Episode Transcript
[00:00:04] Speaker A: Welcome to the weekend warriors home improvement show, built by bar lumber. When it comes to big or small projects around the home, Tony and Cory have got the know how and the answers to make your life just a bit easier. Here they are, your weekend warriors, Tony and Cory.
Tony, how much is your electric bill?
[00:00:28] Speaker B: It's a.
I feel like it's more than I should be paying.
[00:00:33] Speaker A: Yeah, it probably is. And part of that would be what?
Saving energy.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Well, it's all of the. It's the money that I'm spending heating my home. The money that I'm spending doing all of the things inside the home that I do. All of that. It's the money I'm spending with lights on and all of that. Yeah.
[00:00:57] Speaker A: Do you ever see those, you ever go appliance shopping and you see those little yellow labels on the appliance that tells you how much the estimated annual energy consumption of that product is?
[00:01:10] Speaker B: I do.
[00:01:11] Speaker A: Do you pay any mind to those?
[00:01:13] Speaker B: I definitely see those labels, and I wonder to myself, there's probably some important information on there.
[00:01:20] Speaker A: It's called an energy guide label, but.
[00:01:23] Speaker B: I'm more worried about the color of the appliance and how sleek it is.
[00:01:28] Speaker A: Avocado green.
[00:01:29] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:01:31] Speaker A: So, yeah, that's. We're going to talk about today. This is the first episode in a series of podcasts where we're going to talk about energy efficiency and how to get there. And the first episode, we're going to talk about appliances, what things to consider when buying energy efficient appliances, because there's a lot involved in it. And we came up with, let's see here, about 15 things. Oh, yeah.
[00:01:58] Speaker B: Not the least of which is pay close attention to the labels on the appliance when you're buying it new can give you some good insight.
[00:02:07] Speaker A: Absolutely.
All right. The number one thing on the list is an energy star certification. You want to look for the energy Star label. It's a government backed symbol indicating that that appliance meets or exceeds the energy efficiency guidelines set forth by the EPA, which is the Environmental Protection Agency. They go through all this testing, and they actually have to meet those guidelines to be energy star. So if you have an energy star appliance, it's going to use the least amount of energy, electricity as possible to cool your food. It's probably going to have more insulation.
[00:02:44] Speaker B: In it at the time that it was manufactured.
[00:02:47] Speaker A: Well, absolutely.
[00:02:47] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:02:48] Speaker A: Things get better. Technology gets better.
[00:02:50] Speaker B: I mean, it is notable if it was energy star when you bought it 20 years ago, it was probably really efficient.
20 years ago, but it's probably less efficient today.
[00:03:00] Speaker A: Well, probably. I mean, more than likely. So here's one of the things. When you're like, for example, for an example, if you buy a refrigerator and you just plug it in, push it into its little slot, and let it run for 20 years, its efficiency level is going to drop because you might not be maintaining it properly.
[00:03:24] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, I mean, there's a lot to be said about a refrigerator. Specifically. A refrigerator oftentimes gets tucked back into a hole. We have cabinets on both sides and over the top because we want the refrigerator to be hidden. Right.
[00:03:40] Speaker A: Want to look cool yet?
[00:03:41] Speaker B: Look cool. And then what happens is we never pay any attention to what's going on behind the fridge. Meanwhile, the fridge is constantly pulling in fresh air, and it's got an engine running in there that's cooling water or cooling the fridge, doing all the stuff that it's doing. And as that pulls fresh air into the coils. To the coils. Yeah. It also pulls all the dust and debris and things that are on the floor around it, and that collects underneath there. And you need to keep that thing clean, because as it gets all bound up and caked in with that stuff, it starts to have to work harder. And the harder it works, then the less life that it will have.
[00:04:25] Speaker A: That's how refrigerant works. It pulls heat out of the air and expels it elsewhere. A refrigerator does that by taking heat out of it, removes heat from inside of the refrigerator, and then exchanges it and pumps it out into the room. So you're not off gassing, but it's putting off heat, but to keep those cool. Yeah. It's running those fans on the inside of that thing. So every so often, pull that thing away, pull it out of its slot, pull it out of the hole, clean underneath it, clean around it, vacuum the coils, and you'll have a better energy efficient appliance for much longer.
[00:05:05] Speaker B: Yeah. I realized I said engine instead of motor.
[00:05:09] Speaker A: When you said engine, I was like, fill it up with gas.
