March 1, 2012 | Leave A Comment
Our New Portland Home
Recently, my wife and I bought our first home in North Portland. There were many reasons that we fell in love with the home but, being a solar installer, I was most excited about the South facing roof (prime real estate for my solar panels), and the TED home energy detective that came with the house.
My new friend TED
I had heard about these neat devices before, but I must say since moving in I have become addicted to monitoring our home energy usage. Our home is already quite energy efficient but it has been a revelation seeing exactly how much power we use when the heat pump outside kicks on.Our first few days in the house we were using about 20kwh per day. After readjusting the thermostat from 72 to 68 inside and to 66 at night our usage went down to 10kwh/day.
Knowledge is Power
Knowledge is power and if you have no way to monitor what you use how are you supposed to be thrifty about energy efficiency? Imagine you were grocery shopping and you didn’t get the bill for the entire month and you had no idea what each item cost you. That is how we consume our energy today.
Check out this great video below to learn more about TED.
