Electricity
Three Fast and Easy Steps to Reduce Your Electricity Use:
1. Change your light bulbs to compact fluorescents (quick and easy guidelines below)
2. Put your chargers and appliances on power strips and turn off the strip when it's not in use.
You can reduce your electricity use by as much as 10% by putting your computer, TV, cell phone charger, etc. on power strips and turning off the strip when its not in use. These appliances use electricity like a slow drip when they're just sitting there plugged in.
3. Purchase green electric power from your utility.
Now that you've slashed you electric bill by using compact fluorescents, maybe you can afford to spend a few dollars a month to purchase "green" electricity: : wind, small hydro, and other sources with zero carbon emissions. Here's a site that has links to every state's green electricity options. In New York we switched to Con Ed Solutions. Even though it's a little more expensive, we are still spending about 30% less than we would have with our old light bulbs. In Maine you can get green power from Maine Renewable Energy.
One more (more expensive) Step You Can Take
4. Upgrade your refrigerator.
Your refrigerator is one of the most heavy-electricty-use elements of your home. New energystar-rated refrigerators use much less electricity than older models. Even if you bought your fridge in 2001, you may get significant savings from a new energystar refrigerator. And if you don't seem to be filling up your current fridge, consider getting a smaller one.
Change Your Light Bulbs To Compact Fluorescents—Don't Hesitate!
In March 2006, after 10 years of procrastinating, we finally changed the light bulbs in our small New York City apartment to CFLs. After a month of use, the electric bill arrived. We had used 37% less electricity compared to the same month the year before! That's a significant reduction of carbon emissions, especially if lots of people make the change. But why did we wait so long?
You probably know that changing your incandescent lightbulbs to compact fluorescents (CFLs) saves both energy and money. So why haven't you done it yet?
Procrastination Rationalizations
- Hesitation 1: I thought the quality of light would be harsh and
ugly.
- Reality: Visitors told us how healthy our complexions looked! We love the quality of light.
- Hesitation 2: Too expensive an initial outlay.
- Reality: There are several online stores that sell at a discount. In three months we will have earned back in electricity savings what we paid for the bulbs.
- Hesitation 3: Too complicated: how many watts? What are lumens? etc. etc.
- Reality: It took me a few hours to figure it out, but now I have done the research, and I offer it to you in the hope that this will be so quick and easy that you will replace your incandescent lights with CFLs right now!
- Hesitation 4: It won't make any difference.
- Reality: Not true! We had a 37% reduction in our electric use. That's about 1000 lbs. of CO2 per year for our tiny NYC apartment. Imagine if we lived in a house.
| Compact Fluorescent Quick Buying Guide: 7 Steps to Do It Now! | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. To get the same brightness of light as your incandescent, lumens are more important than watts! | |||
| Lumens | For bright enough light, make sure your compact fluorescent light (CFL) has the same number of lumens as the incandescent you're replacing (see chart below). | ||
| Watts | Your CFL should provide at least 55 lumens per watt (the more lumens/watt, the more efficient the bulb. We were easily able to find 64 lumens/watt). Your CFL will be about 25%-30% of the watts of the incandescent you're replacing. | ||
| To replace this incandescent: | Buy a CFL with: | ||
| Lumens (minimum!) | Watts (approximate) | ||
| 100 watt | 1650 | 25-30w | |
| 75 watt | 1375 | 19-25w | |
| 60 watt | 1100 | 15-20w | |
| Example: we replaced our old 100 W bulbs with 1920 lumen, 30 W CFLs. That's 64 lumens/watt (1920÷30), and more than the 1650 lumens of our old bulbs (Andrea wanted bright lights!). | |||
| 2. Color temperature, measured in Kelvins (K), determines the "warmth" (yellowness) or "coolness" (blueness) of your light. Most people prefer about 2700K, similar to incandescents. | |||
| Kelvins (K) | incandescent=2700K | daylight=5000K-6000K | |
| use 2700K for warm yellow incandescent-like light | use 5000K for bright daylight-like (bluer) light | ||
| 3. Size | CFLs are usually bigger than incandescents. Make sure the bulbs you order will fit into your fixtures. And make sure you get screw-in, not plug-in CFLs. | ||
| 4. Dimmers | If you have dimmers, make sure the CFL you buy can be used with them. | ||
| 5. Switching on and off | The lifetime of CFLs will be shortened if you switch them on and off frequently. It's often recommended that you replace only the incandescents that are left on for 3 hours at a time. But it's also suggested that if you leave a room for more than 15 minutes, you should turn your CFL off. What does all this mean? My interpretation: change all the bulbs. There are more details at: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2005/06/user_tips_for_c.php and even more at: http://lightingdesignlab.com/articles/switching/switching_fluorescent.htm |
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| 6. Indoor/Outdoor | CFLs are made differently for outdoor use. Make sure you buy the appropriate one for the job. | ||
| 7. Recommended Online Vendors | |||
| http://theenergyalternative.com (we bought ours here) | |||
| http://www.1000bulbs.com (friendly and knowledgeable but at the time they didn't have the 30w bulbs we needed. But they have a great deal on 28w CFLs. But I had to call them to get the lumens information about the CFLs I was considering.) | |||
| References | Green Seal Choose Green Report | ||
| http://www.treehugger.com/files/2005/06/user_tips_for_c.php | |||
| http://www.fightglobalwarming.com | |||