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|  | | Lebanon Lutheran Church, Whitehall, MI |
| Lebanon Lutheran Church, Whitehall, MI | |
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Steward Tips |
Turns out you can get information on your home’s energy performance similar to that of a hybrid car. It’s fairly easy to hook up a home-energy power cost monitor to your home’s electrical system. It reads the electrical impulses and sends the information to a remote display that looks similar to one of those weather monitor stations.
It reports real-time consumption and the total amount of energy consumed. This can be calculated in either dollars and cents or kilowatt hours. The system makes it easy to see when your consumption spikes or how much you’re saving from new conservation strategies. One interesting possibility is the potential to motivate your kids so they can easily see the pros and cons of all those ‘teachable moments’ like, "Turn off your ______!" Seeing as how kids have so much more to turn off and on than back in ‘the good old days,’ you might make up the cost of the system in no time at all. If you want more info: www.terrapass.comHeating water accounts for about 15% of our home energy use and high efficiency units can save you money over the long haul. Demand or “tankless” heaters are slowly gaining in popularity. Since they don’t have to keep 40 or so gallons of water hot, they have no “standby loss”. Instead with a big heating coil, they only heat water as it is used. A possible limitation is the number of fixtures that can use hot water simultaneously. Since they’re still somewhat uncommon in the US, initial cost is higher to purchase and install. However, the savings are pretty impressive.
A tankless heater can save from 45-60%, or $1,800 over its 20 year lifetime. A high efficiency heater can save from 10-20%, or $500 over its 8-10 years of life. Of course, with the tankless unit you never run out of hot water should one of your kids have a “sleep over”, for example. Needless to say we’ll have to resist the temptation to take longer showers since the supply is “endless”! Art Plewka
Stewardship Education Committee | | | | DON'T DUMP -- RECYCLE!Want to get rid of a baby stroller, a basketball hoop or size 9 bowling shoes? Join the local bulletin board of the Freecycle Network (www.freecycle.org) and post what you want to give away -- or something you're looking for. No money changes hands and your unwanted stuff won't add to a landfill. Launched in 2003, the network has more than 4,000 freecycle.org give-away sites and 3.8 million members. If there's no group in your area, the website tells how to set one up.
----from AARP Magazine (KW) |
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