Saving energy requires an 'old-fashioned' effort

Business
By Bill Walsh
Source: Fauquier Times-Democrat
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9 2008

By Bill Walsh

Times-Democrat Staff Writer

Buy this device, save big money on your electric bills.

E-mailboxes are full of the offers, and, increasingly, they are being touted in print advertisements and showing up as flyers in real mailboxes.

You'd do just as well by jabbing your Dominion Virginia Power bill with voodoo needles, Randy Moore said early this week. You'd do a whole lot better by saving the money the devices cost, and applying it to the utility's invoice.

A principal in Moore & Foley on Broadview Avenue in Warrenton and a veteran electrical contractor with more than 30 years under his belt, Moore said that he is unfamiliar with any device that lives up to these claims, and, indeed, is baffled as to how they would accomplish what their makers suggest.

One such device, for example, claims to recycle and store electricity that is not being used by electric motors, such as a refrigerator motor. When the motor has cooled the unit and shuts off, the box you are urged to buy saves the unused electricity in capacitors for application when the motor comes back on.

"I'd be a little skeptical about that," Moore said.

Even if the device works, where's the savings, he wonders.

"It's kind of like people using timers on...hot water heaters," Moore said. "You're going to save the hot water heater from starting, but when it does start up, how long does it take to get back to the temperature it was set at? Where are the savings?"

That's not to say that you can't lower or at least exert some control over your electric bill. It is to say that there is no silver bullet, no magic box. You have to do it the old-fashioned way: conserve.

"New 'devices,' like low-voltage lights have always saved people money if you install them," Moore said. "Changing to florescent lights is a savings and always has been."

If you work from home and have a fax machine, a copier and a printer, replace them with a combination machine, he suggests. "That just eliminates two machines," Moore said, "and you're getting a 50 percent reduction in electricity use."

Put all your electronic devices on power stripes, he advises. "If you plug everything into one, you're only on one circuit, you're not going around hitting every outlet."

Lower your hot water heater's thermostat. The factory setting is usually 120 degrees, he said, and that should be adequate for most homeowners.

"You can save probably 10 percent of your electric bill by turning your heat down in the winter by two degrees," Moore advised.

These are the top money-saving ideas culled from a list of about 100 or so concepts that his industry is promoting, Moore said. They seem realistic to him on a common sense basis. Not everything on the list does.

Dimmers, the list suggests, can cut electricity. Moore is not convinced.

"There are still 120 volts going to that device," he said. "It's the diodes that are trying to decrease the amperage in those bulbs. But [the electricity] is still there."

Unplugging all electronic devices when they are not in use sometimes makes sense, sometimes not.

A kitchen blender, for instance, one that is unadorned by a clock or another kind of display, is not using electricity when it is not in use, even if it's plugged in, Moore said. A cell-phone charger, which has an indicator light, is drawing current, and should be unplugged when not in use.

Still, the savings of pulling the cord are "pennies a month," Moore said.

Effective July 1, Dominion Virginia Power's rates rose 18 percent. That's going to mean money out of consumers' pockets, Moore said, because it will likely not be possible to save that much even by employing all the techniques he outlines.

"If you made a really gallant effort, maybe you could," he mused. "It'd be close. But I don't think 18 percent is a realistic figure. Between 10 and 15 percent might be.

"I'm not going to say that there's not going to be [successful devices for electricity savings], because I have seen a lot of changes" Moore said. "But I'd be very leery of these things that are being pushed right now."

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