Yeah.
[00:05:14] Speaker B: I have a very high performance refrigerator. It's got a 409 in it.
[00:05:20] Speaker A: Turbo?
[00:05:20] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:05:21] Speaker A: Turbo powered. Yeah.
[00:05:23] Speaker B: I think when I think about energy star ratings on appliances, oftentimes my mind goes to the water heater. A water heater is something that you're always running.
It's always running, it's always heating water, and it's consuming energy to make it do its thing. So having the most efficient water heater is definitely important. And those have a lifespan, by the way.
[00:05:55] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:05:55] Speaker B: What would you say is the average lifespan of a water heater?
[00:06:00] Speaker A: Average? Probably 15 years.
[00:06:02] Speaker B: 15 years. I believe that is also true. 15 years. So if you've got a water heater, which you never look at or pay any attention to, and you might not even know where it's at, if you.
[00:06:13] Speaker A: Haven'T had a problem putting out hot.
[00:06:15] Speaker B: Water, who cares if you haven't had a problem with it? You might not even know where it's at, but it will have to be replaced. And when you replace it, if you replace it with the most efficient water heater that's out there, then you will most definitely save money.
[00:06:30] Speaker A: There are some things with a water heater that are controversial, and I've talked to people that say you should drain them yearly. There's a spigot at the bottom of it, and you attach a hose to it and run the hose outside or run it into whatever, and then open that thing and empty it out, you have to turn the gas off, so it's not heating it, or if it's electric, you have to turn the electricity off to it because it could potentially burn it up. But what's happening is inside of. If you think about a water heater, it's basically a big steel tank with a jacket around it with insulation and then more material around that. And that's just what it's using to insulate the inner tank. And because that thing is made out of steel, they put this rod on the inside of it called the anode rod. Sticks down from the top. It's really long, goes all the way down, and it's made out of a material that is sacrificial. So as water goes in, water is one of those things. A lot of people don't think about having stuff in it. You pour it out of your faucet and you look at it and it looks clear. But in reality, it's full of things, minerals and lots of different things. And some people's water is more minerally than others, right? And they call that hard water. So if you have hard water, you'll know it because you'll get water spots on your shower door. You'll get clogged shower heads. All the things in your house will just get clogged over time because those minerals build up and they create crystals and all of these things. Well, so if you have this water coming into your water heater, you never see it. But what happens is all that stuff, that sediment that comes in there, that rod that gets destroyed over time, purposefully, it settles at the bottom of the tank. So if you look at, if you cut open a water heater, there's these tubes, there's a fill tube and then there's a suction tube. The suction tube will go all the way to the bottom and that's where it pulls the hot water from. And then as you use the water.
[00:08:43] Speaker B: Up, it fills at the top.
[00:08:45] Speaker A: Fills at the top. So the cooler water is at the top and it's warming. So what will happen over time is those tubes will just rot out. They'll get higher and higher and higher and the sediment is sitting in there and the sediment is shortening, making the tank smaller and smaller and smaller physically. So water is going in and eventually that thing will just fill right up to the top with sediment. If you let it over the course of, if you're replacing 20 years, if.
[00:09:13] Speaker B: You'Re replacing the rod, because the rod will eventually all be gone and then you would have to put in a new rod, which I've replaced the rod in my water heater before.
[00:09:23] Speaker A: Never spare the rod.
[00:09:25] Speaker B: Never. Yeah.
But I've also had a broken suction tube. Yes. Where it broke right at the top.
[00:09:32] Speaker A: And you weren't getting hot water.
[00:09:34] Speaker B: It was pulling cold water from the top that it was putting in. Yeah.
[00:09:38] Speaker A: It would never get hot.
[00:09:39] Speaker B: Right.
[00:09:39] Speaker A: So that's one of those things like it's controversial because people say, oh, I don't mess with it. As soon as you start messing with it, you're causing yourself a problem.
[00:09:47] Speaker B: So both are correct in my opinion.
[00:09:49] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:50] Speaker B: I mean, if you never do it.
[00:09:52] Speaker A: Then don't do it.
[00:09:53] Speaker B: Don't do it. If you always do it, keep doing it. Yeah. I think there's arguments for both sides.
[00:10:00] Speaker A: The way I see it is if you live in an area where you have hard water and you put a new sacrificial rod. No, you put a new tank in.
[00:10:09] Speaker B: Oh, a new tank.
