What is a Hyper-Watter?

The following post was written by fellow blogger and Mapawatt fan Eric Sandeen and can be seen on his blog here titled, "Where are the Hyper-Watters?"

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A while ago – maybe around when the Prius first appeared? – there was a lot of talk about the hypermilers. You know, the folks who would coast down the hill to their garage and draft 6″ off 18-wheelers in an effort to eke out the very best possible mpg in their car? I know it is a cultural phenomenon, because it has a Wikipedia entry! There are also YouTube videos, Wired articles, and Instructables. Clearly, this has caught people’s fancy – probably because paying for gas sucks, especially now. Saving energy and money – in your car – has become just a little bit cool.

So where are the hyperwatters, the folks who eke every bit of utility out of every watt-hour? Where are the forums, the Wired articles, the … words of the year for the electrical efficiency freaks?

Even if the word isn’t in our language yet, I’m pretty sure you may be a hyperwatter if you:

Read your electric bill each month – and look forward to it!
Know how much energy your doorbell uses
Replaced your electric coffee grinder with a hand grinder
Replaced your CFLs (which were in every socket) with LEDs
Own a Kill-A-Watt (Mapawatt Note: Or any of these home energy monitors)
Know that turning your gigabit ethernet card in your computer down to 100 megabits can save up to 2 watts, or up to 20kWh/year
Delay laundry until the sun is shining
???

So – are you out there? Are you with me? Have you gone to any extremes to shave that last kWh off your bill? Will it take electricity at $1/kWh for “hyperwatter” to become the 2014 word of the year?

Tags:

extreme energy conservation

Hyper-Watter

hypermiler

hyperwatter

Comments

Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 05/02/2011 - 17:57

Meanwhile, over at <a HREF="http://solarchargeddriving.com/editors-blog/save-more-for-the-ride/695-can-a-family-of-4-use-less-than-200-kwh-a-month.html" rel="nofollow">Solar Charged Driving</A>, Christof is going for a hyperwatter record of sorts, trying to use less than 200kWh in a month, for a family of 4 (and not living in a hovel). Good luck Christof!

psmith Mon, 05/02/2011 - 18:26

Great blog post Eric! I definitely qualify as a hyper-watter wannabee but have been focusing lately on "hyper-water-saving." This is just as addictive as hyper-miling and hyper-watting. I have low-flow shower heads with valves that I can push to shut off the water temporarily when lathering in the shower, I've upgraded all of my toilets to 1.28gpf HETs, fixed all of the leaks in the house, I don't water my lawn and I have aerators on my faucets. I also track my water usage through my monthly utility bills and have this data in a spreadsheet with graphs showing Year-over-year water usage. I love to run models like average water usage trends based on events where I modified my water usage as described above. If anyone thinks that what I just described sounds like fun, you might be a hyper-water-saver and hyper-watter wanabee too!

Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 05/02/2011 - 19:08

So I'm curious, what is your gallons-per-person-per-day in your house? Last spring and fall we were down to just over 25 for a household of 4 these days. Summer was a little higher.

psmith Fri, 05/06/2011 - 00:20

Over the past 5 months since I changed out my toilets, I'm averaging 2,132 gallons per month for a 5 person household. That looks like about 15 gallons per person per day. I'm working on a blog post on my water savings and will have it up soon.

ckmapawatt Fri, 05/06/2011 - 11:51

Maybe we need to call you a Hyper-H20er

Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 05/09/2011 - 03:06

Hyper-dropper? (drop of water, get it?) ;)

ckmapawatt Mon, 05/09/2011 - 14:59

I like it. I think we need to copyright these terms before the media catches on!

Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 05/26/2011 - 03:27

I guess I just refer to myself as a logical energy user- My forte is cutting kWh use my family typically uses 270 kws each month - for a family of 4 - 3209 for all of 2010. I am not satisfied - I would prefer my bills average about $20- $25 -Like last Octobers. My bills used to be double that back before I went "bright Green" . I personally do look forward to my Comed bill. Its usually one of my lowest! Disclosure -I am an energy loss analyst- LED lighting expert- and my home, insulation wise/ air infiltration wise is very energy tight- but it comes down to LOGICAL ENERGY USE. We live it, and we get others to emulate our successes!

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