I have many videos about how much I’ll be saving in energy costs from going solar. In
fact, my next video after this one is about my first full year with solar panels. While
solar panels can make a lot of sense financially and environmentally, they only account for
the energy generation side of the equation. The other side of the equation is energy use,
so I wanted to run through some of the things I’ve done to try and reduce how much energy
I use day to day.
I’m Matt Ferrell. Welcome to Undecided.
One of the first things that you can do that makes a huge difference is a getting a professional
energy audit. You can absolutely do some basic auditing yourself, but professional audits,
which can cost between $300 - $500, can earn back their cost in very short order. They’ll
check the level of insulation you have in your attic, outside walls, and in some cases
take infrared readings and do a door blower test. The blower test helps the auditor find
leaks throughout the home.
I live in Massachusetts which has a state-funded program that every resident can take advantage
of every year. Mass Save offers no-cost home energy assessments for Massachusetts residents.
You pick from a list of companies that are part of the program, they come out and look
at your current energy use. They will even swap out your bulbs for energy efficient LED
and CFL bulbs, give you advanced power strips that auto shut off after inactivity, and offer
discounts on wifi thermostats.
When we had our home audited they found inadequate insulation in our attic and outside walls,
as well as poor ventilation in our attic space. The program ended up covering 75% of the cost
of having them inject blown-in insulation into our outside walls and attic, as well
as add additional vents to our attic space and provide better sealing around our attic
ladder. The difference after the work was done was dramatic. They added an R value of
26 to the attic and 14 to the walls. Our blower test improved from 2305 to 1559. During the
first winter after the improvements, we could tell our home was holding heat better in the
kitchen, living room ... well pretty much everywhere.
Other states and countries have similar programs, so be sure to check your local government
websites. For example, Canada has a program called, Canada Energy Audit. It covers up
to $5,000 back on energy upgrades. They have examples that show yearly savings from doing
these changes that add up to thousands of dollars.
Another area that can help you make a difference is energy monitors. A lot of devices today
don’t actually switch off, like your computer, smart speakers, game consoles, and TVs. They
go into a sleep state and continue to pull a few watts continually. While they may not
make a big difference individually, collectively it can add up quickly. I’d strongly recommend
using some energy monitors to track down devices in your home that are using up more energy
than you may realize.
A cheap DIY option for an energy monitor is getting something like the Kill A Watt, which
you can pick up for $20-$25. The Kill A Watt can show you exactly how much something is
using over the course of a day. All you have to do is plug your device into the Kill A
Watt, and then the Kill A Watt into the wall. Reset the readings to make sure you’re starting
from zero and then let it go. I did this for 24 hour periods on a lot of devices throughout
my home, so I could see how much it used on average over the course of a day. I also took
readings on things like air filters to see how much they use in low vs. high modes. To
see how much energy my PlayStation uses when it’s not in use vs. when I’m playing a
game.
The other type of energy monitor you might want to consider is a whole home system. There
are a bunch of options out there like Engage, Smappee, Curb. I’m using Sense, which I’ve
done a previous video on and will include a link in the description. Some whole home
energy monitor systems require adding energy sensors to each circuit breaker that you want
to track, which can give you a very granular breakdown on the things you’re trying to
track. Sense does get installed into your electrical box, but only requires two sensors
that are clipped around the mains of the panel. It then uses machine learning to detect electrical
signatures of devices in your home and compares it to a database of devices it’s successfully
detected in the Sense community of users to label it for you. It’s pretty clever and
works surprisingly well from my experience. It’s not perfect though, and I’ve had
my share of duplicate detections. Some devices have never been discovered, like my computers
and smart speakers, but it’s properly identified my HVAC system, stove, microwave, TVs, and
even integrated with my Philips Hue light bulbs. This holistic view of your home lets
you see realtime energy use, and broader buckets of things that are “always on.” Combine
this with the Kill A Watt, and you can pretty easily track down the things that are always
running and using up the most energy in your home.
