Motors in a US house... well, if Canada is representative:

I have: Fridge/Small Freezer combo in Kitchen, and a chest freezer in 
basement. Motor use is intermittent as all fridges are.

I have furnace in the basement which is a forced-air type. It has a fan 
running continuously, summer, and winter, 100% duty cycle (speed depends 
on activity...***note).

I have an air-conditioner compressor outside the house that has two 
electrical components, the compressor, and a large fan to cool the 
condensor coils. This will be running I would guess about 80% of the 
daytimes that fall between July and September.

Every bedroom has a ceiling fan (3 normally, 1 guest room not used 
regularly) - again, it is more efficient to create air circulation than 
to air-condition, so, our bedrooms get ceiling fans to circulate air.

Other motors:
Vent from the stove to suck out cooking smoke/steam/stuff
Tumble-dryer motor (which is also a fan) - (I have 2 kids, this is used 
very regularly).
Powered exhaust from the gas water heater...
I use an electric lawn-mower.... gets used once a week for a few hours.

I would definitely notice a 20% motor efficiency gain on my electricity 
bill (in Canada they call it the "Hydro bill", go figure).

***note - my furnace fan is a DC motor/fan. It is some new-fangled thing 
which runs off rectified current because that is more efficient, 
apparently... This efficiency is because AC motors are most efficient at 
their designed speed, but, are inefficient at running at slower speeds. 
DC motors are apparently equally efficient at all speeds, so, since we 
circulate air all the time in our house, the DC fan, running at a slow 
speed, is more efficient. I have not fully understood this concept, but 
the salesman was very persuasive ;-)

Rolf

Jinx wrote:
>> http://cbs13.com/local/local_story_347191740.html
>>     
>
> "Chuck Larue may be the man who drastically cuts your electricity bill"
>
> Realising that the device seems to be just for motors, I suspected
> that the press had gone all hyperbolic again - "drastically" - but
> then thought about his customer base
>
> Do homes in the "US And A" ** have many motors, such as AC,
> fans, etc ? I'm pretty sure the only motor in most NZ homes, being
> a temperate climate, is in the refrigerator
>
> Just a quibble - the article says that a 1/3 HP motor was using
> 180W. As a HP is (ideally) 746W that would make it a 1/4 HP
> and with heat losses you'd expect input W to be higher. Not
> picking on anyone, may not have been reported accurately
>
> ** Thank you Borat
>
>   

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