Posts Tagged ‘Saving’

Energy Saving Tips

Astonishingly, Americans generally spend $1600 or more a year on their utility bills. Not only is much of this wasted energy, but more carbon dioxide is emitted into the air from one home than two average cars. The following tips will help you save energy costs both at home and in the car.

*Set your thermostat comfortably low in the winter and comfortably high in the summer. Install a programmable thermostat that is compatible with your heating and cooling system.

* Use compact fluorescent light bulbs.

* Air dry dishes instead of using your dishwasher’s drying cycle.

* Turn off your computer and monitor when not in use.

* Plug home electronics, such as TVs and DVD players, into power strips; turn the power strips off when the equipment is not in use (TVs and DVDs in standby mode still use several watts of power).

* Lower the thermostat on your hot water heater to 120 degrees Fahrenheit.

* Take short showers instead of baths.

* Wash only full loads of dishes and clothes.

* Drive sensibly. Aggressive driving (speeding, rapid acceleration and braking) wastes gasoline.

* Look for the ENERGY STAR label on home appliances and products. ENERGY STAR products meet strict efficiency guidelines set by the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the United States Department of Energy.

Energy Auditing Tips:

* Check the insulation levels in your attic, exterior and basement walls, ceilings, floors, and crawl spaces.

* Check for holes or cracks around your walls, ceilings, windows, doors, light and plumbing fixtures, switches, and electrical outlets that can leak air into or out of your home.

* Check for open fireplace dampers.

* Make sure your appliances and heating and cooling systems are properly maintained. Check your owner’s manual for the recommended maintenance.

* Study your family’s lighting needs and use patterns, paying special attention to high-use areas such as the living room, kitchen, and outside lighting. Look for ways to use lighting controls – like occupancy sensors, dimmers, or timers – to reduce lighting energy use, and replace standard light bulbs and fixtures with compact or standard fluorescent lamps.

Insulation Tips

* Consider factors such as your climate, building design, and budget when selecting insulation R-values for your home.

* Use higher density insulation, such as rigid foam boards, in cathedral ceilings and on exterior walls.

* Ventilation plays a large role in providing moisture control and reducing summer cooling bills. Attic vents can be installed along the entire ceiling cavity to help ensure proper airflow.

* Recessed light fixtures can be a major source of heat loss, but you need to be careful how close you place insulation next to a fixture unless it is marked IC.

These tips, and more, are provided to you in a larger PDF file by the US Department of Energy.

Money Saving Uses of LED Lights

Do you own any LED lights? Chances are you may have more of these highly efficient little light bulbs than you are even aware of. They show up as indicator lights in computer and electronic equipment, appear in flashlights and remote controls, exterior lighting fixtures and even holiday light strands. They are remarkably efficient and durable, which makes them suitable to a significantly wider range of applications than traditional light bulbs. A perfect such solution is obvious in gardening and the use of solar path lighting.

What are LED lights? A simple definition is actually not that easy to provide in brief, but basically LED stands for “light emitting diode” which are small electronic units that light up when electricity passes through them. Traditional light bulbs are radically different from LEDs, as they use a filament inside of the bulb which lights up when an electrical current is completed. Such light bulbs burn out rapidly and generate quite a bit of heat – in fact touching a lit bulb can lead to a burn. LEDs however stay relatively cool to the touch because they do not operate in the same manner, and are actually more like an old-fashioned transistor than a light bulb. What this means is that they use electricity far more affectively than their old-fashioned counter parts, and are far less likely to fail.

What are the benefits of LED lights? Their main benefit is their remarkable efficiency. While they may cost more at the initial point of purchase, LED lights will last for a very long time. They are resistant to blows, dropping and shock, they are relatively unaffected by continual dimming or turning on and off, they are much smaller and provide a wide range of uses. Additionally, they can appear in many colors through a manipulation of their diode and semiconductor materials, which eliminates the needs for special filters or color applications, which in turn greatly reduces the overall cost of the lighting fixtures in which they appear. Additionally, they do not contain the toxic elements and components of other lighting options, including such heavy metals as mercury which frequently appears in fluorescent lights.

How are LEDs used every day? If you take a quick car trip you will see exactly how LEDs are used in “every day” applications – they are in street lights, automobile signals and tail lights, billboards and signs, solar yard lights, exterior lighting such as spotlights on flag poles or strings of Christmas lights, and you may even notice them on security cameras where they are used for night vision purposes.

Clearly LED lights are all around, and their efficiency and ever decreasing costs will continue to make them a popular choice for home, commercial and technological applications.