at first. But when I think, "Could I take a shower that is 1 minute less?", that doesn't really sound that bad at all. So maybe for a month or two I'll shoot for that. Then I can keep whittling it down, until it's as quick as can be over time. I'll save quite a bit in the use of less water, and the energy that would have been used to heat it. Then if I can still strive to more efficient with the water I am using, I'm getting a nice double dip.

Air conditioning is a big one too. Many of us, me included, have gotten to the point where it's an expectation in our lives to have air conditioning. Both at work, at home, and in our car. It wasn't really all that long ago that air conditioning was considered a luxury. Many, many fewer homes has AC. You just toughed it out for the couple of months of hot weather. Even affluent folks in the 50's, 60's, 70's would forgo air conditioning as a waste of money. Oh how the times have changed. Every late spring I lug out the three window units that we use in our small house. One for each of the bedrooms, and one for the downstairs living area. I do try to use them as little as possible, but once they are in the windows they are all to easy to use. One quick push of the button and relief from the heat is on it's way! I guess I'll keep working on that, as we should use them less, but I'm not sure that I'm ready to give them up all together :(

The easiest way to save energy is to turn things off

So the moral of the story is that less is more when it comes to saving energy. It's more a way of thinking then anything else. I just am going to keep working on incorporating it into my thinking in my day to day decisions. Yes I'm going to continue to make things as efficient as I can around the house. But, if I can realistically just use energy less overall, that will make a nice dent in my power bills (and help the planet) as well!

Saving Hot Water - A Small Tip For Today

So there are big ideals which will save millions of tons of carbon in the atmosphere and there are smaller tips which will just put a tiny dent in the CO2 levels. However these small tips if done by everyone can really add up as well. 

The suggestion today has to do when you are doing something at the sink which you would normally use hot water for. This would including washing your hands or rinsing your toothbrush, etc. First you should think about whether you really need to use hot water at all. Like do you really need to rinse your brush with hot water? Probably not, so you can just turn the handle all the way to cold and rinse it quick. Yes you are still going to use the same amount of water, but you aren't going to use any hot water. This will save all the energy that was needed to heat up that amount of water you ran off to rinse your brush. As an energy cost the amount needed to heat the water is much more then was is required to pump it and get it to you.

If you would like to still use hot water for a task, think about how often you never get hot water because you are done with your water task before the hot water actually starts coming out. This occurs because your hot water tank is far away from you in the basement. So when you run the hot water it has to travel all the way through the pipes to your sink before you get it. So if you are waiting for hot water then you are wasting all the water that filled the pipes and has cooled down. If you have to have hot water for your task then so be it. If you are like me though I'll just wash my hands while I'm waiting and end up being done before it gets there. If that is the case then what is the point? I mean I indeed just washed my hands with cold water. But in doing so I ran the hot water out of the tank and into the pipes, just not all the way to the sink I was at. So that hot water that I didn't even use is going to sit in the pipes and get cold and it'll happen again when I wash my hands. My point in all this is if you are going to end up just using cold water then just use the cold water from the tap. Don't waste the hot water by running into the pipes and not using it.

The do make a pump that you can install near you hot water tank which will circulate the hot water though the house so that it gets to your tap right away. I had one in my old house and it worked great. I don't think it cost much more then $30-$40 and it only took a 30 mins or so to install. The downside is that the pump was electric so I was using energy to save the energy. They manufacturer has of course thought of this, so there was  a timer build into the pump. So I would set it to come on in the morning when we woke up for work, shut off for the day, and the come on again about the time we came home from work until bed time. It really worked great. I think I'm going to look into getting one for the new house. Especially for the upstairs bathroom which takes forever to get hot water!

Waste Reduction

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. It's the first one!

There are a lot of things we can all do day to day to help the environment in many different ways. One way that tends to get overlooked quite often is just reducing the amount of everything that we consume. Not only does it keep stuff out of landfills, but it also reduces the amount of stuff that needs to be manufactured. This cuts down on impact on the planet at so many steps along the way!

This about all the stuff that you by and how much packaging came along with it. Christmas night at my house is always spent patching up cuts on my fingers from trying to open those plastic clam shell packages. I wouldn't miss them at all. Stores love them because they display the products nicely and cut down on theft. However if we at a population stopped buying products that came in this kind of wasteful packaging stores would change their tune very quickly!

Thinking of how to reduce the amount of waste we create can be overwhelming but there really is one very easy way to track it. Start paying attention to how full your trashcan is each week when you bring it out to the curb. Make it a game with your family to try to make it as empty as possible each week. First try to get all the stuff you can into the recycle bin instead. Then start expanding the ways you can put less in your trashcan. Extend it out as far as your shopping habits. If you have two options for a product you need and one comes with less packaging then choose it.

I remember watching a documentary a few years ago where a women said that should could put everything that she throws away in a year into a coffee can! Can you imagine?! She was really committed and I'm very jealous. She did her food shopping at an organic co-op. She obviously used canvas bags to bring her goods home. She would bring containers with her which she was reusing and would use them to buy her bulk food. She would make sure any containers she did need to buy could be recycled. She would also sometimes make the hard decision sometimes that even though she wanted something she just couldn't find an option that didn't include way too much wasteful and unneeded packaging, so she wouldn't get the product. Maybe she'd wait a few years until the product was in the market for a while and then try to find it at a garage sale or Craig's list or something like that.

Once you really start thinking about the stuff that you throw away and how you can maximize waste reduction it gets to be a game. It's always disappointing me to on garbage night to have a can overfull. The good news is that there are weeks when it's so empty that I really wonder if it's worth putting the can out. Now I just need to figure out how to do that every week!