[00:10:10] Speaker A: Hot water tank in, then that would be the time to start doing it.
[00:10:15] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:10:16] Speaker A: A year later, drain it, refill it. A year later, just put it on your calendar to drain it and refill it yearly because that'll clean out all that sediment at that time and it will extend the life of the water heater that you have.
[00:10:29] Speaker B: I agree with that. That is good logic right there. Heck yeah.
[00:10:34] Speaker A: The next thing on the list, Tony, as far as appliances go, is check for the energy efficient ratings. Every appliance has that energy guide. We talked about that earlier, that yellow sticker. It's going to give you a cost, approximately, of what it costs to run that appliance for the entire year. So if you're concerned with it, you can look at them. Some of them might be $500 a year and one might be 50. So consider that.
[00:11:01] Speaker B: Yes, very important. While you're deciding whether or not it's the right color, which is also important, I also agree. Sizing capacity is very important. I'll tell you what.
We had a washer and dryer that sat in its little home, and it had a folding surface on top of the washer and dryer and pantry around. Anyways, and the washer or dryer, one of the two of them gave up the ghost. It stopped working. And we decided it was beyond repair. We needed something that was new and more efficient. So we went out and found the really great deal. Awesome deal. Had the washer and dryer, the set washer and dryer delivered to the house. Got it in there. And guess what?
[00:11:53] Speaker A: What?
[00:11:53] Speaker B: It was too big. Didn't fit in the space that the other washer and dryer fit in. All washer and dryers, all appliances, they're not all the same size. Here's another great example. You can buy a refrigerator that's, I don't know, three cubic feet or five cubic feet or seven cubic feet or something.
And you can get one that is, I don't know, 32 inches deep or 33 inches deep. Or you can get one that's 25 inches deep, one that's 36 inches wide or 32 inches wide. They make all different sizes of appliances. And you need to know that the size and capacity that you're buying will also fit in the space where you plan to have it. And then don't just buy a refrigerator that looks cool. You need to make sure that it's going to hold all of the stuff that you need it to hold.
[00:12:48] Speaker A: Yeah, well, and when it comes to energy efficiency, you want to consider the size of the appliance that you're buying for your family. If you have a family of one or two, do you need the gigantic 50 square foot, 50 cubic viking? Yeah. This ginormous, triple door, quadruple door refrigerator? I mean, maybe you do, but maybe you don't. So that's the thing, is just consider the size and the capacity for what you need. If you're really trying to save energy, that's important.
Next one on the list is look at advanced features.
Some appliances, including, like, for instance, front load washing machines. Look at the old school top load washing machines.
They fill up with water and then they just agitate. Well, front load washing machines use a fraction of the water, and they use a fraction of the laundry detergent, they're just much more energy efficient. And the same with the dryer. Some dryers have evaporators, dual evaporators that could potentially be, or, I'm sorry, the refrigerator might have dual evaporators that might be more energy efficient. So there's different things to look at when you're looking at features on your appliances that make them more efficient.
[00:14:14] Speaker B: Yeah, that makes really good sense. I know that there are those appliances that work with water, like the dishwasher, the washing machine. They oftentimes will have a water sense rating as well. And so if you look for that on those appliances to make sure that they're doing what you want them to do, but with the least amount of.
[00:14:39] Speaker A: Required water as possible and least amount.
[00:14:42] Speaker B: Of electricity and the least amount of know.
[00:14:45] Speaker A: Next one on the list was water efficiency.
[00:14:47] Speaker B: Right? Yeah.
[00:14:47] Speaker A: I mean, that's literally the next thing. Appliances like dishwashers, washing machines, they really have, like you said, the water sense label. So the less water use, especially if you live in an area like California or Arizona where water is limited. So you don't want to be washing your dishes with 50 gallons a day.
I bought a Bosch dishwasher, and I think that's like, I don't even know, it's such a small amount of water that it uses.
[00:15:16] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:17] Speaker A: Cycles it in there. It's crazy.
[00:15:18] Speaker B: Yeah, it's quiet, too.
[00:15:19] Speaker A: Super quiet.
[00:15:20] Speaker B: It's a good one.
Okay, smart. What about smart technology? Some appliances come with smart technology that allows you to control and monitor the usage of the energy remotely. This is something that you love.
[00:15:34] Speaker A: I do love it.
[00:15:35] Speaker B: You love being able to run your entire home from your cell phone.