You all know that I’m a big fan and advocate of smart home devices, which can bring a lot
more than convenience into our lives. When it comes to energy conservation, smart home
devices can play a pretty big role in helping to cut down energy use. The first big device
to add to your home is a smart thermostat. It has the biggest bang for your buck and
will most likely pay for itself within a year or two from the savings alone. Nest kind of
blazed a trail in this area, but there are a lot of options available now. My thermostat
of choice is Ecobee, which can include remote thermostat sensors that you can add around
your home.
It knows which rooms are occupied and uses them to adjust the heating/cooling system
to make sure you’re comfortable where you actually are. It can automatically cycle down
if the house is empty, but you can still layer scheduling on top of its built in smarts.
Ecobee has reported users saving more than 23% on their heating and cooling bills. Nest
did a study that showed 10-12% savings on heating and 15% savings on cooling, which
comes in at around $131 - $145 in savings a year. We saw an improvement in our energy
costs after getting the Ecobee installed. Ecobee actually makes saving energy a little
game-like in their interface by showing how you rank against other Ecobee users in your
area. Over the past couple of years I’ve made adjustments to my system temps and settings
and have gotten my home into the top 28% most energy efficient homes in my area.
Part of the way I did that was by not only using the built in features of Ecobee, but
tying it into my broader smart home. When my wife and I are gone, the house automatically
switches into Away mode. Since I work from home there’s not a good set schedule that
I follow for being home and away. This let’s the house take care of itself and I don’t
have to think about it.
It’s one of the best smart home gadgets to get to save money and energy heating and
cooling your home. And as your smart home grows, it can integrate into pretty much everything.
That means you can coordinate heating and cooling cycles to other smart home routines.
As I mentioned earlier, switching out your light bulbs to LED or CFL can make a difference,
which leads me to smart switches and bulbs. Pretty much every smart bulb you can buy today
is LED based, so they all use very little power to run. The typical Philips Hue light
bulb uses about 5.4 Watts. Their inactive state still has a very tiny draw of power,
but we’re talking about .4 Watts. When you pair smart bulbs to your smart home it allows
you to have automated routines that make sure all lights are turned off when you go to bed
or leave the house. Smart homes can take advantage of motion sensors, like in the Ecobee setup,
to automatically turn on or off lighting when rooms, or the house, is empty. This won’t
have as sizable an impact as a smart thermostat, but each little bit counts towards the bigger
goal of reducing total energy usage.
Whatever your motivation is for energy conservation (environmental, financial, or both), you have
many paths to help you achieve that goal. Going solar to help reduce your dependence
on the grid and reduce your monthly bills is amazing, but it’s only half the equation.
As I mentioned before, I have a video coming out next week to walk you through what I’ve
seen after a full year with solar panels on my home. But I’ve been as focused on how
I’m using energy. As we continue to see our world transition to more forms of electrification,
like EVs, we’re only going to see our energy use go up. It’s important to look at how
we’re using energy to make sure we’re not wasting valuable resources. We don’t
have to give up the comforts we’ve grown to enjoy, but make conscious choices around
the devices we buy and how we use them.
What steps have any of you taken to reign in your energy use? Any other recommendations
for areas to look at? Share them in the comments because I’d love to see us all help each
other out. My list wasn't comprehensive and I’m sure you’ll have insights that will
be helpful to others.
I hope you found this video useful. If you did, be sure to give it a thumbs up and share
with your friends because it really helps the channel. There are some other ways you
can support the channel too. Check out my SFSF Shop for some cool Tesla, Space X, science,
and Undecided shirts. There’s also other links in the description for some great gear
and discounts.
And as always, an extra big thank you to all of my Patreon supporters. Your support is
really helping to make these videos possible. Be sure to check out my Patreon page for additional
details about joining the crew.
And if you haven’t already, consider subscribing and hitting the notification bell to get alerts
when I post a new video. And as always, thanks so much for watching, I’ll see you in the
next one.