How the Yanks do it.

amenity2 · How the Yanks do it.

I do feel sorry for the Americans. The snippet below taken from one of their sites.

"I'm going to tell you how to save some money.

It's an easy fix. You probably won't notice anything other than the savings.

It has to do with your icemaker.

If your house is anything like mine, there are certain sounds you've learned to ignore. My dishwasher, for example, makes a loud noise when it finishes the cycle and turns off. I've learned to live with it. Likewise, there's a floorboard upstairs that moans every time someone steps on it. I don't even hear it anymore, but it can wake a guest out of a sound sleep.

Another noise my mind has trained itself to process but ignore is the icemaker. You know the sound I mean: The muffled crash of a new batch of ice cubes falling from the icemaker into the ice bin.

Turns out that's one expensive noise.

Icemakers draw a tremendous amount of power. And they typically use power during the heat of the day. When you fill a pitcher or a cooler or even a glass up with ice, a sensor in your ice bin activates the ice maker to make enough ice to replace what you've just used. That tends to happen during the day when you want to make something cooler, typically because it is warm outside. That's when power is most expensive.

So if you want to save money, look inside your ice bin and raise the sensor arm so it thinks the ice bin is full. If you run low on ice, put the sensor down when you go to bed (Power is cheaper at night). You'll save money on power, you'll still have plenty of ice, and the sound, which you're already used to, won't keep you awake.

That's a low-tech solution."