We have sort of hit a wall this year. Looking back on it, almost nothing happened that was supposed to. First off, we sort of ran out of funds and time. What with the $4.87 per gallon gas this summer, expenses from my children, the ever increasing cost of health care, and all the time [...]
Homeowner’s Blog
Home improvement with an eye toward sustainability
Tag Archives: electricity
Kill-A-Watt meter results
This has been an interesting experiment. I discovered that my standby (sometimes called “phantom”) loads are about ten percent of my annual electric usage. I thought I was doing pretty good at keeping this under control, but it looks like I will need to buy some more switched outlet strips. The biggest [...]
Kill-A-Watt meter
I received this Kill-A-Watt EZ meter a while ago, but never really played around with it that much. Today, I decided to check a few things out and see how much money it is costing me to, for example, keep the TV in standby mode for a day.
I pick on the TV because I [...]
Dangerous Electrical Condition
A shocking shower experience at the cottage:
Last year or perhaps the year before, while I was in the shower at the cottage, I received a shock from the faucet. I told this to my wife who said “No, I never got a shock from the shower, it must have been something else.”
Fast forward to [...]
Replacing outlets and switches
Our house sat empty for a few years before we bought it. I noticed that several of the outlets had broken plastic and exposed live metal parts. In the bathroom and kitchen Ground Fault Circuit Interrupted (GFCI) outlets had not been installed. Most of the switches were in pretty rough shape. I [...]
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