Taking energy conservation seriously -- some success stories

As an exciting conclusion to Energy Conservation Week, the Town of Orangeville and Orangeville Hydro would like to highlight some success stories with respect to energy conservation. The success stories will feature an Orangeville resident who has taken some innovative steps to reduce energy consumption in his home, the Town of Orangeville's energy study and facility retrofits, and Sanoh Canada's recent energy initiatives.

Resident

Rob Strang is an Orangeville resident who has taken numerous steps to make his lifestyle and his home more energy efficient.  He installed a new high efficiency natural gas furnace with a direct drive DC motor for the fan, which he found decreased his electricity bill by about 20 percent.  His family purchased a new front loading washing machine which uses less water, and the washer has a high speed spin cycle, which spins more water out of the clothes, so they dry faster.  He replaced his family's stove-top whistling kettle with an insulated plug in kettle that automatically shuts off when the water is boiling. They also try to only fill it with the amount of water that they will need for tea or coffee, so excess energy isn't used.

The Strang family replaced their dishwasher with an Energy Star dishwasher and they only run it when it is full -- most of the time with the heat cycle turned off. They are starting to use the delay wash feature to clean the dishes after 9 p.m., past the peak demand period.  They constructed well insulated dormers with high efficiency windows on the south side of the house to let more light in during the day, taking advantage of sunlight for light and heat, and making those rooms much more appealing.

Mr. Strang is having a mud room/vestibule constructed on the back of his home, which will have a heater in the floor, on a timer, to dry out boots and clothes, but otherwise the room will have marginal heat. The room will reduce outside air that comes in during winter as people come in and out of the house. It also has 2x6-inch insulated stud walls and the foundation walls have foam insulation on the outside to reduce heat loss from the basement. When Mr. Strang refinished his basement he installed foam insulation against the outside walls, and replaced two old outside doors with insulated, tight-fitting ones.

The family uses compact fluorescent lights in high use lighting areas, and although not purchased for energy savings, they use laptops (which use less energy) rather than desktop computers.  Some simple changes Mr. Strang and his family have discovered: they put lids on their pots of water when heating them to a boil, they turn off lights when no one is in the room, and they use a programmable thermostat which turns the heat down at night.

Government

Also profiled are the changes that have already been completed resulting from the Ainsworth Energy Audit on Town of Orangeville buildings. The Town has undertaken a comprehensive retrofit at seven Town-owned facilities. The project will be fully completed by July of this year. The total annual savings from the project, once completed, is projected to be $211,844 in utility costs. Plus the retrofit project will save a total of 1,116,442 kWh of electricity and 196,584 cubic metres of natural gas annually.

There have been envelope sealing measures completed on the Orangeville Town Hall, the Public Library, Tony Rose Memorial Sports Centre, Orangeville Fire Hall, the Orangeville Hydro Building and the Public Works Operation Centre.  Building envelope sealing measures entail sealing gaps in joints between the walls, and ceilings and floors.  They also include window caulking and outer door weather stripping.

The exit lights in the Town Hall building have all been changed to LED (light-emitting diode) lights, which use up to 97 percent less electricity than incandescent light bulbs. The lights in the Public Library have been retrofitted to replace the old inefficient magnetic ballast T12 fluorescent lighting system with a high efficiency, electronic ballast T8 bulb system. This type of lighting system was also installed in the Orangeville Hydro building as well as the Tony Rose Memorial Sports Centre.  The existing heating boiler plant (in the Tony Rose Memorial Sports Centre and the Alder Street Recreation Centre) were upgraded to a new high efficiency boiler and domestic hot water heat exchanger for ice making.  At the Alder Street Recreation Centre the installation of new Low E Ceilings in both of the red and green rinks has been completed.

Business

Finally, there are many businesses in Orangeville that have completed energy efficient retrofits to their businesses.  Last summer there were a number of small businesses that were visited by Reduce the Juice and many chose to upgrade their lighting systems, when they learned how it would reduce costs and carbon emissions.

 Sanoh Canada has completed a number of retrofits in their facility over the past year, after having an audit completed to determine where they could conserve electricity and save money at the same time.  They have replaced 230 of their 240 HID lights with high efficiency T5's. On their compressor, they reduced the air pressure to 115 psig from 123 psig. They also increased the compressor set point differential from 3psi to 4-5 psi.  Sanoh Canada is still planning on taking more steps towards energy conservation, including repairing a number of air leaks in some equipment.

Concluding Energy Conservation Week with success stories is a great way to show how businesses and residents of Orangeville are becoming more aware of how important energy conservation is to all of us.  If any residents or businesses would like to demonstrate what steps they have taken to conserve energy or use it more efficiently, please email Orangeville Hydro's Conservation Co-ordinator at aproctor@orangevillehydro.on.ca.

For more information on energy conservation and events that have occurred across the province visit http://www.energyconservationweek.ca/.

• Posted: Friday, May 30, 2008
• From: Communications