Until recently these have been two 80 watt fluorescent shop lights that we left on all of the time and one more that was left on about half the time.  At my current electrical rates that costs $203 a year!

The Solution: replace the shop lights with six 20 watt compact fluorescent bulbs in bare bulb fixtures with aluminum foil reflectors.  The vertical orientation of the bulbs and the reflectivity of the aluminum foil do a better job of distributing the light than the shop light fixtures do.

The Result:  Perceived light is about the same.  Projected savings is over $110 a year!  That’s 10% of our 2009 electricity bill!

I should have done this a long time ago.

Dan Bossenbroek

1.       Turn off the lights when you leave a room.

2.       Install a motion / occupancy sensor in a room that you go in and out of frequently at night.

3.       Switch to LED night lights, they use a fraction of the energy that standard night lights do.

4.       Unplug your alarm clock and keep your cell phone next to your bed at night.

5.       Turn off the, lights and go to bed early, nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

6.       Turn off the TV and read a book instead.

7.       Use a clothes dryer heat saver in the winter.

8.       Line dry your laundry.

9.       Plug all of your electronics: TV, VCR, DVD, stereo, computer, printer, cable router, network router into a power strip and turn the power strip off at night.

10.    Replace incandescent bulbs with CFL’s (compact fluorescent lamps.)

11.     Turn down your thermostat in the winter.

12.     Turn up your thermostat in the summer.

13.     Clean the condensing coil of your refrigerator.

14.     Buy an Energy Star refrigerator.

15.     Use a laptop instead of a desktop computer.

16.     Turn off your computer when you are not using it.

17.     Turn off your printer except when you are using it.

18.     Turn off your monitor too.

19.     Same goes for your speakers.

20.     Buy a new computer since they use a lot less electricity than older ones.

21.     Same goes for flat screen monitors vs. CRT monitors.

22.     Upgrade to Windows Vista or 7, they have a “Sleep” function.  Oh, yeah – Use it.

23.     Allow food to cool to room temperature before you put them in the refrigerator.

24.     Keep a pitcher of your favorite beverage in the refrigerator instead of using ice.  It takes more energy to freeze water than to just keep it cool.

25.     Insulate your attic and walls to the proper level.

26.     Insulate the extra refrigerator or freezer in your garage or basement.

27.     Crank the thermostat down another 2 to 4 degrees at night and turn on an electric blanket.  Turn it on just long enough to warm up your bed or at least keep it on the low setting.

28.     Move your kids into one bedroom in the winter and close off the registers in the empty ones.

29.     Let your furry friends sleep on your bed in the winter.  They can sure help to keep you nice and toasty warm.

30.     Get rid of grandma’s refrigerator or freezer that you have in the basement or garage.

31.     Install a programmable thermostat – lower heating bills = lower electrical bills.

32.     Buy and use a space heater or two and heat up only rooms that you use while keeping the rest of the house at a lower temperature.

33.     Bundle up and turn down the thermostat.

34.     Snuggle under a blanket with a friend while you watch TV.

35.     Use timers to turn lights on and off when you are not at home.

36.     Use task lighting instead of lighting up the entire room.

37.     Watch your favorite programs on your laptop instead of the TV.

38.     Go solar to heat your water.

39.     Listen to your MP3 player instead of cranking up the stereo.

40.     Use window fans on cool nights instead of your air conditioner.

41.     When you remodel, avoid carpeting, you can vacuum less often with hard floors.

42.     Replace your air conditioner with one that is Energy Star rated.

43.     Move to a smaller house or apartment.

44.     Seal up your windows with insulating window film.

45.     Install a radiant barrier in your attic.

46.     Replace furnace filters when needed, this will help your furnace run more efficiently.

47.     Upgrade your furnace with one with a higher efficiency.

48.     Eat it raw or cold: veggies, bread (instead of toast), sandwiches (cheese vs. grilled cheese), and milk for example.

49.     Cook with a sun oven.

50.     Dine by candle light.

51.     Get a four poster bed and hang blankets over the top and sides – then you can turn the thermostat down even more at night.

