Nest Thermostat and LED lights
 

This is from a while back when I had just bought the new house and had rented out the two other rooms to some friends. Well after being extremely busy and only being at my house Mon afternoon through Fri morning, the other roommate farming full time and having not moved in yet, and one roommate moved in and being extremely wasteful, I started to take note of how much I was spending on my electric bill. So I went on another month, watched a bunch of used 2nd gen nest thermostats, and waited for some light bulb sales through august. Finally I bought a thermostat for about $133 dollars shipped in great condition, and About $100 in light bulbs at lowes.

Before (wattage per bulb x number of bulbs):
Front porch: 60w x 2
Bedroom 1: 27w x 4
Small bath: 60w x 6
Bedroom 2: 60w x 4
Hallway: 60w x 2
Foyer: 60w x 2
Dining room: 60w x 1
Kitchen: 15w x 6
Laundry room: 100w x 1
Garage: 27w x 2
Garage closet: 60w x 2
Living room: 13w x 3
Master: 13w x 3
Master bath: 40w x 6, 60w x 1
Master closests: 60w x 4
Total: 2110w total (unless i made a mistake)

Before (wattage per bulb x number of bulbs):
Front porch: 5w x 1
Bedroom 1: 5w x 1
Small bath: 10w x 2
Bedroom 2: 5w x 2
Hallway: 5w x 1
Foyer: 5w x 1
Dining room: 4.5w x 1
Kitchen: 8w x 3
Laundry room: 5w x 1
Garage: 8.5w x 1, 5w x 1
Garage closet: 5w x 1
Living room: 5w x 1 (a little dark at the back half of the unused part of the room behind the couch)
Master: 5w x 1
Master bath: 5w x 2, 5w x 1
Master closests: 5w x 2
total: 127w (if i counted correctly) (6% of original)

AC before: Fighting for people to stop turning the ac to 68F everyday, ac runs all day when nobody is here.
AC after: Set up the AC to go to turn off when we arent there, 73 when we get home until we go to sleep, then I would let it heat up to about 78 until an hour before we woke up, encouraging everybody to use your fan a little more.

Overall, nobody suffered, the monthly average highs were identical in arkansas from august to september, roommates continued to leave lights on overnight and everything else, took control of the ac, and our bill dropped!

July electric bill: $90.37 (1168kWh)
Notes: 1 person moved in, me there 30% of the time, third guy not moved in yet.
August electric bill: $110.61 (1490kWh)
Notes: Everybody moved in, normal schedules.
September electric bill: $80.16 (987kWh)
Notes: Different KWH billing rate, but all the same as august.

For the most part the house was a little warmer, but all the lighting was unchanged. No different. All led light bulbs purchased, just went an unscrewed some that we didn't really need since the house is only 1450sqft. Also note AC usage is 40-50% of your bill so it will be always be at a certain price. This really is just a hobby that I love, but it will be nice to see the return eventually pay off the investment.

Nice job!

Is your hot water gas or electric?

I installed a motion detecting switch in the hallway that very reliably comes on whenever someone passes by, and then turns off 10 seconds later.

In the bathrooms, I have installed timer switches for the vent fans. Everywhere else I have either LEDs, or CFLs installed. Automating stuff helps to reduce energy consumption by my 2 roommates and wife.

Now I've got a server that my work gave me that needs to run 24/7, and it consumes a minimum of 100 watts. At least I'll try to offset some consumption by virtualizing my home PC onto this work server. That will offset about 35 watts of continuous consumption.

Gas heater. Supposedly if you have a certain type of water heater, then nest can plug into it and turn it on and off when you want it on, hourly like the climate control system.

Edit: I'd love automation for the hallway, dining (bar room), garage, and their bathroom. I actually unplugged their vent fan because they left it on 100% of every day, early on when they moved in. How did you set the timer?

Something like this for the fan:

https://www.amazon.com/Enerlites-1-5...s=switch+timer

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon....L._SL1500_.jpg

I've got something like this for hallways:



https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon....L._SL1500_.jpg

I wonder if it would work with this. Save Money on Your Gas Bill Today! | Gas Water Heater Timer I think it could pay for itself in a little over a year for us, if I had it turn off when we're asleep or at work.

It took me far too long to find a couple of discussions we had in threads I did not start about my roommates always leaving on lights, although the landlord had fluorescent lights throughout the house before I moved in. He kept complaining about electrical usage when the summer began and I mentioned our roommate with his own AC unit each time, but replaced our most commonly-used lights with LEDs and tried to make other adjustments. Interestingly, he moved out right when I was able to open the sliding glass door without the air conditioning coming on.
I have not been able to find any sensors that work with LED\fluorescent bulbs, but mom bought me this: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01DA34NQA..._prd_ttl_sol_0

It has been working well enough for a few days. I would honestly like for it to be brighter, but it is more than enough to walk up, find my key, and get in the door. There are supposedly automatic lights, but the landlord periodically needs to try to fix them.

That one is 80 lumens from 4 LEDs. This one is 160 from 20: https://www.amazon.com/Etrech-Outdoo...ar+Power+Light

I do not know if there is one factory making one light and different companies are putting their own labels on it or several companies are making copies of one original, but I found several that looked good, but were only available through third-party sellers, and that got weird.

Are you guys still using the air conditioning? :D

Haha no, we are using heat. We have one roommate that acts like a girl and in the summer he has to have the AC on 68, and in the winter he'll ***** unless the heat is on 71F. Finally, I just locked him out of the thermostat and took a group vote. Yeah i'm definitely going to look into the getting the bathroom vent timer, and about 3-4 motion sensors for the shared rooms. On the water heater it did have to be a specific type, like econet enabled or something so it was compatible with the thermostat. I'm not sure if that made gas heaters compatible or what, but yeah... I'm trying to do easy stuff that I can take with me when I move and turn this house into a rent house. Some of these smart home things would make a fantastic dream house when I can afford to build exactly what I want. Imagine being able to use all of these items, and have a home equipped with solar that produces more energy than it needs! :D (I swapped from mechanical engineering student to apprentice electrician so yeah its my hobby ;) )

I found this today! :) Six dollars with tax and so far so good! :)

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Generic-S...L-LED/24949857

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This helped me more than anything as it reads power usage in real time and records it.

It's like having a Ultragauge for the house. ;)


The Energy Detective Electricity Monitor



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