A few ways to save energy at home

[kristine33]

Just a few things I've thought of to save energy at home.

* Turn off those lights when they are not in use or not really needed. For example if you use 3 sets of lights for your living room, you can use 2 instead. It won't be that darker.

* During summer, opt for using a fan every now and then instead of turing on the airconditioning at full blast. Wear light clothes so you stay cooler. Instead of running the A/C the whole night until you wake up, you can set it to just a few hours. Make sure your room is properly insulated, this helps to retain the coolness of the temperature.

* Many appliances today have energy-saving mode. Set it that way so it consumes less energy. For example, most new airconditioners have this setting.

* Handwash some light clothing. Pieces of clothes like handkerchiefs, face towels, underwear, socks and thin shirts/blouses are easy to wash by hand.

* Air-dry your clothes during summer instead of using a spin-dryer. Yes this is gonna be hard or impossible especially if you live in a high-rise building or if you don't have a backyard.

Remember every little bit helps. :D

[jimmy]

Computers can be turned off if not in use especially in the office. This can save lots, lots of energy! I know a lot of people do not turn off their computers at work and just keep it locked or logged out. That's bad practice.

[bubble]

I have never used a dryer for my clothes, I believe they can be really expensive to run too. Instead I try an do my washing around the weather.

[homebrewer]

Yeah, I though dryers use up energy too. I can also add up that unplug anything that has a standby mode when you are not using it often.

[Aarongg]

Something very common I have noticed in my home atleast is that, people charge their mobiles overnight. And sometimes leave the television switched on. And if you are using electric cooker, then you can switch it off a couple of minutes before you really intend to. Unlike the gas cookers the electric cookers retain the heat for sometime and can go more than 2 minutes after switched off. That saves a lot of heat from being wasted.

Aaron

[wasi90lk]

i think in the living room, one light is more than enough (unless you have many people).

i agree that you can dry your clothes outside, assuming there is no rain and there is enough sunlight.

[greenranger]

and also instead of using flourescent bulbs just use cfl it has less consumption than the flourescent, it also last longer than the flourescent.

[cheryl]

The craze nowadays are big widescreen plasma or LCD TVs. You see it in many households a lot. These TVs can consume more power than your old-school cathode tube (CRT) TVs. So if you still have those CRTs lying around, you can opt to use them when:

i. You're not really watching anything special or a movie. Like just getting news updates, weather reports. You don't need a big screen TV for that.

[pdsnj1GD]

Instead of just turning appliances off, unplug them. A tv on standby mode will still consume electricity so you can save a little more on your electricity bills if you unplug rather than just switch things off. Those little bits add up.

[EcoCentrics]

I recently wrote an article for an artists site which covered exactly this subject. I think taking little mini steps towards being greener is the way to go. I think it can overwhelm people otherwise.

I would add the link only I'm not allowed. :(

There's also an easy recipe there for making an all purpose household cleaner. :)

[ritaleung]

To go green life, we should change our daily habit step by step. I also had some bad habit before, such as charge the mobil phone overnight, forget to turn off the room light when I go out, etc. This I change it little by little, and become good habit now, because I notice it, and this good habit can help me save some money :)

[naturehappens]

The craze nowadays are big widescreen plasma or LCD TVs. You see it in many households a lot. These TVs can consume more power than your old-school cathode tube (CRT) TVs. So if you still have those CRTs lying around, you can opt to use them when:

i. You're not really watching anything special or a movie. Like just getting news updates, weather reports. You don't need a big screen TV for that.Sooo, are you saying to put an old CRT next to my LCD and have both hooked up to one line somehow? How do you hook up two Tvs to the same line?

[katierose53]

My electricity bill was $600 for the month of February, and is smaller now, but not by much (last month was $450). I don't know what's going on. For those that are wondering, no we don't grow anything illegal, and I just don't know what to think about it. The power company recommended that we turn off all the power in the house, and then turn on the breaker in sections at a time while watching the meter to see where we're being drained. What a pain in the butt! Anyway, does anyone have any ideas of what could be going on? Thanks!

[llcoolrobb]

Just a few things I've thought of to save energy at home.

* Turn off those lights when they are not in use or not really needed. For example if you use 3 sets of lights for your living room, you can use 2 instead. It won't be that darker.

* During summer, opt for using a fan every now and then instead of turing on the airconditioning at full blast. Wear light clothes so you stay cooler. Instead of running the A/C the whole night until you wake up, you can set it to just a few hours. Make sure your room is properly insulated, this helps to retain the coolness of the temperature.

* Many appliances today have energy-saving mode. Set it that way so it consumes less energy. For example, most new airconditioners have this setting.

* Handwash some light clothing. Pieces of clothes like handkerchiefs, face towels, underwear, socks and thin shirts/blouses are easy to wash by hand.

* Air-dry your clothes during summer instead of using a spin-dryer. Yes this is gonna be hard or impossible especially if you live in a high-rise building or if you don't have a backyard.

Remember every little bit helps. :D

i would like to add to the list;installing ceiling fans in every room !
as well as depending on where you live installing a swamp cooler too.

[ecofreindlysites]

Just a few things I've thought of to save energy at home.

* Turn off those lights when they are not in use or not really needed. For example if you use 3 sets of lights for your living room, you can use 2 instead. It won't be that darker.

* During summer, opt for using a fan every now and then instead of turing on the airconditioning at full blast. Wear light clothes so you stay cooler. Instead of running the A/C the whole night until you wake up, you can set it to just a few hours. Make sure your room is properly insulated, this helps to retain the coolness of the temperature.

* Many appliances today have energy-saving mode. Set it that way so it consumes less energy. For example, most new airconditioners have this setting.

* Handwash some light clothing. Pieces of clothes like handkerchiefs, face towels, underwear, socks and thin shirts/blouses are easy to wash by hand.

* Air-dry your clothes during summer instead of using a spin-dryer. Yes this is gonna be hard or impossible especially if you live in a high-rise building or if you don't have a backyard.

Remember every little bit helps. :D


The other nice benefits besides less impact on the environment is that these tips will save you money too! Good suggestions.

[ecofreindlysites]

Another great way to save energy is to think about the size of the house you are buying or building. Many people have too big of a house. There's no need to use all those resources when a smaller house will do.

[Ethicalblogger]

i agree that you can dry your clothes outside, assuming there is no rain and there is enough sunlight.

I have a clothes drier which I use inside to hang clothes on (as I live in the UK, where it constantly rains! :-) ) If you open the window to let the damp out, it is a perfectly good way of drying clothes without (a) worrying about the weather and (b) wasting energy using a tumble drier. I have never had any problems with it.

[solite]

When I was a child, we didn't have dryers. I hated wearing stiff frozen socks to school when my mother forgot to bring them in from the wash line on a winter night before. Having our first dryer was heaven! Now many years later mine broke 3 months ago. I've been using the line ever since. What a difference in the utility bill. I will keep using the line. (It's good exercise too.)

[Lucywu2012]

Wow, you really did a good job in saving the energy. I should learn from you!

[james wilson]

also unplugging things that are not in use is better than just turning off. when i leave my house the only thing i leave plugged in is the refrigerator.my electric bill for my 2 bedroom apt. is usually below $60 unless i have to run the ac. and also for people living in the north eastern portion of the US or places that use heating oil to heat there homes they can go to SavOnHeatingOil.com to purchase a catalyst that will burn cleaner and less oil. to help the environment and your pocket.