52.     Weatherize your house, seal all of those cracks, gaps and holes

53.      Customize your refrigerator and wrap it with 1 ½” of rigid insulation and any number of finishes: painted or stained wood veneer, chalk board, galvanized steel, vinyl tile, or cork tile.

54.     Teach your kids not to stand with the refrigerator door open.

55.     Practice what you preach.

56.     Wash your hands in cold water.

57.     Install energy saving heat reflective film on all your windows.

58.     Move your refrigerator to an unheated porch, garage or breezeway in the cooler months.

59.     Use an unheated vestibule, garage or enclosed porch to enter and exit your house.  This will prevent cold blasts of air from invading your house every time you go in or out.

60.     Add a dog door in above mentioned vestibule, this too will reduce the cold blasts.

61.     Install solar powered lights at your patio, deck and/or garden.

62.     Open up the curtains in the winter and on the north side of your house to let the sun in.

63.     Install a solar tube type skylight and turn off the lights in that room even at night.

64.     Set solar powered lanterns outside during the day and bring them inside at night for a taste of living off the grid.

65.     Install LED lamps in your recessed cans.  They use even less energy than CFL’s.

66.     Don’t leave the television on for your dog during the day.  Let them read the paper if they need to catch up on the news.

67.     Install a whole house fan and use it instead of your air conditioner.

68.     Use an antique sewing machine with a foot pedal.

69.     Plug power strips into timers so you don’t need to remember to turn them off.

70.     Can the jam, instead of freezing it.  This goes for the extra produce from your garden too.

71.     Generate your own electricity with a wind turbine.

72.     Install a solar air heater, or two.

73.     Install SolarChoice Blinds: a passive solar heater in the guise of vertical blinds.

74.     Buy an Energy Star front loading washing machine.

75.     Wear your clothes more than once between washes.

76.     Only do full loads of laundry.

77.     Wash your clothes in cold water, or at least warm instead of hot.

78.     Fill up your dishwasher before you run it.

79.     Use the energy saver setting on your dishwasher.

80.     Switch to an Energy Star dishwasher.

81.     Use a small plate instead of a large one whenever possible, to cut down on dishwasher loads.

82.     Use one glass all day for your drinking water and it will take longer to fill up your dishwasher.

83.     Try to use only one plate or bowl per person for each meal, this will lead to fewer dishwasher loads.

84.     Serve food in the pots that you cooked the food in and it will take longer to fill the dishwasher.

85.     Skip taking a shower once in a while.

86.      Install an instant hot water heater – hot water will be at the tap sooner.

87.     Insulate your hot water pipes.

88.      Skip shaving once in a while.

89.     Switch to low flow showerheads.

90.     Put the scraps from your plates in to a worm bin instead of down the disposal.

91.     Take shorter showers – keep them to five minutes or less.

92.     Plant a tree or more to shade your house.

93.     When you take a shower turn off the water while you lather and wash.

94.     Two young kids in the same tub = ten to twenty gallons of water saved.

95.     Get your kids involved and teach them to turn the lights off when they leave the room (for instance).

96.     Adjust your water softener so that it regenerates only as necessary.

97.     Lightly steam your vegetables instead of boiling them to death.

98.     Take tandem showers: as soon as one person is done the next hops in.

99.     Give your dog a bath in the water your kids just bathed in.

100.   Jump in the shower before the water gets warm and enjoy a refreshing start to your day.

101.   Trade your furnace in for a small fire breathing dragon.  This may be difficult as they are uncommonly rare.

Have fun and start saving (more)!

CFL Bulbs

Energy Star rated CFL bulbs are 75% more efficient than standard incandescent lights. They use less energy and burn 10 times as long as traditional bulbs, advantages from economical and environmental perspectives.

