This will be the first winter that I have an entire house to myself (and my partner and my daughter). I’m on an extremely fixed income because my parental leave top-up is now a fond memory. During the summer, I strove to keep my electricity bill low using common sense. Most of my “tactics” required only a small portion of my plentiful time to enact, and none of them cost much money. Now that the leaves are turning, I thought I’d take a moment to look ahead at how I’m going to save energy in the harsh Canadian winter.
Before I get into specifics, I’ll again share a fantastic, ridiculously comprehensive guide to electricity conservation by Michael Bluejay, a man who must be an expert on electricity because he looks like he’s being constantly electrocuted:
1. Implement zone heating.
My house has an oil heater. When the oil is used up, the tank needs to be filled again, which will be done at significant expense. Instead of a regular monthly electricity or natural gas bill, this means the “cost” of heat is incurred in large chunks. It’s critical to find a balance between living comfortably and using as little heat (and therefore oil) as possible.
So I turned the thermostat down. Way down. I set it at about 16 degrees. At that temperature, I’m not concerned about pipes freezing (the basement is excavated and has two vents so the temperature remains quite moderate). I could tough-out 16 degrees no problem (more on that in part two). But I obviously don’t expect my partner or baby to do so.
That’s why I’m zone heating this winter. Zone heating is the use of a supplementary heat source to warm only the area of the house that’s inhabited at any given time. Instead of heating the entire house to 20 degrees Celsius, I’m heating the entire house to 16 and heating one room to 20 (I find room temperature too hot anyway).
And I’m zone heating with a very efficient kind of heater: an infrared heater. I bought a LifeSmart 1500 Watt Infrared Quartz Heater on sale for $120.
To run this heater on “Low” (its 750 Watt setting), 24/7, it’d cost about $110 a month. But it doesn’t even run for a third of the day at this point in the fall– it automatically shuts off when it reaches 20 degrees, and we don’t even leave it plugged in all the time. We live upstairs, while the thermostat is on the middle floor, so it’s generally warmer. Finally, we use the “Eco” setting rather than “Low”, although I have an inkling that this setting just automatically sets the target temperature at 20 degrees and is otherwise the same as “Low”.
I can’t do a simple analysis of the energy savings from this strategy because it involves saving oil. I have no idea how to determine, based on the price of home heating oil (which fluctuates), how much I save by turning down the thermostat from 20 to 15 Celsius. I’m certain, however, that it justifies spending $20 – $50 a month (depending on the month) to implement zone heating. I think one full winter of use will justify the $120 up-front investment.
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But we only have one infrared heater. If I need to sleep in a cold room, such that my partner and our baby can have the heater in the nursery, how do I survive the night?
2. Put on more clothes.
When I’m working on TF, I’m often in pajamas. And if it’s cold, I’m also probably wearing one of my luxurious robes. While writing this I am wearing exactly the same outfit as in this picture, minus the puppies and a ton of hair:
Last week I invested $7.98 in myself and bought some amazing memory foam slippers.
There have been a couple cold snap nights as of late, so on these occasions I’ve worn wool socks and long johns. My slide into the life of a laughably stereotypical plaid-wearing Canadian is almost complete.
I’ve got a nice feather duvet that I bought in 09 for $50 plus HST. (With a duvet cover I got for free from a friend. It reminded her of her ex but she even washed it for me twice — long story.) I’m pretty sure my bedding is sufficient for camping at Algonquin in January.
In all seriousness, if you’re a bit cold, learn to throw on more clothes or grab an extra blanket rather than automatically turning up the thermostat. This isn’t one of those “forgo the joys of North America and live like you’re in North Korea just to save 10 cents” Trent Hamm-ian exercises. Turning up the heat takes a lot of after-tax money when the solution is the absolute tiniest modicum of discipline. I mean, we’re not talking hardcore 6400 Personal Finance Full Metal Jacket discipline. I really mean negligible discipline. It’s the kind of discipline that keeps you from going to Five Guys for a burger snack immediately after attending an Italian wedding reception. (Even better: don’t turn up the heat or put on extra clothes. Being cold burns calories — that’s why it’s so uncomfortable. Evolution has made the conservation of calories an adaptive trait. Unfortunately this trait is now rewarded with diabetes and morbid obesity.)
3. Use blue balls in the dryer.
You may recall that, in my former hubris, I gloated about the fact that I’d yet to hook-up the clothes dryer since moving into this house. That was in July. Last week my partner told me that we needed to start using the dryer because clothes were taking too long to dry in the crisp autumn air. I sighed deeply, and then went about hooking up the dryer. Actually I waited a few days to test her resolve, but she won.
Dryers use a lot of electricity. My hang-drying saved us about $20 a month during the summer. It also got me into the outdoors for a few minutes; a locale that is clearly overrated or else we wouldn’t build artificial caves everywhere. Sure, the graphics are awesome, but the storyline and gameplay suck.
