Review of “The Simple Art of Reducing Energy Consumption” by John Rubio

Score: 85/100 (8.5 out of 10)

Let's face it: money is tight. It's tighter than ever. The economy has been spiraling for years. People are losing their jobs. Groceries and gas cost an arm and a leg. A dollar doesn't stretch nearly as far as it used to.

Well, next to your rent and possibly groceries, one of the biggest holes in your monthly budget will inevitably be your energy bill.

We've all been there: you walk to the mailbox and apprehensively open the envelope containing that electric bill. It's higher than last month! What's going on?!

Well, John Rubio—a very experienced HVAC expert—has the answers!

The Simple Art of Reducing Energy Consumption is a passionate, spirited, highly-inspired, educational book which explains different ways in which you, the reader, can reduce your home energy bill!

Rubio's experience in HVAC is really the main selling point of this book. Rubio created this book altruistically to help people who are struggling—people who are low-income, the working-poor, or the middle-class. It doesn't seem like he intended to sell or make money on this book. It reads more like a pamphlet, list, or even a long e-mail than a book.

One of the main takeaways that we got is that appliances that generate heat are often the things in our homes that are costing us the most on our electric bill. That includes ovens, water heaters that cause showers to generate steam, dishwashers that are set to high-heat, and dryers. This isn't something that most of us think about, but it makes perfect sense! It's basic thermodynamics.

So, for example, ovens are intended to cook something large like a turkey, but many people use it to bake a few burritos, a small pizza, or nuggets. One of the best lines in the book is:

“Please Be Advised That Your Electric Range Oven STRAIGHT UP:
a. Does Not Care about you or your entire family
b. Demands 240-V of electricity to produce heat
c. Was Invented to cook turkeys... not dino nuggets”

The author recommends using a smaller tabletop oven or a microwave when possible to reduce energy consumption (and associated costs).

One of the most eye-opening things the author talked about was how much energy and money is wasted by the water heater. If your water heater is set to heat the water to too high of a temperature (so that it generates steam and needs cold water to make it normal), it's wasting energy and money.

Dryers also waste a lot of energy and money. The author even says that it would be cheaper to use a $1.50 laundry mat dryer than to use yours at home on a daily basis.

One last thing that the author really harped on was using the correct air filter in your HVAC system. He actually repeated this about a dozen times (for emphasis). The wrong air filter can lead to inefficiencies in the system, inefficiencies which bleed energy and money.

The main weaknesses of this book, by far, are the formatting and presentation. This book is like a dyslexic person's worst nightmare. Everything is in italics (for some reason) and a lot of the font is red or a dull-beige for some reason. It really is an eye-sore. This could've been easily fixed if a competent editor or formatter came in and put their foot down. One way in which you can work around this is to have a text-to-speech app or software read this to you, thus avoiding the pain of having to look at it.

Even the title page is like a dyslexic nightmare. What is the title supposed to be? There are big words that say “THE U.S. 2023 HIGH POWER-BILL CRISIS CUT YOUR HIGH POWER-BILLS IN HALF TODAY” but the actual title (supposedly) is in a little black seal in the center of the page. The title of this book really should have been Cut Your High Power Bills in Half Today.

The information in this book is valuable and helpful, and there's a lot of heart and passion behind it. The author talks about how they didn't sleep or eat while writing a lot of this. They wanted to get the information out that badly in order to help as many people as possible, as soon as possible. We commend that.

Check it out on Amazon!