Conservation

Our project was to conserve energy in twenty homes- including our own. We found our participants by asking people we already knew seeing as they were the most convenient people to ask and also the most willing to help.

Our goal is to reduce the amount of energy by minimizing consumption.

 These items included: 

1. a Flyer explaining the project
2. a pre-project Survey
3. a directions sheet
4. a post-project Survey2

The packet also included contact information so that our group could act as a resource to the participating families.

We asked the families to:

• Turn off lights and large inactive appliances when they leave the room
• Unplug small inactive appliances
• Use sleep timers on TVs

We plan on comparing the energy bill of September (without any changes) to the October bill (after changes).

Once the project began, we made sure to keep in contact with the families in order to ensure that they were following the rules. During this time, not much work on the project could be completed because we were waiting for the results.

After collecting all of our data, between the twenty houses, we have formed a chart displaying the results of our conservation project by the fluctuation in the household’s bills.

We immediately noticed that not all of the participating households had saved money. This could have been caused by numerous factors:

• Daylight Savings (Lights on longer- gets darker quicker)
• Turning on heat
• Sales tax
• Inability to follow our instructions
• Fluctuation in energy costs

In total, the homes saved $260.86. We were happy to see that our project was successful and the majority of the houses did see a decrease in their bills.

We have decided to highlight three of the houses that stood out the most. The homes were all located in Wisconsin.

                         House 17

  House 17 showed the biggest decline in their energy bill from September to October. They saved a total of $46.40. This house was dedicated to following the rules, especially unplugging all appliances. The appliances included televisions and lamps. This house also kept their computer turned off and utilized computers at different locations. 

                             House 15                                                                                                                     

House 15 had a higher energy bill in October then they did in September. This home spent $29.00 more than the previous month. The factors that contributed to this gain included the home turning on the heat and not following the rules

                   House 9

 House 9 is an extremely unique household for our experiment. This house did not see a significant decrease from September to October; however, from October 2007 to October 2008 a big difference was noted. This difference is due to the fact that the home received all brand new energy star appliances. The appliances included refrigerator, stove, front load washer, and dishwasher. This home also changed their old light bulbs to florescent ones. The total average daily kWh went from 114.4 kWH in October 2007 to 39.8 kWH in October 2008.

Over the duration of this project, we learned a lot. We were surprised to see the amount of change that we were able to accomplish in a home. We believe that once the four of us get to the point in our lives where we have our own homes that we will be able to apply these factors in our experiment to our houses. We also know the amount of money and energy that can be saved with energy-star appliances and could consider getting such appliances in our homes.

The successful households were extremely happy with the results and plan to continue following the tips we provided at the beginning of the project. The homes that saw a gain in their bill plan to evaluate what they are doing wrong and try to improve in order to conserve more energy.

Overall, we enjoyed doing this project and loved working with the families. We are still contemplating numerous other ways to reduce, reuse, and recycle in order to accomplish a more Green Earth!!

Our project is a long term one and our results are not in yet, but we each have delivered our surveys to our 5 chosen homes and it is a work in progress. We did not have problems with finding different homes, many of us went to either family members or neighbors. They were all willingly to participate in our energy conservation project.

As stated in our first blog update, we have three different experiments in conserving energy: unplugging appliances that are not in use, turning off lights when not using them, and using sleep timers on tvs. When our results are in it will give us a variety of different solutions to saving energy in homes, and if one doesn’t work we have another to fall back on. It will be interesting to see what succeeded and if the predictions we made were right. We have also been up to date with our households and know that they are doing what we asked of them for the month of October. We were surprised by how dedicated the households were and how they practiced what we told them for the month of October in their homes.

I can say from the five homes I have choosed to present this project with, one home recieved a statement of their bill from last October, and the bill showed a significant decrease of amount of energy used, also price decreased too. Though there are many factors that played a role into the decrease of the energy bill, such as they recently got new appliances, and put in fluorescent lights. I think we can use this in our final report and show how using eco friendly appliances and using fluorescent lights make a huge difference with conserving energy.

So, basically we have not recieved much information yet on the progress of our experiments, but next week we will have all our information in and we will be able to see what worked and what did not. There is not much new information to tell about the project, but we believe it will be a success and will show what little things you can do in homes to save on the amount of energy it is producing.

-Amanda Klabunde

Our group has been working on a plan for our project. We have decided to attempt to conserve energy in twenty homes. The participants were selected from people we already know. Our own homes are included in the twenty. We have created a small packet for the homes to help them along the way.

This packet includes:
-a Flyer explaining the project
-a pre-project Survey
-a directions sheet
-a post-project Survey2

The packet will act as a reference guide to the homes. We have included contact information in case the homes have questions regarding the project.

For the month of September, no changes will be made in the homes. We will look at the home’s September statement to get a baseline along with giving the family a brief survey. We are giving the households a few minor changes to work on in order to conserve energy.

These changes include:
-Turning off lights & appliances when leaving a room
-Using sleep timers on TVs at night
-Unplugging inactive appliances

We believe that these few minor changes will help conserve energy. Most often, small things like these are what people fail to do on a regular basis.

The four of us are currently reaching out to the homes and helping them understand the project. We will be taking pictures of the home and evaluating each home’s scenario.

We are all extremely excited to see the results of our hard work. Until the next update, we will be reviewing the surveys we receive from the homes and predicting which home will conserve the most energy.

-Jamie West

So far our project seems to be fairly organized and I think we will be able to get good results from our households. We are each going to 5 homes and are going to guide the homeowners to practice conserving energy. My plan is to educate the homeowners on what to do in order to conserve energy and show them how much money they can save in the long wrong, and by their participation, they are able to contribute in downsizeing the amount of energy that is used in everyday life. I plan on telling my households to unplug anything that is not in use. Such as cell phone charger/other chargers, lamps, radios, computers, printers, coffee maker, tv, toaster. I am anxious to see the outcome and be able to see how much money unplugging things saves homeowners. I am doing a variety of the sizes of the homes, to get a comparison of large homes, to medium, and small, there will be pictures of these houses and I will post them on the blog.The only thing I am a little worried about is that people may forget to do these things, due to it is not in their normal routine.  Jamie made up suveys that we are each going to give to each household to update them on what we are doing, and what the cause is for, so they do not feel like we are just barging in. We will be focusing on the month of October and getting their energy bills from the previous month, September, and then comparing it to Octobers bill that has the experiement in place. We will then in the end join together and compare our results and see if anything was achieved.

Amanda Klabunde

Our group contains four members:

Amanda Klabunde
Brittany Olson
Kathryn Smith
Jamie West

Together, we plan on reducing the amount of energy consumed in twenty homes.