Now that we’re again using a clothes dryer, I’ve pulled out my handy dryer balls.
I bought these blue balls at Dollarama in 2010. They came in packs of 2 for $1.50. That three bucks, plus HST, has saved me a lot of electricity. We use all four balls in every load. They reduce drying time by at least 10%, if not 20%. The laundry also comes out of the dryer feeling softer and fluffier. I don’t understand how they work — something about lifting and separating the laundry — but I swear they do. If you don’t believe me, I’ll let you… no, I just can’t take the joke that far. This isn’t FinancialUproar. Please just trust me on the dryer balls.
So there you have it: some real strategies for saving energy this coming winter. Unless you’re a smart Canadian and bail on our destitute wasteland entirely. My ideas aren’t groundbreaking or original, and it’s near-impossible to nail down the actual ‘savings’, unlike for my summer strategies. Regardless, I’m confident that I’ll yet again save money using painless lifestyle adjustments.
“outdoors … a locale that is clearly overrated or else we wouldn’t build artificial caves everywhere. Sure, the graphics are awesome, but the storyline and gameplay suck.” – Bwahaha!!!
Aaaaand that is why I don’t “do” camping.
lol. So true. Modern civilization is awesome.
A cameo by Michael Bluejay! His website rocks – I used his calculations for hydro in my cloth vs disposable diaper calculator.
Nice, just checked out that calculator, great work!
We’ve found that, after the first couple months, Cat’s diaper changing needs declined massively. Now we’re talking like 5 changes a day. At her current size, we’re paying less than 14 cents a diaper (thanks WalMart!). Suggestion for improvement to the calculator: allow the parent to vary the # of changes a day. It obviously starts high and declines, but maybe letting parents set an average number would give them a better #.
We got a nice set of used cloth diapers as a gift, so the “up front” cost isn’t a consideration. They’re too big for her (they’re the larger of the two sizes). But even when they fit, I don’t know anymore if we’re going to switch. Originally I was totally gung-ho.
But given the work involved, the extra laundry, the electricity (and add in the dryer costs now), we really find it worthwhile to spend $0.70 a day on disposables. The savings make the $250 in annual diaper costs “worth it” in my mind.
Joe,
Thanks for the compliment on the calculator (our daughter is down to about 5-6 changes per day at 6 months so it is right on par). As a first-time dad I tried to get averages from several sources.
The store brand is only $.14 per diaper at Walmart – that is a great deal.
It is a tough debate the cloth vs disposable but the environmental impact doesn’t play a part for myself (I reduce in other ways).
NP man, keep up the good work. Yeah, we buy the store brand (Parent’s Choice) in the largest plastic pack (not the boxes; they’re more expensive for some reason — although we did pre-purchase a box of size 3 because it was on sale for 12 cents a diaper!). We get these large plastic packs on the multi-buy “2 for $20″. As she gets into bigger sizes, they’ll cost more per diaper, but hopefully her consumption will decline. Also, the cloth diapers will fit better (they still don’t fit totally properly yet).
I’m all about conservation (of both the environment/resources and my money), but I have to admit I’m not sold on the space heating thing yet.
1) You are using heating oil. That’s considerably more expensive than natural gas. However a great many Canadians use natural gas to heat their homes, and the issue here is that natural gas is CONSIDERABLY cheaper per unit of thermal energy than electricity. I’m too lazy to go look up actual values, but I’m darn confident that you’d find that, even factoring efficiencies of furnaces, etc, natural gas would still be considerably cheaper per BTU/kWh or whatever you prefer. Let’s say 2x, for fun. That would mean if you only heated half your house with a space heater, and dropped your energy usage by 50%, you’d still be paying exactly the same amount. Except now half your house would be cold. Plus, here in Ontario, during the winter, you’ll get to worry about double pricing during peak rates in the morning and evening.
2) I remain unconvinced about the savings in general, as well. Again, I’m sure it depends on your home, but mine has a good number of open spaces. Even though I may only want to keep half of them warm, I really cannot, without considerable leakage, or until someone invents invisible Star Trek air shields.
3) Then there’s just the overall convenience factor. Even if I thought I could save some money (which I’m not sold on), would it be worth having half my house uncomfortably cold? Of course everyone’s definition of “uncomfortable” is different – like you, I could probably tolerate more than my better half – it still seems like a steeper price to pay than, say, turning off lights you are not using, doing laundry on weekends, etc.. I suppose it’s an individual judgement call. But I have a newer home with a high-efficiency gas furnance, and I track my bills regularly, and have found empirically that my gas bills are not all that sensitive to a drop of a couple degrees (within reason), whereas my electricity bills are awful easy to inflate fairly significantly with just a few “big hitter” appliances.
