Let’s talk about efficiency, not restrictions on power consumption. People think that to save energy (and money) in your electricity bill you need to go back to pleistocene, and that’s not true! If you want to save money and take care of the planet where you live, just follow our tips! This is not to make your life more difficult, but to change your lifestyle to a more eco friendly one. This is like a diet, it is not something you have to suffer everyday to resist the foods you are not allowed to eat. What you need to do is to change your habits, that’s all. Let’s see what we can improve.
Ghost consummation
How many electronic devices do you have at home plugged in 24/7? A couple of TV’s, blu ray, wireless phone, router, printer, … I could keep this list growing (almost) forever. We know that some of them are designed to wake up with a remote, or to receive notifications or calls when on standby. So we can’t treat them all equally. But, I am sure you have your TV connected to a home cinema audio amplifier, a video game console, or blu ray player, or all of them and more! So, what about plugging them all into the same power strip with a switcher. It is easy to turn everything on at once, and off in the same way.
FYI, average ghost consummation is more than 2 weeks of the general use per year, plus environment which is good for all of us!
Illumination
In the average home, there are around 20 light spots. So imagine how important is to be efficient in this area. Using energy efficient bulbs is crucial to making your electricity bill lower. Halogens are beautiful and they make any ambient very clear, but LED bulbs do that as well as consuming just a little part of the amount of energy that the halogen does. It is more expensive, but its life expectancy is longer and it consumes around 80% less energy, so it is worth the expense.
Using indirect light is a good practice because they light really well in the living rooms or bedrooms even when they are not really powerful. These lights are comfortable for the eyes, and relaxing. Obviously, don’t try this in the kitchen, you need to see properly here and knives are dangerous!
Biggest appliances at home
They are the electric devices that consume the most. Think about the oven, the iron, heaters, boiler and the washing machine. You need to use them, so there is not too much to do here, but for this reason (and many others) you should have a little planification about their use. Close windows to use the heaters accordingly, do not preheat the oven for 20 minutes, and remember, 5 minutes in the shower is enough to be clean!
Can you think about any other tip to save money and the planet? Share it with us, it is good for all!