Take a look at the following energy saving ideas and new green products and see how many you can use to save your hard earned cash. Then use the savings to fund a short vacation or a trip to Disneyland.
Replace Bulbs with Compact fluorescent bulbs (CFL)
Green products do help, when you replace just one incandescent bulb with one of the new ENERGY STAR® CFL, you will use 75% less electricity and save about $30 a year on your electric bill. With the average house having around 10 incandescent bulbs this is a $300 a year savings.
To determine which of the many CFL green products to use when replacing that old style incandescent bulbs use the table below.
Incandescent CFL Output
Watts Watts Limens
40 9-13 450
60 13-15 800
75 18-25 1,100
100 23-30 1,600
150 30-52 2,600
Nevertheless, do not forget to recycle all CFL’s. California law for example forbids the disposal of any lamps containing mercury in the regular solid waste trash. Even though a CFL is one of the latest green products it does about five milligrams of mercury - one-fifth the amount of mercury in an average watch battery.
When recycling your old CFL green products businesses like ACE Hardware, Orchard, Home Depot and IKEA accept and will properly dispose of the old CFL bulb.
For decorative lights, choose ENERGY STAR® qualified light emitting diodes (LED) bulbs. The LED units are great green products and use up to 90% less energy that an equivalent incandescent bulbs to produce the same amount of light. I have been told that a single seven-watt incandescent bulb could power up to 140 LEDs.
Dump that old refrigerator
So do you like paying $330 a year to keep that six-pack of soda/beer cold in the garage, hu? Well that’s the average cost to keep that old refrigerator in the garage. During the summer, many of the utility companies will paid you a $50 incentive to recycle that old refrigerator and be environmentally responsible. With the money you save you can buy a new refrigerator that will make a great addition to your array of green products and put some money back in your pocket.
Some energy saving tips for your everyday refrigerator is to keep it full. A full refrigerator runs more efficiently than an empty one. Water bottles can be used to keep the fridge stocked and bags of ice can be used to stock an empty freezer.
Defrost a manual freezer when more that a quarter inch of frost has built up on the inside.
Test your door seals by closing the door on a piece of paper, so that it is partly inside the refrigerator or freezer. If you can pull the paper out easily, the door’s seal should be checked or replaced.
Turn off electricity
One of the areas I have found that we forget about is electrical appliances and light bulbs whither they are green products or not. The other day while passing a group of apartment electrical meters I stopped to notice that every meter was running at a fast rate. I noted this and after a few days noticed, the apartments were not occupied during the day.
After a little test at my place, I noticed a few appliances that had been left plugged in and forgotten about. In a short amount of time, I had turned off or unplugged unused bulbs, power supplies, entertainment equipment and some other appliances. I reduced the meter rotation from a seven rotations per minute to one rotation every two minutes.
Take a look around how many of the cute little black power supplies are plugged in to a wall socket right now, even if they are used with one of your new green products they have no power saving mode so they are consuming electricity right now!
According to my local utility company, consumer electric products are responsible for approximately 15 percent of your electricity bill. Electronic devices still use energy when they are switched off, in fact, the average household spends $100 each year to power devices while they are in “standby” mode.
Use natural shade
Another area that can help reduce your power consumption is the proper use of landscaping. When you plant a tree near a window that is the largest contributor of heat to the house during the summer, you can reduce the temperature and everything under that tree by approximately 10 degrees. This will decrease your need for air conditioning early in the day. Another area to investigate is the location of the air conditioning unit. Is it shaded? If not, look at planting a tree or providing an awning that will shade the a/c unit. By reducing the temperature of the surrounding air, you will reduce the demand on the air conditioning unit and your electrical bill.
Next time we will review more green products that can further reduce your carbon footprint.