[00:15:39] Speaker A: Yeah, I do. I'll be honest, I really like the smart. My refrigerator hooks up to my phone. My stove hooks up to my phone, so I can throw a beef loin in my oven, and it's got a little temperature sensor that I can plug into the side, and it stabs into my meat, and it tells me, it.
[00:16:04] Speaker B: Tells you what the internal temperature is.
[00:16:05] Speaker A: It'll pop on my phone and say, your roast is done.
[00:16:09] Speaker B: Your roast is done. Yeah.
[00:16:11] Speaker A: And I can turn it off from my phone.
[00:16:13] Speaker B: I love that.
[00:16:14] Speaker A: It's awesome.
[00:16:14] Speaker B: That is awesome.
[00:16:16] Speaker A: And I can be anywhere. I say, oh, I got to go to the grocery store. And while I'm gone, it could pop up and say, hey, your stuff is done, and I can turn it off from Safeway. It's awesome.
[00:16:26] Speaker B: Yeah, that is cool.
[00:16:27] Speaker A: And that's a good way to save energy and from burning your food.
[00:16:34] Speaker B: How about the lifecycle cost?
[00:16:38] Speaker A: This is one of those things that I think a lot of people forget about. They get all caught up with having the newest brand, newest technology stuff versus if you really want to, you think about the most energy used. It's going to going to manufacture a new one and to get rid of the old one.
[00:16:59] Speaker B: Right.
[00:16:59] Speaker A: So you're going to be spending a lot of money and you're going to be using a ton of energy to create that brand new appliance. So this is kind of like there's another one down the list that I have. And it's about brand reputation.
Cheaper, really inexpensive brands. They might seem cheap at first, but in the long run you're going to be replacing it more often, it's going to be less energy efficient. And the same thing when we talk about lifecycle costs. You want to buy a refrigerator that's going to last for 2030 years. You remember those refrigerators that you would buy in the still running in some people's garages? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Some of the newest refrigerators. And then there's some class action lawsuits out there that you probably, I'm not going to talk about them, but there are some manufacturers out that I bought one and they just don't last.
[00:17:57] Speaker B: Those are new ones. Yeah. Well, you've said it a thousand times. You've heard it a thousand times. They don't make them like they used to.
[00:18:04] Speaker A: And I don't know why. I don't know if it's because of the different. And I know on this one manufacturer, there's this class action lawsuit with, they make a lot of cell phones, but they also make refrigerators. You can probably guess who it is.
One of the biggest things to come out of the last probably, what, 15 years is to put ice in the door.
[00:18:27] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:18:28] Speaker A: You want to have an ice dispenser in your door.
[00:18:30] Speaker B: Right.
[00:18:31] Speaker A: Well, to do that, you have to put a freezing mechanism in the refrigerated part of your refrigerator. Now, back in the day when they did that, they had side by sides. You remember you had the side, the left side was the freezer, the right side was the fridge.
[00:18:49] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:18:50] Speaker A: Well, the newest trend was to put the freezer on the bottom. Like, remember in the old days, freezer was on the top, right refrigerator was on the bottom. Well, then people said, I don't want to bend over all the time to get to my bottom shelf. So they moved the freezer to the bottom, which you're not getting in as regularly.
[00:19:07] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:19:07] Speaker A: So everybody loved that. They're like, man, that's amazing. However, we still want our ice dispenser in the door from the old side by side days. So then they came up with this contraption that created ice inside of the refrigerator unit.
Not in the freezer part, which was on the bottom.
[00:19:25] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:19:26] Speaker A: Because you don't want to bend down to get ice.
[00:19:27] Speaker B: Right.
[00:19:28] Speaker A: That's for the pores. Right.
So that's inherently what caused this mess, is they were doing all of this exotic piping and plumbing and air moving inside of the refrigerator unit to be able to create ice in there. And with this one brand, particularly the coils in there, if you got any sort of moisture, it would create solid sheets of ice and that entire thing would just freeze up.
[00:19:59] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:20:00] Speaker A: And I own one and I still have it. It's in my garage now as my garage fridge. And it was a very expensive garage fridge. Yeah, but that's just one of those things. When you consider lifecycle cost and brand reputation, it's the length of time at which you can use it before you throw it away.
[00:20:25] Speaker B: Right. Yeah, absolutely.
Tagging along with that same thought process, of course, is warranty and maintenance.
