PG&E offered my uncle a free lighting upgrade for the shops at the orchard. It took him about 6 months to get them out there to install the lights, but last week they came and installed them, Free! they replaced the existing sodium lights with flourecent. Its a great improvment since the old lights have been there since the 80s, and they took forever to warm up. We'll see how it efects the power bill, but its suppose to be a pretty good savings.

__________________

I think he is going to be pleasantly surprised!

__________________

1980 300TD-China Blue/Blue MBTex-2nd Owner, 107K (Alt Blau) OBK #15
'06 Chevy Tahoe Z71 (for the wife & 4 kids, current mule) '03 Honda Odyssey (son #1's ride, reluctantly) '99 GMC Suburban (255K+ miles, semi-retired mule) 21' SeaRay Seville (summer escape pod)

My residential oil-to-gas boiler conversion would have had a 6-7 year payback, and that's with oil going up past $4. I'm still staying with oil for now.

In your case it makes prefectly good sense due to the space you're managing. What's heating the tap water?

__________________
1985 380SE Blue/Blue - 230,000 miles
2012 Subaru Forester 5-speed
2005 Toyota Sienna
2004 Chrysler Sebring convertible
1999 Toyota Tacoma

Currently the only gas unit in the building, a gas HWH. Which is in the boiler room on the opposite end of the building. Now that we'll had the gas lines running throughout I'd like to go with an on-demand one right near the bathrooms. Really no sense in heating the water 24 hrs. a day for an 8 hr. work day. Especially when peak usage is that 10 minute span at breaks, before they go to lunch and before they leave for the day. Definitely less hot water with everyone washing their hands than probably one decent length shower at home.

__________________

1980 300TD-China Blue/Blue MBTex-2nd Owner, 107K (Alt Blau) OBK #15
'06 Chevy Tahoe Z71 (for the wife & 4 kids, current mule) '03 Honda Odyssey (son #1's ride, reluctantly) '99 GMC Suburban (255K+ miles, semi-retired mule) 21' SeaRay Seville (summer escape pod)

Yup, the problem is that you can't do the calculation if energy costs aren't predictable. As it is, these cost can vary by about 50 percent in one year. The problem is multiplied if you are looking at a large investment for "alternate" power (i.e., spending 10s of millions to develop a wind farm).

First, it should be dated 5/10/11.

'09-'10 was when the conversion took place so there was some oil use as well as natural gas. We used up all of the fuel in the tank while they tested the gas units so that we always had a heat source.

Obviously, it's tough to nail down a moving target. But bottom line, we'll spend about $12K on gas by the time we shut the furnaces down for the season which is a saving of $28K+ over the last full year of oil heat in '08-'09 and a savings of $33K+ over the '07-'09 average. We're on pace for a 2.3 year ROI for the complete project cost which included the old oil tank removal. Before we started we were hoping <5 years. And there is some room for efficiency improvement with window and overhead door replacement.

If you're a business owner, don't overlook your energy and heating expenses when looking to bolster your bottom line. That savings almost covered the cost of an employee (well, without benefits).

__________________

1980 300TD-China Blue/Blue MBTex-2nd Owner, 107K (Alt Blau) OBK #15
'06 Chevy Tahoe Z71 (for the wife & 4 kids, current mule) '03 Honda Odyssey (son #1's ride, reluctantly) '99 GMC Suburban (255K+ miles, semi-retired mule) 21' SeaRay Seville (summer escape pod)

Solar tubes can work exeptionally well in certain applications. My father in law just installed some in his house and in a couple of instances no longer needs to turn on a lights in rooms. Of course he's in Tucson. Your mileage may vary depending on locatoin and weather.

- Peter.

__________________
2021 Chevrolet Spark
Formerly...
2000 GMC Sonoma
1981 240D 4spd stick. 347000 miles. Deceased Feb 14 2021
2002 Kia Rio. Worst crap on four wheels
1981 240D 4spd stick. 389000 miles.
1984 123 200
1979 116 280S
1972 Cadillac Sedan DeVille
1971 108 280S

If you want the electricity supply to decrease - the EPA is on that like white on rice =)

I think its call 'clean air transport' rules are about to shut down a number of older coal-fired powerplants (or, at least make them economically unfeasable to run) in the next few years.

Nobody's house is gonna go dark because of this, but it will take away some of our excess generating capacity.

__________________
2009 Kia Sedona
2009 Honda Odyssey EX-L
12006 Jetta Pumpe Duse
(insert Mercedes here)

Husband, Father, sometimes friend =)

I'm still thinking they may be a viable option for us since we're only open during daylight hours. The lights would theoretically only be needed on rainy/snowy/cloudy days and around 4:00 during the winter. We do have some skylights but because of the greenhouse effect in the summer we end up covering them. The tubes do minimize that.

We haven't completely given up on solar electricity yet. Due to our proximity to Hartford, we don't qualify for many of the programs available (they're based on population density and we're considered Greater Hartford even though our pop. is <26,000). We did have a consultant come out last week to take some measurements and he is going to come up with a plan for us.

__________________

1980 300TD-China Blue/Blue MBTex-2nd Owner, 107K (Alt Blau) OBK #15
'06 Chevy Tahoe Z71 (for the wife & 4 kids, current mule) '03 Honda Odyssey (son #1's ride, reluctantly) '99 GMC Suburban (255K+ miles, semi-retired mule) 21' SeaRay Seville (summer escape pod)