So I figured out how to install my block heater

can you give us the watt hour useage for how long your timer runs. Say if your timer is set to run for 3 hours and the EBH is cycling, what is the watt hours of actual electricity consumed? thanks

 

Tripp or anybody

Have you run the numbers to see if the block heater is cost effective?

Since many of us Prius drivers accept a higher operating cost (i.e. self imposed tax to help the environment), another analysis might be CO2 effectiveness. In other words, will the amount of CO2 released generating the electricity to pre-heat the engine be more or less than the amount of CO2 released heating up the engine using gas?

 

your from Washington state and most of your electricity is generated by hydro electric generation so CO2 emissons are a non issue. If you can bump your mileage from the mid 30's to the mid 40's your reducing the emission load on the enviroment more than the elctricial generation as it runs 24/7 and they don't care. Do your part with your car. Con Ed will pollute all they want anyways. If all the block heaters in Prius cars in the us were plugging at one time the emission load would only equal on diesel electic locomotive going form the round house to the yard to hook to the line of cars. Never mind move them anywhere.

 

Yes, the Smart-Watt is really cool. It's cheap too! $150-200. Compare that to other Wattmeter's, like Powertek or Techtronics, that cost 50 times the amount of the Smart-watt.

I have a bit more than a hub in my garage; 7 foot 4 post rack, half full of hardware (servers, UPSs, Custom battery packs...) and the house is wired with 1 GB Ethernet and 1-wire (sensor network).

 

The time between each sample is roughly 6 minutes. I do not have the block heater on a timer; it's plugged into the wattmeter and that to the wall.

Here is some current data to mull over...
Date Time (GMT), Watt hour reading, calculated watt
12/02/2005 05:15:03, 343266.5, 412
12/02/2005 05:21:08, 343307.6, 405
12/02/2005 05:27:17, 343348.8, 402
12/02/2005 05:33:20, 343389.6, 405
12/02/2005 05:39:26, 343430.5, 402
12/02/2005 05:45:29, 343471.3, 405
12/02/2005 05:51:33, 343512.0, 403
12/02/2005 05:57:44, 343553.3, 401
12/02/2005 06:03:51, 343594.8, 407

 

Holy Sh*te, mate. I suppose you're more than just the causual user. I guess you don't have to worry about keeping all of that gear cool this time of year.

BTW, that's a great price. I don't think that I can justify it though. We typically use less then 400 kWh/month at our house so measuring the load has never been an issue. It would satisfy various curiosities about energy use however.

Frank et al., what's the the CO2 emissions for 1 kWh generated by a coal fired plant? I know that 1 gallon of gas creates 20 lbs of CO2 so I can figure out the emissions reductions. Yeah, I know that it's pretty trivial but I'm curious.

 

for what it's worth
http://www.sierraclub.org/cleanair/factsheets/power.asp

 

Crap!

Frank, sorry for being so lazy. If I'd gotten off my arse and just googled "CO2 Emissions per kWh Coal" I'd have answered my own question. However, there are probably other folks out there that are interested...

I dug the following up at:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/p.../co2report.html

Note the text in bold.

 

it's actually the mercury emissions that have got me worried.

 

Yep, those are never good. However, if the EBH is running in the early hours or the morning or at night it's probably just drawing on base load, which would be generated anyway right? So in that case there would actually be a reduction in emissions because of the gasoline savings? Am I full of it or is this correct?

 

But if it is on a timer then it does not draw power. I would guess but do not know (yet) that the lower the temperature the longer it may take. 3 hours may be "average" from Franks data in a climate similar to mine, but this winter looks coder than last so that may be longer. I would love to see information from those in colder climates.

 

I'm planning to buy a timer (where does one buy something like that?) so that the bloody thing isn't on all the time.

Also curious about the warm-up time. I'm in Colorado. It's starting to get pretty cold. The overnight lows are dropping below the 20F during the next week. I keep the car in the garage but that doesn't help a whole lot. Keeps the snow and ice off at least. Got my block heater yesterday but my wife didn't tell me until this evening

Gonna try to install it tomorrow. Now to review the thread.

 

like I said you do your part because no body else does. If you can lower your greenhouse gas foot print, and it's not only CO2 but all the polutants from unburnt gasoline that goes out your tail pipe, you have done all you can. Because Con Ed et:al just keep pumping it out and they don't care, never have, never will.

 

Tripp the timer I use is and Intermatic DT17 digital timer that is programable for start stop and day week Daylight savings time etc. About $27Cdn.
http://www.intermatic.com/?action=prod&pid=203

 

Very nice. Thanks Frank. And they sell it at Home Depot, too. That's just too easy.

 

Thankee, Evan. I've got the car up on the ramps right now. I'm just looking at some things last minute before I get my hands dirty. I'll probably pick up a timer tonight. Thanks to all who've helped!

 

I don't shop at Wally World but I got mine from Lowes. It was $11 plus tax. No slam intended but I have seen too many problems with Wally Worlds FMLA policies. They are not patient friendly, doctor friendly ( it takes me twice as long to fill out their forms). I go to Cost Co they are somewhat better.

 

Evan, it took me about 45 mins after we got off the phone.

Man am I chuffed! Definitely the biggest car project of my life. Before that the hardest thing I've done is change the oil/filter. All in all it wasn't too bad. Only a few minor scraps on the hands. The hardest thing was finding the bloody heater recepticle. Evan was kind enough to help talk me through it. Without that, I'd have wasted a TON of time. I owe you a six pack. Getting the power cord installed only about a minute. The hardest part was just getting the wretched thing in position near the heating element. Thanks to all the tips I got here the actual connection step was a snap.

Has anyone made a HOWTO on this yet? This thread is pretty long now and there's a lot of good info here. Just needs to be condensed.

Thanks again to everyone who helped!