Illuminati-R-Us

Мастер wrote:The picture I have is of Ivan in Murmansk scratching his head, wondering, I installed all these high efficiency light bulbs; why is my energy bill the same as before?

Might that happen?

This was our case, being on electric furnace. For the winter anyway.
If we had A/C we may have used it a bit more in the summer due to the extra heat from the incandescents.

Here's a free way to save on some heat though. I've noticed when I open the lid on the garbage bin in the kitchen, there is detectable heat in there. Just have to figure out how to extract it.

In my ancient house in the country, for a while we had a HUGE garden and did all manner of hippie living off the land stuff. The garden required starting plants early to be transplanted after frost ended. ALong the south side of the house, I built a lean-to greenhouse. It had 2x6 frame pieces and was 20 feet long, and the bottom stood out 10 feet from the wall. I covered it in clear plastic inside and out. ON a sunny day it got darn warm in there. Easy to grow tomato sets and whatnot in there. it covered the window to the bathroom, and also a door into the kitchen and basement stair.

I put a 16" window fan in the bathroom window blowing in, and left the door open. On even the coldest day - and I mean cold like 10 degrees F - the heat from that add-on kept the home furnace from coming on at all. Even on cloudy days, it still made heat. On cold nights, I could close the door and window. If we had plants in there, we could leave the fan going, and we still had a net reduction in home heating. The dual layer plastic sheeting provided enough insulation with the 6" space between layers that it did not get too cold out there.

Enzo wrote:In my ancient house in the country, for a while we had a HUGE garden and did all manner of hippie living off the land stuff. The garden required starting plants early to be transplanted after frost ended. ALong the south side of the house, I built a lean-to greenhouse. It had 2x6 frame pieces and was 20 feet long, and the bottom stood out 10 feet from the wall. I covered it in clear plastic inside and out. ON a sunny day it got darn warm in there. Easy to grow tomato sets and whatnot in there. it covered the window to the bathroom, and also a door into the kitchen and basement stair.

I put a 16" window fan in the bathroom window blowing in, and left the door open. On even the coldest day - and I mean cold like 10 degrees F - the heat from that add-on kept the home furnace from coming on at all. Even on cloudy days, it still made heat. On cold nights, I could close the door and window. If we had plants in there, we could leave the fan going, and we still had a net reduction in home heating. The dual layer plastic sheeting provided enough insulation with the 6" space between layers that it did not get too cold out there.

Holy crap, that’s a pretty persuasive argument for passive solar.

We don’t have 10 F here. We don’t even have 10 C!

Oh passive solar heat is tremendous. Especially if you can close it off during dark hours. Without getting into it, a simple window box on a slope allows convection to circulate the heat, and at night the cooler air settles into it so it doesn't put out any cool air into the house.