What's A Good Way To Cut Energy Costs?

[KevTransAm]

Anybody have little tricks here and there to improve the cost of overhead llike electric and heating costs?

[fluffy]

Yeah, why don't you move from the United States of America to Panama...then you could keep the doors open all day and use the ambient light from the beach sand reflections.

[MyLaundry]

Consider using solar energy in your store. That should help you save a lot of utilities expense.

[Jim]

Kev....Where are you located???....you have it set at USA...kinda hard to answer your question without knowing where your at...

[Anonymous]

Tell me more about the use of SOLAR ENERGY in a laundry.

[ajay]

check out the back issue of journal magazine. There was a article on a laundromat owner who went Solar. I believe the ROI was 10 years.

[srhaz]

I'm looking into this......

Solar powered ceiling fans

http://www.survivalunlimited.com/ceilingfans.htm
Tell them you saw their link on Coinwash.com

[Andy]

1. insulate your hot water tank, place a timer on the burner unit as well,
2. dial up/down your hvac system at night if you are closed,
3. place blinds or tint your southern facing windows in the summer,
4. repair water leaks.

[pete f]

Andy is right!
To recap, timer on hot water heater,
TIMERS on HVAC
Timers on lights
use the small bulbs ie, T-12? the skinny ones.
water leaks I know you guys are on top of....

[Gary C]

I just go info on third party gas purchasing I will let you know how that goes. They say I can save 15-20%

Gary

[Andy]

Or you could do as the guy I bought my mat from did. He turned on only half of the lights at one time and he started closing early so as not to run up the energy consumption. I know closing early was quite effective for him at cutting to costs I just don't know why he didn't go to the next level like only opening for three or four hours a day!

[MichaelCa]

i hear closing 24 hours a day is a dramatic cost-cutter !


LIGHT BULBS: you want to swap out all your fluorescent T-12's AND their magnetic ballasts, and change to T-8's with electronic ballasts.
The cost to do so is VERY cheap: electronic ballast for twin troughs is $15. T-8 bulbs are almost same price as T-12.
Note: you are NOT changing the actual fixture.

The energy savings? HALF.
Do it.

[KevTransAm]

Located in Jersey.

As for putting the water heater on timer, what's up with that...Doesn't the Water Heater go on as needed..Seems like putting that on a timer might actually leave you with cold water when you need hot...


Thanks for the replies!

[Anonymous]

You are half correct. You have a themostat that controls water temperature, and when the temperature drops the water heater will fire up to give you hot water. The concept of the timer is to prevent this from happening at night when you are closed. The idea is to just let the water sit and not fire up the burner when there is no usage. Thus, when the timer comes on the unit will only fire once rather than many times during the night. If you have good insulation this won't save you much money. If you don't have insulation than this might save you some $$

[KevTransAm]

Thanks, Now I get it...I guess I was thinking in terms of a 24 hour place..But thats a good idea.

[Andy]

I have my boiler on a timer not only to stop the burner from lighting at 3am but also because I have a circulation pump that runs constantly even when the burner is not on, so I do also save some small amount of energy here when the system is shut-down.

[mjwalsh]

Last summer we used a heat exchanger that was part of an obsolete AO SMITH Hot Water Unit for our version of air conditioning. A radiator in good shape could work too.

The project consisted of a Stainless Grundfos 1/6 HP circulating pump, some copper pipe, several ball valves, 2 relays & a shell from a no longer used hanging gas space heater with a fan etc. It has 2 temperature sensors so the fan does not come on if it doesn't do any good.

This may not work for everyone. We happen to have less than 55 degree temperature water coming in which is an important factor. We also have a car wash so the water tends to keep flowing all the time. I would think W/D/F people could make sure the water keeps flowing too though or even just a fairly busy laundromat by itself.

We did not notice any added humidity like what I have heard swamp coolers can add. We had almost no problem whatsoever from condensation & it definitely did a lot of good.

Mike Walsh from North Dakota