Dual Flush Toilet Conversion

The rains finally seem to have stopped for the summer. This winter was an El Niño year, which helped make up for the previous years of drought. But that means that it's time to get ready for fire season, so I've been busy pulling blackberries and weed-whacking the yard. Each year usually gets a little easier, but this year the growth has been above normal with all the rain we've gotten.

I took a break from that to fix the toilet in the original bathroom. It's a 1.6 GPF toilet that I installed some years back that's worked fairly well. Lately the fill valve sometimes doesn't shut off, which can waste a large amount of water if it goes unnoticed. I decided to replace the flush mechanism at the same time with a dual flush conversion kit.

I saw a similar product at West Coast Green last year, then saw them install one on Ask This Old House. On the HydroRight website they claim it can be installed without tools in 5 to 10 minutes. That's true, though it requires a pencil and a measuring bucket plus a few minutes to calibrate for optimal water usage.

Replacing the fill valve with their HydroClean valve took a little longer, though not much. The hardest part was removing the old fill valve and required a wrench. Installing the new one was very easy. The nut to attach the new valve underneath is even self-calibrating: you just turn it until it clicks once or twice, and it's properly tightened.

My only concern is the long-term durability of the valve and flush mechanism. They seem well designed, but they're all plastic. That's pretty common for toilet parts these days, but does give me pause. The manufacturer, MJSI, offers a 5 year warranty on both, though hopefully it will last longer than that.

enjoying the sun

As usual, Star was unimpressed. She was too busy enjoying the warmth and sunshine.






Hey, FTC! I didn't receive any thing in exchange for this review. Though I'd be happy to if MJSI wants to give me something :-)

Home Energy Efficiency

blower door

Greetings if you're coming from Jetson Green! An article of mine on home energy efficiency was just published there. I had a home energy audit done recently and wrote about the results. In short it was well worth doing. For DIYer types, it includes links to some useful docs on the Energy Star website for better sealing your home.

power usage: first observations from PowerMeter

We've started getting data from the TED 5000 and Google PowerMeter. They display the same data, but in different ways. The TED 5000 web page gives more detailed info, but PowerMeter makes it easier to compare your current usage with past usage.

First, let's look at a fairly typical day's usage in PowerMeter:

In the wee hours of the morning, you can see a regular spike about every hour or so. That's the refrigerator coming on. Around 6:30AM you can see the radiant heat in the bathroom coming on, lights, the coffee maker, etc.

The other thing of note is the darker green band at the bottom. That's the "always on" power consumption I mentioned last time. It's only about 85 watts, but since it's always on, that adds up -- over 2kWH per day, which is more than 20% of the 9.7kWH per day we averaged last billing cycle. With our other source of info, the Kill-a-Watt, I've found about 25 of the 85 watts so far. Unfortunately nothing in that 25 is easy to get rid of, but I'll keep checking to find the other 60 and see what I can eliminate.

Now let's move to a less typical day -- laundry day:

Note that the scale has been stretched from 0-1.5kW up to 0-5kW. That's because running an electric dryer causes a huge increase in power consumption. You can see the dryer running for two loads, plus a little secondary run after each to get rid of the last bit of dampness. This is a big vote for line drying your clothes to save energy. It takes longer than just throwing everything in the dryer, but clearly can save a bunch of power consumption since the sun is free.

For more detail about power consumption, you can also view the TED 5000 web page for your device:

There's a live dashboard that shows your current power consumption, power used since midnight, etc. You can also view historical data. But the most useful is the graphing tab, which lets you see your energy consumption in near real-time, with more detail than the PowerMeter gadget shows. You can click on the graph to show the power consumption at any given time on the graph; that's how I determined the "always on" power was about 85 watts. The fourth tab allows you to set up load profiles when certain equipment comes on. My first trial with that wasn't very successful, but I'm going to try again to profile the refrigerator and some other appliances.

So we haven't saved any energy yet, but we've got a lot more data about how to go about doing that now. Some of it, like line drying clothes is even pretty easy to do (at least when the weather permits) -- no fancy gadgets required.

I got the power!

Google PowerMeter widget

Actually, we got the Google PowerMeter. K is a technical writer for Google and we're now the proud owners of a TED5000 and using PowerMeter.

There was a control period where we weren't seeing the data, but now that's passed we'll be able to use the PowerMeter to figure out more of our electrical usage. We haven't had data long enough to get much yet, but one thing is clear already: we should try to reduce our "always on" power. It's not super high, but well, it's always on, so it adds up. I was trying to think of everything that contributes to that:

• thermostat
• water heater thermostat
• various clocks
• DSL modem
• router
• microwave (clock)
• TV
• cordless phones
  
• assorted wall warts

The TV is EnergyStar rated so hopefully doesn't draw much when off, but it's probably non-zero. The water heater is a gas-fired on demand heater which has circuitry to decide when it needs to come on. In any event, between the PowerMeter and our Kill-A-Watt we should be able to figure out what's using power and cut back some.

Installing the TED5000 was fairly simple, but it does require opening your electrical service panel and attaching clamps over the main feed wires. It was a little tricky to get it to fit and still get the panel closed, but not too bad. Google and TED recommend hiring an electrician for the hookup, but given I've run most of the circuits in the house, I felt comfortable doing it myself.

TED dashboard

I'll be posting more as I figure things out. Much of it should be applicable to your electrical usage, too.

Go Green for Less

As I've written about before, better insulation and sealing of houses are the low-hanging fruit of energy-efficient homes. There's a nice article over at the NY Times titled Focus on Weatherization Is Shift on Energy Costs. It's shocking how much waste there is. Our house here in California had no insulation when I moved in. Todd over at Home Construction Improvement recently blogged about his first home in New England(!!) not having any insulation. Insulating your walls might cost a bit if done all at once, but it's easy to do if you've got a wall open for some other project. It just makes sense to make efficient use of the resources we've got before investing in higher-priced improvements like new windows and solar panels. From the NY Times article:

Correct those flaws, and heating and cooling costs are typically cut by 20 percent to 30 percent, a saving of more than $1,000 annually in some households. In addition, carbon dioxide emissions and the strain on the national electric and gas systems are reduced.

Typical repairs require expertise but generally cost $2,000 or less.

Save money, save energy and have a more comfortable house. What's not to like?