Enjoying the hot tub in peace

Device: Pool Heater
Make: Hot Springs
Model: Prodigy
Estimated Savings:

I was concerned that my hot tub was driving up my electricity costs, and this concern led me to purchase Sense. I had previously quit using the hot tub and drained it, which led to any number of problems when it froze during the winter. I spent several hundred dollars replacing parts to get it back up and running, and now that Sense has found it I see that it actually wasn’t costing me that much money after all! I’m now using (and enjoying!) the hot tub without worrying about excessive cost, and I’m seeking out the real energy hogs in the house.

TV turned on randomly when not home

Device: TV
Make:
Model:
Estimated Savings:

I noticed sense showing a TV on, when nobody was home and I was sure it was off when we left. Turns out part of my home automation system was periodically checking on devices which caused my TV to power on. It then stayed on until the default sleep timer of 2 hours hit!

Pool pump replacement saves big on electricity

Device: Pool Pump
Make: Pentair
Model: Intellipro
Estimated Savings:

Living in Florida my pool pump runs 365 days a year. With Sense I was about to see that the new pump that was installed just before I bought the house was consuming over 2,300 watts. This pump operates for 8 hours a day, so it was the largest consumer of electricity after my three large heat pumps.

Sense got me to kick out my renter; Saved my life

Device: Oven
Make:
Model:
Estimated Savings:

My roommate (he / his) had been renting a room off me for about a year. He moved in with me 3 days after I bought my house, so I’ve never actually seen what a “normal” electric bill should look like.

After I received a $450 electric bill in the mail I bought Sense. I installed it myself, and Sense went right to work!

After about a week I realized that my roommate had sometimes been getting high, then in a case of the munchies, preheating the oven, and then passing out. Subsequently leaving the oven on and falling asleep overnight (GASP 😶) I was very….. Displeased with this.

So he was given one last chance, which he broke the next night, when he turned the stove, on put his food on, and went upstairs to his room to play Xbox, I noticed it when the smoke alarms went off, he didn’t. (there was a smoke alarm, going off, IN HIS ROOM).

Being quite upset 😡 I threw his food out the window and shut the stove off. He came down half an hour later (after his game) and was confused that the food he had left burning on the stove was missing. I asked him why he left the stove on unsupervised, and his response to this day astonishes me! He said “cooking isn’t something that needs supervision.” (In case you didn’t know, cooking **IS** something that needs supervision)

His lease was then terminated.

So by leaving the 8,000 Watt oven on overnight it would effectively double my power bill for the week. Doing so 5 times in a week would be the same as 1 month of regular usage!

His rent sure wasn’t covering an extra $400 per month.

So not only has Sense saved $4,800 per year. It has also helped to remove a dangerous Fire Hazard (renter) from probably burning down my house as I lay sleeping in it. I have no problem saying, Sense has literally saved my life.

Costly baseboard heating

Device: Other Heater
Make:
Model:
Estimated Savings:

Last winter my electric bill was astronomical, almost $700/month. I discovered nearly $200 was coming from the electric baseboards in the basement. I was so excited to solve that and ripped them all out. Right now I’m just running a space heater to keep the place warm, but I will be installing a heat pump.

“Fast Start” mode is expensive!

Device: TV
Make: Hisense
Model: 50R7050E
Estimated Savings:

My Hisense TV consumes ~30W more in “fast start” mode vs. not in fast start. I had no idea the difference would be so large! The main benefit to Fast Start, besides saving a few seconds when turning it on, is being able to reliably turn the TV on via my iPhone’s Roku app… the realization that this was costing me ~$5/mo made me realize I’d be better of just using the regular remote!

Fridges gone wild!

Device: Fridge
Make:
Model:
Estimated Savings:

I have 3 refrigerators in my house. One is a kitchen sized fridge/freezer and the other two are smaller wine-cooler style fridges. It was surprising to compare the energy usage of these fridges. The kitchen fridge is an Energy Star rated unit and Sense showed that it is continually cycling on and off. The others are less efficient. Sense made me think about these fridges. Are they operating efficiently? Are they energy hogs? Do I even need them all? I put a temperature probe in each fridge and was shocked to discover that the temperatures were all over the map. The fridge part of one of the smaller units was at 32F (freezing!), and the kitchen one was way too warm (42F). Over a period of a few days I was able to set the temperatures correctly to a recommended 37F. While it’s not easy to estimate how much energy this will save, I now know that these fridges are at the correct temperature. Sense made me think about how efficient everything in my house is. I’d never questioned the temperature of my fridges before.

Water heater standby costs

Device: Water Heater
Make:
Model:
Estimated Savings:

In March I concluded that a timed water heater 12 hours On/Off saved 6.25 KwH per month.

I have also calculated that my cost to heat water is 1.3606 cents per gallon

Air handler fan wastes energy

Device: Heat Pump
Make:
Model:
Estimated Savings:

Sense saved me about $500 the first day it was installed.

Even before Sense had identified any devices, I started looking around for devices that might be wasting energy. We’d just replaced our HVAC system with an energy-efficient air source heat pump system and were looking forward to realizing savings over our old oil heat and AC units. I discovered that the air handler fan for the upstairs was set to constantly run at medium speed. Using the Sense app I discovered that this was using about 450W just moving air around. It being Spring, there was no heat or cooling needed in the house. I switched the fan off and saw a dramatic drop in power usage. Without Sense, I would never have known that this so-called energy-efficient system was wasting so much energy! While I have a long way to go, Sense has given me the information I needed to take charge of excessive energy usage in my home. The fan is now set to Auto mode, and although it’s still using energy, it’s far less than the 450W if was using at constant medium speed.

Low Power TV is not so low power.

Device: TV
Make: Sony
Model: XBR-65X900E
Estimated Savings:

The combination of my Sense and a TP Link HS110 made me aware of how much power my TV actually uses in idle. Spec is 0.5w, but in practice, it is actually more like 18w spiking up to 35w several times a day when checking for updates.

I have the TV set to “Eco” mode, but it seems even in that mode, it still stays in a “Fast start” mode so that Android TV doesn’t have to cold boot every time, so it stays in a warm state pulling more than the suggested .5w