But perhaps when using heating oil, and the likely older/inefficient oil furnace that goes with it, there is a case to be made here. Have you ever considered investing/upgrading to one of the extremely efficient natural gas furnaces available these days (if gas is available in your area?). High up-front cost, certainly, but weighed against 1, 2 or maybe 3 $500 heating oil tanks during a year, it might work out…..? (Maybe there are still some of those EcoEnergy grants available as well too? I’m too lazy to look that up as well.)
You’re definitely right about heating the house with natural gas being cheaper. Given the cost of oil you mention, I’m certain it’s cheaper than running the whole house at 20.
Considerations for my situation:
- I’m taking care of a family home; I doubt there’s an appetite to change the type of furnace.
- This isn’t a city; there’d be an additional capital investment to run a gas line a good 30 meters from the property line, assuming there’s a main at the closest edge of the property.
- I live in a farm house. Everything has doors, so every room (I mean every room) is segmented easily. I find this to be pretty awesome, if not for heating then for other considerations like fires. There’s even an unvented “sun room” on the front and the back of the house. It’s not a modern Mattamy middle class $#!t farm — and I say this as somebody who doesn’t usually stick up for the ‘good old days’ — but maybe the commitment to function over form (rather than cavernous living rooms and such) made a lot of sense.
You’re right, zone heating is not for everybody and given current market conditions (well, I hesitate to call Ontario’s electricity boondoggle a ‘market’) natural gas is much cheaper for the average Ontarian.
But if somebody lived in the exact same house as me, except they had natural gas heat, they could likely lower their bill a lot in another way: keep the heat at 20, but in rooms that are rarely used (e.g. for us, we’re in our living room to watch a few TV shows a week, usually in just two sittings), close the vents and the doors, assuming there’s no pipe freezing risks.
Who knew blue balls actually works?
Good post.
Mark
lol thanks Mark. Btw, I joined your Facebook, drop by mine if you get a chance! http://www.facebook.com/TimelessFinance
Are all your windows double paned? If not here is an idea. When my family lived in the country we had single pane windows and instead of getting the windows redone (super pricey as our windows were irregular sizes) we bought thin plastic stuff, put in the windows and used a hair dryer to seal it. Sounds ridiculous but it totally worked as homemade second panes for the winter. We of course took them down in the summer so we could enjoy opening our windows to get the breeze in the house.
The windows have double-panes, but they’re old enough that their seals probably aren’t perfect, any inert gases have likely leaked out, and there’s a gap in the middle of some (they slide horizontally). This wins “reader tip of the day”; just put plastic film and double-sided tape on my shopping list. Sorry that there’s no prize lol. But I’ll probably write an article about me doing it!
That’s the best set of blue balls ever.
lol I am going to buy you some blue dryer balls for Xmas if I can find them at the dollar store again, in the hopes you’ll make all the inappropriate jokes on your site that I wanted to make on TF but couldn’t.
Do the dryer balls prevent static?
When I got the balls, I stopped adding static sheets. The laundry was very static-y, so I added sheets again. It definitely softens the laundry and it definitely reduces dryer time. Perfect invention? No. Worth it? Absolutely.
Thanks! I’ve seen the dryer balls and wondered if they actually worked, but I couldn’t find anyone that had actually used them. Right now, I can still dry most things outside as long as the weekend is sunny, but I know from experience that won’t last much longer, so I’ll have to go back to some dryer use before too long. Reducing the dryer time would be fabulous though. Think I’ll get some for the Princess too as her early reports have indicated that it takes one and a half cycles in the dorm dryers to get one load of clothes dry — reducing that time would save $1.00/load!!!!!
Yes! Definitely! If your daughter (I assume that’s who you mean by ‘Princess’ lol although because of Gail Vaz-Oxlade’s show ‘Princess’, that term has a very different connotation up here in Canada!) is using a laundromat, the dryer balls will pay for themselves in about a week. I bought two sets of two balls at Dollarama, for a total of $3 (75 cents each). I don’t know where you would get them in the States but, based on my experience, they’d be even less expensive.
Yes, the Princess is my daughter, and yeah, the dryers in the dorm are laundromat style! I KNOW I’ve seen the blue balls somewhere before — just not sure where but they are now definitely on my shopping list!
We’ve been using the blue balls and no dryer sheets for years, because the dryer sheets (even the “sensitive skin” ones) cause itching to various family members. Static electricity in the laundry is really no big deal, it dissipates during sorting/folding, and only rarely do you have a pair of little girl’s undies stuck inside Daddy’s work shirt.
You get used to the somewhat-soft but not dryer-sheet softness of the laundry…if you’re feeling super-cheap (thrifty?) it’s something to consider skipping on altogether.
Because we line-dried, we used liquid softener. I didn’t care, but my partner couldn’t handle the crinkly clothes. Now that we’re using the dryer, we don’t add anything. I agree: the blue dryer balls work wonders.