Tips for apartment efficiency
 

So I live in a 950ft^2 apartment and since I'm renting I can't and don't want to put any money into permanent efficiency upgrades like windows/insulation/appliances etc.
Everything is electric and laundry is done in a communal laundry room; water is included in rent and we're not billed for it.
We use roughly 15kwh/day as a yearly average. Most of the lights had cfl's when we moved in and I've replaced the remaining incandescents with cfl's over the years and as LEDs have gotten cheaper I've been incrementally replacing the cfl's in the most used fixtures; of course I'm keeping the still functioning cfl's to put back in the fixtures so I can take the LEDs when I move out :D
There's no central AC but I do have a very small window unit I turn on on hot days to keep our older dog cool while we're at work. We can get by not using the AC when we're home since we can leave the back door open with a box fan, it keeps the place cool enough.
I'm not sure how much more I can do, I'm not sure how old the fridge is but I've considered some extra insulation; same with the water heater.
Any tips or advice are welcome!

Solar panel and batteries for AC? A bit of an investment, but you can take it with you, reduce heat (blocking windows), reduce power use (for when AC is NEEDED), and make it more comfortable when it isn't. Could also be used for other stuff when you don't need AC- winter time, use it to charge notebooks, mobile phones, maybe a TV.

Lots of ways to do it efficiently, if not cheap. And solar power will always be of value :)

I would love to get some solar panels but, all my windows are west facing and I don't actually see much sky because of all the trees. Not a bad thing since it keeps the place cooler in the summer than it otherwise would be. I'll look in to blocking windows. Currently I just keep all the blinds shut during the heat of the day and open everything at night for some 'free ac'. Not that it gets all that hot where I live, but I prefer cooler temps. I do the same in the winter to reduce heat loss. A better blocker than blinds certainly must exist!
I think getting my girlfriend to buy in to the whole energy saving thing would go a long way as well. She likes to roll her eyes and call me gross when it's yellow and I let it mellow :D

I had already been using blackout curtains in our west facing bedroom, but even with the blinds closed behind them I could feel a significant amount of heat coming off of them. So I added foil, taped only to the glass for non damaging removal. With about $1 worth of foil the blackout curtains now feel no warmer than the walls

move the shower head close to your head as possible. you will use less hot water as the water doesn't cool down through the air so much. only discovered this recently when I wasn't feeling well and ended up sitting on the shower floor and noticed the water hitting me be a lot colder.

Does your apartment have it's own hot water heater? If so, I would adjust the temparture to no higher than 125-130°f. Most homes I have been in have the water temp set WAY too high.

West facing is just fine for solar as long as there isn't too much shading from the trees. Anywhere this side of the Rockies (I'm assuming "Cascadia" means Oregon or Washington or thereabouts) then W is your second best option for solar access, especially if you're offsetting A/C use since the W side of the house will always be the hottest (think late afternoon sun). If you have at least a few hours of light, you should be just fine with West facing. If you can have the A/C on with solar, you won't have to pay for powering the fan with the door open (unless you like it that way). Do you have a patio? Maybe you can manipulate the direction by placing it on the patio?

I agree with digital rules, if you can adjust the water heater temp you should do it. But I wouldn't go more than 120 degrees (then again I don't live in a cold climate :D). You can also lower it even more during summer if you're comfortable with that temp. If you're all electric and that includes the water heater, then the most savings might be here since electric heating is usually so inefficient.

You can also look at something like a Nest. It's a little expensive, but if you keep your current thermostat then you can just put it back when you move out and use the Nest in the next place. You can't use the Nest itself since you don't have central A/C, but you might be able to find something similar for the heater and the window A/C.

You can also get something like this for the windows, which should help. The aluminum foil will be cheaper, this will be more aesthetically pleasing (and possibly more "useable").
Window Film

You can also get a power strip that has a master/slave function. You can hook your TV to the master and when your TV shuts off so does all the other accessories plugged into the slaves. Same goes with your computer so your printer and other things don't stay on unnecessarily.
Power Strip

Insulation is super cheap, so if you can insulate the fridge and water heater, I would definitely do it.

Are you on the ground floor? If not, leave the door open and fan on; it's going to use way less energy than your AC unit. I recently got the "DTE Insights" app through DTE Energy to track my daily electricity usage and was shocked at how much more energy the AC uses than everything else in the house, combined!

I'll also second the window blackouts. I had foam-backed foil leaned onto the windows and could regulate my apartment temperature pretty well. The people below me always kept it really hot in their apartment, though, so with the foil turned inward, I rarely had to use heat (even in freezing weather).

