So what are they using you for besides the Pool?

I nominate Wayne for hosting a Stijn get together!

second!

Richard-nothing but the pool.

Brent-Hmmmmmmm.

Brrrr
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1470344832.jpg

ya know Jeff, if you weren't bringing in the outside air it might not be so cold in the car. ;)

Congrats Pete

Niece told me that last night they had a talk with their kids about how they needed to save money. Said she came home from and errand this afternoon and there was only one light on in the whole house. A single lamp and a couple of them were in the lamp's light reading. The other kids were playing battleship in the dark. She said they must have been listening. She has 7 kids that were home.

Told her that a single 60watt incandecent bulb if left on 24 hours a day for an entire year would cost $47.17. And a 9watt LED bulb that puts out the same lumens that cost $4 each would cost $7.08 if left on 24hours a day for a year. That's $0.0008 per hour versus $0.005 per hour.

Also told her about the free energy audit thing she could sign up for where they give you 10 LED bulbs free. And the LED bulbs are on sale now at Wal-mart for $2.49.

It's kind funny to me cause my brother said he just got thru helping her husband and a couple of the boys install a bunch of can lights in their living room for more light because hey thought having just a few lamps was too dark.

Brother Bob says there is a generator you can buy plans for on the internet that you can build for $500 that will power your whole house for free. Told him if you search it with google you will find where people have tried to build that generator and it doesn't work. Says the energy companies are covering it up and trying to discredit it. And they keep putting the companies that try to make and sell them out of business. It's a conspiracy so they can keep selling their energy. Oh and one companies that made the generators went out of business because the military bought them out.

Nicolai Tesla is supposed to have converted a car over to electric and powered it from a box the size of a shoe box back in the early 1900s. Said the box had the two wires coming out it to run the car and a lever for turning it on and off. He is supposed to have driven the car around NY city for a week to show people and they laughed at him so he took his box and never showed it to anyone or talked about it again.

Jackson is 8lbs 1.2oz
Born 8/4/16 at 9:48pm
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1470355028.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1470355069.jpg

Hmmmm..... don't know why those are sideways.
let me try this
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1470355321.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1470355346.jpg

I give up. Those were taken with my daughters phone and were emailed to me and they are right side up when I open them????

Since Jackson has his picture posted he can start posting messages!

Ut oh. I found a controller that will attach to the gas control valve on my gas water heater that will let me turn the knob from the heat setting the the vacation setting with a timer or home automation controller.

Have mine set on 130°F and also has a VAC setting that keeps it above 55°F to keep it from freezing.

Basically only really use hot water for Showers, dishwasher, and clothes washer. The clothes washer I found works best on warm/warm so it doesn't tax the water heater that much. My dishwasher has a temp booster. Thinking heating the 40 gallon water heater up to temp just once a day so it's hot for showers and I'd never notice and save a bunch of monies!

Wonder just how long it takes to heat the water, and how long it takes the water to cool enough that you'd notice after it is set to vacation mode. My tank is insulated pretty well, it is cool to the touch.

Couldn't sleep. So...

My gas bill for July was $33.57 for gas used.
According to typical usage furnace and water heater pilot lights used 1,108,000 BTU of gas.
That's $3.68 of gas leaving $29.89 or 8,994,558 BTU to heat water.

Water heater is 40 gallons and 40,000 BTU.
Worst case scenario if set water heater to VAC setting it will get down to 55°F.
To heat 40 gallons of water from 55°F to 130°F is 75°F x 40 gallons = 3000 gallon degrees.
It takes 11 BTU to heat 1 gallon of water with gas.
To heat 40 gallons from 55 to 130 uses 3000 x 11 or 33,000 BTU or $0.11.
And would take my 40,000 BTU heater 50 minutes.

Maintaining 130°F used 8,994,558 BTU / 33,000 BTU means could heat from 55°F to 130°F 272 times for the same amount of gas used in a month. That makes it look like turning on/off water heat will save some money. Seems to make quite the argument for tankless water heaters also.

If I cycled the water from 55°F to 130°F twice a day it would cost $0.22 or $6.60 a month.
Adding in the pilots my total bill would decrease from $33.57 to a little over $10.28 a month.

Welp, going to have to start turning the water heater on/off to the VAC mode manually allowing an hour for heating to use hot water and see what happens both comfort wise and on next months bill. Or maybe read my own meter and see how much it ticks off in a week.
It would be nice if I could tell how often it ran like the fan time counter on the A/C.

Well...got dark outside now seems to be lightening up so it must be morning.

Didn't hear or more importantly smell any huge odiferous sparrows this morning so...

Good Morning!

and

It's Friday!

a n d

I am taking the day off! So it's a Jim's Saturday!

Good TGIF morning!

Richard, all of the energy planning in the world is easy. If you don't need it turn it off. Your washing machine will do just fine with cold water. The soaps are designed to work fine is water and warm water is more comfortable to stick your hands into but it does not do anything at all to help clean the clothes. Same for the dishwasher. Our new Bosch dishwasher is super quiet but SLOW! It takes 3 hours to do a batch of dishes. It does not use a heater at all to dry the dishes. Just air circulation.

Pete, I rotated the images and lighted them up a little and cropped them a bit.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1470399829.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1470399842.jpg

Just download these if you want a rotated image that will post properly.

The iPhone has a very goofy and stupid way of rotating images. The images you posted opened fine into Photoshop and did not need rotating. Just saving them back out in Photoshop does some magic to make them look right.

And congratulations to granny and grandpa and the proud parents.

Ooooooh, pretty

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1470400884.jpg

I'm just kind of leary as to how much gas it used daily vs how much the specs say it will need to heat the tank of water up.

Went to stay with a friend a week before he got married. He was out of work and living a cheaply as possible. He had the water heater turned off to save money. If he wanted a hot shower he went to a gym. That's way too inconvenient for me besides a gym membership for taking hot showers including travel expenses back then was either the same or more expensive than just running the water heater. He always ended up taking too long to get ready to go anywhere so there wasn't time to hit the gym, so I ended up taking very quick cold showers.

He also kept his thermostat at 85°F in the hottest part of summer. Told me I needed to drink a lot of water to keep from dehydrating. I had to sneak into the hall and turn down the thermostat to be able to sleep. First thing I woke up had to turn it back up. It was miserable. He did comment that it was really getting nice a cool at nights so he didn't miss the A/C at all. Just said I slept great once it cooled off. During the day the cold showers actually felt good. It was just all the sweating in between.

After he got married, that all changed. House temp went to 68°F and water tank 150°F. Had to actually use a blanket to sleep when staying there, and had to be careful not to burn myself taking a shower.