[00:20:33] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:20:33] Speaker B: I mean, pay close attention to the warranty and maintenance program. You want to know what's expected of you. I mean, they'll tell you, hey, you need to replace the water filter in the refrigerator every 30 days.
Hey, I don't want to replace the water filter in the refrigerator every 30 days. Right. So I'm factoring that into my decision. I want my water to be clean, but I don't want to have to buy a $35 water filter every 30 days. Right.
[00:21:01] Speaker A: And then you can go onto Amazon and buy the generic brands, but then it probably voids your warranty.
[00:21:06] Speaker B: Yeah. And so, yeah, it's just something to consider when you're making that purchase.
[00:21:12] Speaker A: One of the newest things to come out of filters is you see some of these higher end brands of appliances, refrigerators, especially, where they have the water filter in them, and they got tired of saying, okay, here's our $40 water filter and you need to replace it every three months.
And then somebody goes on Amazon and they buy the same exact thing for $10.
[00:21:39] Speaker B: Right.
[00:21:39] Speaker A: So this high end manufacturer is like, oh, no, we can't have that. You need to buy our $40 filter. So we're going to put RFID tags in them. And if you buy the generic one, the refrigerator won't work.
Crazy. How crazy is that?
[00:21:58] Speaker B: That's some genius for a water filter. Yeah.
[00:22:02] Speaker A: It's kind of like the old printer ink thing.
[00:22:05] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, it's challenging out there. Right? It's rough. Everybody wants everybody to buy their own stuff, and everybody else wants to make something that's almost as good, but a lot cheaper.
[00:22:16] Speaker A: We're living in a subscription based society. That's for real.
Next one on the list is to. If you're considering buying some energy efficiency appliances, look for rebates and incentives. A lot of times there's tax credits involved. If you do have one of those old school refrigerators, you can check your local. Sometimes there's state incentives, some federal incentives that you can go out and get energy efficient appliances that can offset some of that high initial cost. And really, it's one of those things. If you're trying to reduce your carbon footprint, does it just make sense to go trash all your old appliances? And I would say you have to consider it. You have to look at what is the energy consumption of your old one. And there are actually ways to figure that out. You can get devices that hook up to your electrical system in your home that will tell you how much electricity each thing is using.
[00:23:20] Speaker B: That's some valuable information right there.
[00:23:21] Speaker A: It's pretty incredible. They have a thing that plugs into your. That hooks up to your box, your breaker box.
[00:23:29] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:23:30] Speaker A: And you just put it in there. And somehow it reads the waves, the sine waves of each appliance that's drawing electricity. And it identifies it by its sine wave and will tell you. And you can open an app on your phone and it will tell you exactly how much each device is using.
[00:23:53] Speaker B: Wow.
That would be a very quick way to determine which appliances need to be replaced.
[00:24:00] Speaker A: Absolutely. And that's one of those things that cost a bit of money to get that system installed. But it's pretty cool because there is something called phantom. What do they call it? Phantom power. Or I'm thinking of something else.
Where these devices that you have that are plugged in all the time.
[00:24:20] Speaker B: Oh, right, yeah.
[00:24:22] Speaker A: What do they call that? There's a name for that.
[00:24:24] Speaker B: I don't know what they call it, but I know exactly what you're talking about.
[00:24:27] Speaker A: Phantom power is the microphone thing.
[00:24:29] Speaker B: But there's this.
[00:24:30] Speaker A: Yeah, they call it something, and it just leeches power all the time.
[00:24:33] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:24:33] Speaker A: You could have your microwave plugged in, and it's doing something, some process in there that's drawing however many amps every single day and you're never even using it.
[00:24:43] Speaker B: Yeah, we've talked about this a lot of times in the past, if you were really up against it and you really needed to lower your power bill, you really needed to find a place to save some money.
You could spend a few extra minutes in the morning unplugging appliances that you're not using. We plug them in and we forget them. And you walk into a room and there's a light on in the room. Where's that light coming from? The tv, the DVR, the record player. I mean, you name it, right? You got record player.
[00:25:17] Speaker A: What are you, 100?
[00:25:18] Speaker B: You got 15 devices in there and they're all plugged in. And a lot of times they'll just be using a little bit to do something.
[00:25:30] Speaker A: It definitely adds up.
[00:25:32] Speaker B: Hey, this is one brand reputation, right? This is important to you.
[00:25:37] Speaker A: Yeah, I touched on a little bit earlier, but. Yeah, go ahead.