Go to LED lights if you can, and find the lowest wattage. I found a 2W candelabra bulb to use over my kitchen table in the apartment, and it was just enough to see what I was doing. Just go and really evaluate how much lighting you really need, and downsize where you can. Five lamps dropping 10 watts for 3 hours a day is saving over 1kWh per week!

Also, I'm sure it's obvious, but TV's, Xbox's, and other electronics eat up energy too, so put them on a power strip and turn them off. Of course that can be a challenge if you have someone else in the house who doesn't like the added effort, but they're not paying the electricity bill, are they? :p

Lots of great tips here. Not all applicable to an apartment, but pick and choose just like your ecodriving techniques.

60+ Home Energy Saving Tips You can do Right Now - EcoRenovator

Excellent advice! All my Windows look out into a bunch of Doug fir trees so even in the afternoon I get maybe 20 minutes tops of direct sunlight. We're supposed to have a pretty hot week up here in the Portland area; I may take down the ac unit and try a poor man's swamp cooler using a box fan, towel, and a large pan of water. I want to drop my average kWh/day into the single digits and I think the best way to do that is reducing climate control. I'm hesitant to block the windows since they dont get much direct light and I've got quite a few house plants that may not appreciate that choice!
As for the water heater, I've been doing research on the safety of lowering the temperature. My concern is bacterial growth, specifically legionella. It's currently set to 140 f and at that temp all bacteria is killed within a couple hours. I have looked in to tankless water heaters to bypass the system since the places where hot water is used are all very close to the heaters current location.
Like with eco driving, the biggest improvement comes from adjusting your own behavior. I think if I can get my girlfriend to only have one light on in the evenings instead of several a lot of progress can be made. Similarly, if my little swamp cooler experiment is a success we can probably eliminate the ac all together. In the winter we try to minimize heater usage. Looking at 3 years of bills (from when we moved in until now) winter is consistently the time of greatest power usage. I'm sure a lot of it is the heater, but the short days probably don't help either.

I just saw this video on how to make a A/C with a fan, 5 gallon bucket, and a frozen gallon of water. Very similar to your suggestion of the "swamp cooler".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxSLbpAwibg

Isn't it pretty humid/wet in the PNW? Swamp coolers work best in dry climates; otherwise I would have tried one here in da Midwest, eh. Maybe it'll work, but all I've read suggests they're not so effective in humid summers. :)

(Putting ice into it will make a difference of course)

In the winter, sure. During the summer it's actually pretty dry and at least in Portland it's not unheard of to go a month or two with no measurable precip. As long as evaporation is taking place then evaporative cooling should still function. Will it be more efficient with low humidity? Yes.
As it stands now the outdoor air temp is 22*C with an RH is 44%

Weird tip, but I might just adjust my shower a little.

Heh. Those are streamers! I thought "Sure, spraying cold water onto the carpet would help keep it cool, but at what cost?" :)

I swear that I slept last night, but I do not feel like it!

I needed to purchase an adjustable shower head just to get it almost above my head. I regularly shower with my head right under it, with the temperature all of the way up.

Of course, I also have the water warm up while I first rinse off. I do not think that I enjoy bathing as much as many people...

Water heater temp: A long time ago, 1970's or 80's, Ohio State Univ found that a water heater temp below 120 degrees f. fostered the growth of Legionaires disease germs. So keep it at 120 deg or a little higher.

On the water heater front, our plumbing generally is terrible, and adjusting the water temperature "just right" is always a major pain (ours is heated on demand by natural gas) especially as it detects too low of a flow and cuts off and re engages.

What i found to be optimal was keeping the shower on at full heat, and then adjusting the water temperature on the heater. So now i just get in the shower and switch it to full hot, and the temperature is just right.

My wife would burn if I set it just right for me at full hot.

Has anyone insulated the plumbing from the wall to the showerhead? :)

Even though this is an older post I'd like to add that this isn't necessary for a tankless heater.

One trick to keep the water a bit hotter before it reaches the shower head is to spray expanding insulation foam into the wall behind the shower through a tine hole. Will keep the water in the pipe, concealed by the wall, much warmer. Made a noticeable difference in my un-insulated interior wall behind the shower. Only wish I had thought of the idea sooner. Now I may also try insulating the pipe from the wall to the shower head.

This is a bit less drastic than purring walls shut and also works quite good:

https://www.leidingshop.nl/slir/w450...isisolatie.jpg
ROI should be only a few months.

You also can install a heat transfer drain:
https://www.proudgreenhome.com/stati...in-diagram.png

It's a bit harder to retrofit in an existing bathroom but if you're renovating it is a must have, really saves a lot.

Replacing the windows can be harder to pull of in a flat but some heat blocking foil goes a long way if you live in a warm environment.