With the price of everything going up, I’ve been very conscious of our energy use both in our cars, and in our home.
I’ve always been one of those people that turns lights off anywhere that they aren’t necessary. We have been very good about only using lights in the rooms that we are in over the years. Having a five year old running around the house makes that a bit of a challenge but we have been pretty successful in reinforcing that she should turn off the lights when she leaves a room. I still have to keep an eye out, but overall we do a very good job of keeping the lights off.
This year we have decided to try to minimize the use of our central air conditioning. This is the first house we’ve had air conditioning in and somehow we always managed to live through the heat before living here, so why not try to suck it up a bit in this house? The fact of the matter is, it doesn’t get THAT hot in the Pacific Northwest. We’ll have a few months of 70-90 degree weather but there will be plenty of cooler days mixed in. So far this year we have only used the air conditioning two times. On the two days that we did use it, the temperature got up to 90 degrees and the house was about 80 degrees. The humidity level is higher here than many other parts of the country (excluding the south) so 90 is significant. On those two days we worked to get the temperature down to about 73 degrees and ended up pretty comfortable when we went to sleep that night.
In the past our average bill in the dead of summer has been about $200. Our goal this year is to cut that in half. We’ll do this by creating cross drafts in the house in the morning and in the evening as it cools off and will also use fans. We have a ceiling fan in our bedroom which really helps a LOT. Our daughter does not have a fan but we have a floor fan that we point down the hall to cool her room down. Just like with cutting our gas consumption in the cars, all it takes is a little bit of effort and awareness to make an impact.
Do you have any ideas for cutting electricity use in your home?
One thing we did was pick up a couple Kill-A-Watt devices that measure how much energy something uses. This has been more the partner’s domain, but he has a spreadsheet with every significant appliance we own and how much energy they use. We’ve learned to turn off the ancient laser printer when we’re not printing because of how much energy it uses just to stand by. We’ve also been able to see what settings are the most energy efficient on our window a/c units.
We will eventually use this data for deciding which appliances to replace and when, but for now it’s mostly a collection of data points because we like states like that. :) It’s not cutting our bills drastically at the moment, but it helps up be accurately informed about where our energy dollars are going each month.
I use fans to cool off too. I live in Texas and it gets really hot here so the air conditioning is really useful.
In order to keep the house cool you can also install dark drapes. I got some from WalMart that were about $13 and look like black denim. Those block out the light and keep a room really cool. You can put these in all your rooms and if you are not in the room then keep the drapes closed. It really makes a difference.
I also save on the electric bill by using solar lights. I got a pack of 4 solar garden lights for about $15 and since it is so bright I let them charge all day. Then I use them in the bathrooms and other rooms as night lights. They are surprisingly bright and if you put two or three in a room you might not even have to turn on the lights.
I use mine in the bathrooms so I don’t have to turn on the lights.
Thanks for saving energy. I don’t use AC much and I think you can get used to the high temperature after living in it for a while making AC less important.
our garden lights are made up of Light Emitting Diodes for lower power consumption