Is it possible to take a few bucks off your electricity bill, and still use as much power as you need? Southern California Edison (SCE) is a utility company that serves southern California, and SCE has created various programs for their serviced area. Residents have to apply for many of Read more…
Many of our clients have “recirc” (or recirculation) pumps in their utility rooms or basements attached to a hot water heater. Some clients have more than one recirc pump, depending on the size of their home and their needs. The purpose of a recirc pump is to keep hot water Read more…
If you don’t know what a recirc pump does, I explained it previously. It is possible to control the timer for your recirc pump (and other devices) by using the following: a recirc pump with a 110V wire plug Amazon’s Alexa a Smart plug like the TP-Link Kasa plug a 3rd Read more…
If you need to reduce your utility bills, have you thought about first asking your utility company? Sure, you can’t call them up and just ask for a loan, but many utility companies have a lot of programs to help its customers. Some of these programs are mandated by the Read more…
Years ago a friend gave us a beautiful chrome heated towel rack for use in our bathroom. Plug it in, drape your towels over it, and treat yourself to a nice warm towel after every shower or bath. Sounds great, right? Problem is, it’s expensive! The device has a normal Read more…
If you want to conserve energy and lower your utility bill, first check out resources from PG&E if you’re a Californian in their service area like me. Go to pge.com and select the menu “save energy & money.” You will see something like this: Yes, there is a lot of Read more…
It took me years to discover that our big pool pump accounted for nearly a third of our electric bill. But once I understood this it only took a few months to fix—by switching to a variable speed pump. Excited by the easy win, I wondered what other energy hogs Read more…
This the second article of a two part series looking at the relationship between energy and pets. Read part 1 about heating and cooling your pet here. Nearly seventy percent of American households are home to a pet, resulting in a collective count of over 400 million fish, dogs, cats, Read more…
This simple behavioral change is crazy simple, but surprisingly rare. You might think I’m going to talk about the different methods used to boil water, and which is best… use the microwave? a gas stove? an induction cooktop? maybe one of those insta-hot dispensers? These all have different energy consumption and Read more…
This customer story involved a large home in Atherton, with a very nice older couple who wished to stay in their home as long as possible despite some mobility problems. One of the ways they stayed active and kept their joints flexible was to use their pool to exercise daily Read more…