Nifty product!
A couple of weeks ago, I was looking around for some energy-saving products. I bought a few different toys that I could check out.
I’ve tried a couple of them so far and found one that is really neat — the Isolé® IDP-3050 Plug Load Control.
I set this up at work where I have my monitor, my cell phone charger, and a couple of other devices. I set the device to power off pretty aggressively (about 5 minutes).
What’s really neat is that I walk out of my office to go to a meeting and 5 min. later, it turns off power to all these devices. I walk back into my office and sit down and *voom* everything powers back up.
Very nifty.
I have to say that at $90, it is a bit pricey — you’d think someone could create something like this much more cheaply. But, now that I’ve paid that much for it, it is definitely very nice. I’m thinking about buying a few more for home.
The other device that I played around with some, but haven’t yet been able to install is the Hubbell Motion-Sensing Wall Switch. Hopefully I’ll be able to get that installed sometime soon.
on April 18th, 2007 at 4:15 am
I think you should talk to your wife before you start replacing random switches. I hear she still grumbles about the bulbs you replaced in the hallway.
on April 18th, 2007 at 10:52 pm
I picked up a think called “kill a watt” from buy.com.
It cost around $30 and tells us how much power is going through it, or has gone through it since it was plugged in.
I don’t know if my wife liked to hear that the fishtank we never look at was costing us around 50 cents a day (almost 2.5 KWH per day) in electricity. What kind of society would we be if we didn’t keep tropical fish prisoners in little heated tanks?
It helped me realize that my desktop was using 140 Watts of power, while my laptop was only 20. Once you can pinpoint the “problem areas” it’s much easier to take action. We’re down about 30% on our electric bill by making only minor changes.
Best bit about kill a watt, is that my wife didn’t mind the purchase :).
on April 20th, 2007 at 12:56 am
Rob,
Without knowing your situation exactly, that seems awfully expensive for a fish tank. Fifteen dollars a month? This reports suggests less than four dollars a month is typical for a 20 gallon tank. Maybe you just have an expensive electric carrier, since the wattage (the report says 62.5Kw per month) seems in the same ballpark.
on April 20th, 2007 at 4:33 pm
Hey Josh,
Our electricity is around 20 cents a KWH (when you add it all up). I’m always surprised how cheap everyone else’s electricity is.
We did just get a $57 bill for the month (for under 300 units) a new record for us. I expect the tank has needed to heat the water less and the home heating system isn’t running as much (forced hot water is an electric water pump).
thanks,
Rob
on April 22nd, 2007 at 2:35 am
Eric, I think you’ve used your quota of “nifty” for the month
I have a Watts Up meter which has helped me to figure out what uses a lot and what uses a little. A small space heater - a huge energy sink. My laptop, not so bad.