[00:25:41] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, it makes sense to check reviews and take the opinions of the majority of people who have bought before you and have an opinion. You don't have to believe them all. You don't have to believe all the fives, and you don't have to believe all the ones. But get in there and listen to the threes and fours. There are some opinions in there that probably make really good sense. Yeah.
[00:26:06] Speaker A: Whenever I, and this is my personal, like, how I go and read reviews. I buy a lot of stuff online, and usually what I'll do is I'll read the top four or five positive reviews. Right. And then I'll always go to the negatives. Like, if there's a fair amount of negative reviews, I'll go read through them. And I think you can quickly determine what people are complaining about. You know what I mean? They might be complaining that the box.
[00:26:35] Speaker B: Was torn or that the shipping took too long. Yeah.
[00:26:39] Speaker A: They said it would be delivered in three days, but it took five. FedEx lost one star.
[00:26:43] Speaker B: Yeah, FedEx lost my package. Yeah, exactly. One star.
[00:26:46] Speaker A: Somebody stole it off my porch. One star.
You know, you kind of know those people.
They don't talk about the merits of the product itself.
They talk about their bad experience.
[00:27:00] Speaker B: Right.
[00:27:01] Speaker A: Getting the product.
[00:27:02] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:27:03] Speaker A: So I actually find a lot of useful information in the negative reviews. You can go there and you can look for legitimate negative reviews. Like, man, I had this thing, and after a month it stopped working, and then it was intermittent and it burned my house down.
You never know. But that's how I do it. Anyway, hopefully pass that on. It works. All right, couple left here, Tony. Next one on the list is consider ease of use. You could buy the most energy efficient appliance that requires complicated controls to set it up.
[00:27:40] Speaker B: A smart device that's smarter than you, and you'll never use it, you'll never.
[00:27:46] Speaker A: Get the full advantage benefits of it just because it's such a pain in the butt, or you just can't figure it out, man. Can I just tell a quick story?
[00:27:54] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:27:55] Speaker A: I have a smart thermostat. I've talked about this on the show many times.
I love smart products. I think, like you said, controlling everything from your phone, I think, is an amazing thing to do just for the ease of use. You leave the house, you're halfway on vacation and an hour drive, and you realize, shoot, forgot to turn the furnace off or whatever. So you're forgotten to close the garage door. Yeah, you're heating your home like you're there for a week straight while you're in Hawaii.
So you could save yourself a lot of money by being able to turn that off, but you can't because you're gone. But if you have it on your phone, you can. So I had the smart thermostat. I thought it was super cool, but, man, this thing was too smart for itself, I think. And I was close to tearing it off the wall the other day because it was 40 degrees outside and I had it set for all night. We sleep cold in our house. We like to have it cold. So I set it for 64 at night, and then I set it to turn on at seven in the morning. When we all get up, it starts heating the house, and it turns off at like 08:00 by the time everyone's gone. And then it doesn't turn on again, it lowers back down to 64. And then when we get home, I have it turn on before we come home. It's like a programmable thermostat, right? However, this one has sensors in it that know when you're there, so it starts to learn your schedule. But what's crazy is when you have kids, your schedule is always changing, right? It's not like it's some amazing thing, but what it was doing. So I got up the other day at 530 in the morning, an hour and a half. And when the heat turns on, I wake up immediately. I can't sleep. When the furnace is pumping heat into my face, I can't do it. So I get up at 530 in the morning. I walk out into the hallway, it's 67 degrees in my house, which I wouldn't say it's hot by any means.
[00:30:03] Speaker B: But it's warmer than you like it.
[00:30:05] Speaker A: Yeah, it's 67 and on top of that, the heat is pumping. The furnace is pumping heat. And I said, what is going on with this? So I start messing with the settings, and it's set. My thermostat is set to heat, obviously, because it's 40 degrees outside, it's cold. So I'm like, well, maybe if I put it on auto. So I switch it to auto, and guess what happened?
[00:30:30] Speaker B: It stopped heating.
[00:30:32] Speaker A: No. Well, yes, it immediately stopped heating and then turned on my ac unit.
[00:30:40] Speaker B: 40 degrees outside.
[00:30:41] Speaker A: 40 degrees outside.
[00:30:42] Speaker B: Turned on the ac.
[00:30:43] Speaker A: I could hear the AC kick on because it's right outside the window.
[00:30:49] Speaker B: Are you kidding me?
