Energy savings from an Ecoglow brooder

After six rounds of chicks,
our Ecoglow
brooder is still plugging along, although it is showing signs of
wear.  The power cord (or power
brick?) is starting to flake out on us, but Mark
wiggled the cord until it worked and then taped it in place, and the
brooder seems to be willing to continue providing warmth for our chicks.



While I’d like the unit
to last forever, I have to admit that it’s probably already paid for
itself even if we have to get a new power cord next year.  I
figure we’ve used the brooder for about 4,000 hours so far, which
provides an energy savings of about 532 kwh, or $65.  Since we
paid $60 plus $16 shipping, as long as we can eke one more round of
chicks out of the brooder (and I hope we can do several more), we will
have come out even.



(I’m actually a little
astonished, typing this, that the brooder saved so much electricity, so
you might want to check my math.  People use various types of heat
bulbs with chicks, but for a small backyard flock, 150 watts seems to
be average.  The Ecoglow brooder uses 18 watts.  I could get
away with taking the heat source out after three weeks, but I usually
let our chicks keep it for four weeks.  So I figure 4 weeks X 7
days X 24 hours X 6 sets of chicks = 4032 hours of using
the brooder so far.  At a savings of 132 watts, I’ve avoided using
532,224 watt-hours of electricity, or 532 kilowatt-hours.  My
electric bill tells me we’re currently spending about 12.3 cents per
kilowatt-hour, so that comes to a savings of $65.)



Since Amazon
has started selling Ecoglow Brooders (with free shipping), when
we end up having to replace our unit, we’ll be able to get it for
$59.99.  Maybe I should go ahead and order one so that when ours
flakes out, we’ll have a spare ready to slide into use?