Hi everyone. My name is Steve.
I few quick notes about myself. I live in South Carolina. I'm a computer service tech/network engineer by trade. I have been in the field for 18 years. My degree is in data processing(programming). Remember that was 18 years ago and I have written very few programs since.
I got interested in alternate energy a few years ago and have been reading this board regularly for the last year or so. As the prices go up, my interest gets even stronger. I am an incessant tinkerer and prefer to do as much for myself as possible. In this part of the country as most highly populated areas, that's almost unheard of. You just take it to somebody or hire somebody.
I don't really have a good wind area around here at all. Our annual wind rating stinks. My best bet is solar or a generator or both. I have been interested in solar for years but the cost has always stopped me from making much of an effort to do anything with it. Now tha the cost of inverters has dropped considerably over the prices a few years ago, I am again thinking about something along those lines.
I have already replaced all of my lights with CF bulbs. I noticed about a 40% savings on my power bill the next month. Happily, I can say the results have been consistant since then. I replaced an old air conditioner with a new one. Again, I saw a good drop in power consumption due to this even during out 95 deg. summer days. I have bumped up the thermostat from 72 to 75 for cooling. Very little noticeable difference and noticeable power requirement difference. Replaced 20 year old water heater last month. Energy guide sticker was almost $200 less per year to operate than the one on the old heater.
Many phantom loads have been eliminated.
My power bill is consistently 50% less. Around $50 to $60 per month. (26 to 28 kwh per day) Hopefully, I can get this down some more. Have to convince the better half that the TV set does indeed have an off button and was not designed to run 24/7 and get her to turn off lights when not needed.
With a well shaded 1 acre lot and one whiney neighbor, it doesn't look like it will be all that easy to get off grid here but I might be able to help some.
Anyway, enough about me. I look forward to reading many more very interesting posts on the board.