[00:30:50] Speaker A: What in the world? Why would my ac unit kick on? So here's me at 530 in the morning on Google searching wth. Why is my smart thermostat so stupid?
[00:31:06] Speaker B: Right.
[00:31:07] Speaker A: And a lot of people vehemently defend them, and some people absolutely hate them. And the thing about it is there's settings. And I think it really depends on the type of system that you have in your home. If you had a super high efficient heating and cooling HVAC system, maybe that would work. Or if you had, say, a heat pump where it's in the same unit, then maybe switching from hot to cold to keep it somewhere in the middle isn't such a bad idea. But my system is very basic. My house is built in the. Doesn't work that way. I have an ac unit out the back that's connected to it, but it's out the back and then the furnace. So what it was doing, it was smart enough to know how long it takes to heat my house from 64 to 70.
That's what it was doing. So there's the setting in there that I went in and I turned off that said preheat. Basically, it's smart heating my home to by the time I wake up at 70.
[00:32:17] Speaker B: Interesting. I see that. I see.
[00:32:19] Speaker A: Which I don't like.
[00:32:21] Speaker B: Right.
[00:32:22] Speaker A: I didn't like it.
[00:32:22] Speaker B: It is smart.
[00:32:24] Speaker A: Smart, but not how I wanted it.
[00:32:27] Speaker B: Not working for you. Yeah.
[00:32:28] Speaker A: We just needed to pump heat while we're getting ready.
[00:32:33] Speaker B: Right? Sure.
[00:32:34] Speaker A: And then turn off and then see you in the afternoon. But the AC thing was also another setting in there that uses some deal to cool your house. I don't know. So keep that in mind if you're searching for one of these things.
[00:32:50] Speaker B: I saw that we talked earlier about size and capacity. This is size and placement. And of course, it says, ensure the appliance fits into the design to place in your home. Which is funny, because my washer and dryer and I'll tell you what very common with a refrigerator. Refrigerators a lot of times are taller than other refrigerators. Some of them are deeper than others or shallower. The width and the height and the depth of a refrigerator is all over the place.
[00:33:17] Speaker A: It is weird why there's so many different dimensions for that. Then they have the counter depth.
[00:33:23] Speaker B: Right.
[00:33:23] Speaker A: You get the extra deep ones and the counter depth.
[00:33:25] Speaker B: Yes. I have a counter depth fridge at my house. Yeah, it is 25 inches deep because my kitchen is kind of small and I wanted to maximize the space in my kitchen. And having a smaller fridge was a way to do that.
[00:33:38] Speaker A: Here's the interesting thing about counter depth refrigerators. They're smaller. Cubic footage wise. They're smaller, but they're more expensive.
[00:33:48] Speaker B: It's true.
[00:33:49] Speaker A: I don't understand.
[00:33:50] Speaker B: Well, it's a supply and demand thing.
[00:33:52] Speaker A: It's a racket.
[00:33:53] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a racket. They know that there are people out there that have to go with a counter depth because they just don't have the room for a bigger fridge and.
[00:34:01] Speaker A: They designed their kitchen that way.
[00:34:03] Speaker B: Yeah. And so they charge a little more for it.
I see the logic in that. I'm just glad that they have one available because I needed one in my kitchen.
[00:34:13] Speaker A: Nice.
Well, right on, man.
Yeah, that's really it. Yeah.
[00:34:19] Speaker B: We're going to spend the next few weeks talking about energy efficiency in all different areas of the home. You'll hear us talking about how to keep hot and cold air from passing in around windows and doors and more efficient ways to do all of the things that you do around the home.
[00:34:38] Speaker A: Yeah, we've got a ton of different things. You're right. So, yeah, tune in next time. We'll have something new for you. I think we're to be talking about insulating an air ceiling next week. Perfect.
Make sure you go out and check out our YouTube channel. It's YouTube.com wwomeshow. Make sure you go to the par channel, too. Par.com par parr. And we're going to be putting a ton of videos on there as well.
[00:35:07] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm not sure that YouTube channel could also be parliament.
I noticed that there may be more than one par YouTube channel, and we'll get that squared away for sure.
[00:35:22] Speaker A: Well, just search par lumber. It'll come right out.
[00:35:24] Speaker B: It'll come right up.
[00:35:26] Speaker A: All right, well, thanks for listening. We'll catch you next time.
[00:35:28] Speaker B: All right. Have a great week.