One drawback to CFLs is that fluorescent light shines a different color than most people are used to, although the industry has made great strides in addressing this issue over the past few years. Newer CFL bulbs fall into a light spectrum much closer to incandescents than previous versions of the bulb, and also offer light spectrum choices such as ‘daylight’ and cool, white light. The main problem with CFLs is that they contain mercury, which is considered hazardous waste. It can be a health concern if the bulb is broken open, and requires users to dispose of the bulbs at city or county hazardous waste facilities rather than curbside trash.

As with many of the newer and more efficient technologies on the market these days, CFLs have a higher cost than traditional light bulbs. They cost on average $1 more per bulb. While their much longer lifespan makes the investment worth it, the additional upfront cost is a deterrent to buyers. The cost of CFL bulbs should continue to drop as technology improves and the market grows.

LED Bulbs

An even newer and more promising replacement offering for incandescent bulbs is LED lights. LEDs are in a solid state, which means they don’t require a filament to burn, and are able to produce light using small amounts of energy with high efficiency. The newest generation of bulbs has an operating life of 40,000 hours.

As with CFLs, LEDs shed a different light than their yellow hued counterparts, incandescent bulbs. They are also much dimmer than other bulbs, because the individual LEDs are concentrated at the top of the bulb and because they are so much cooler. While the newest bulbs are great for headlamps, night lights, and accent lighting, their use as overhead lighting hasn’t been perfected yet.

Recent breakthroughs in technology, including Sharp’s new nine-bulb LED series with adjustable color tone, show us the future of light bulbs that aren’t quite ready for the market. Sharp’s cutting edge bulb costs $82, and cheaper LEDs still run in the $30+ range. As technology improves for LEDs, their costs will go down and they’ll likely replace CFLs as the cleanest, most efficient light bulb available to households.

This article provided courtesty of HowToSaveElectricity.net

1. Self-sufficiency:  On the grounds of Hogwarts are at least three greenhouses.  They are primarily used to grow magical plants that can then be used in various potions or for Madame Pomfrey’s remedies.  Growing your own crop that has magical properties is not recommended.  But greenhouses are great for extending the growing season for your vegetables, herbs and fruit.  Homegrown tomatoes in October anyone?
2. Energy Conservation:  Hogwarts is a big old English castle that’s cold and drafty in the winter, and not that comfortable during the long rainy fall and spring.  Lucky for all of the students, at least those in Griffindor house that they are provided with a four poster bed, complete with canopy and curtains.  Get one for yourself (and your kids) and you can turn your thermostat down another two to four degrees at night and still stay cozy.
3. Earth Sheltering: The Slytherin  and Hufflepuff Common Rooms and Dorms are located in the lower regions and dungeons of the castle.  They are not the most welcoming and light filled places, but they sure do take advantage of the temperature regulating benefits of earth sheltering.  It’s not likely that you could pile earth up against your house, or bury it completely.  However, you might consider one of those options, a vegetative roof, or at least a full walkout basement when you plan a major renovation, addition or a new house.
4. Localized Heat – Strategy 1:  Fireplaces are located all over Hogwart castle, providing heat when and where it is needed.  Instead of heating your entire castle, you can use fireplaces, electric space heaters, pellet stoves and/or solar air heaters to warm up just the rooms that you use, when you use them while keeping the rest of the house several degrees cooler.
5. Localized Heat – Strategy 2:  Dorm Rooms are shared by several students.  This arrangement drastically reduced the number of heat sources required to keep them warm at night.  Instead of having a separate room for each kid, have two or three kids sleep in one room and then use the other bedroom as a play room.  Then you can heat/cool the former at night and the latter when needed.
6. Daylighting:  The common room for Ravenclaw house that is filled with bookcases, tables and chairs has a high domed ceiling and numerous arched windows in the walls that provide spectacular views of the surrounding mountains.  Of the four common rooms in the castle, this is the one I would choose to spend my time in.  What an ideal place to hang out and study for your O.W.L.s.  It has been proven that daylighting will increase test scores, improve your mood and lower your energy bills. Let the sun shine in.  Open the drapes.  Add a skylight, solar tube or an extra window.  Cheer yourself up, and save some energy.
7. Alternative Transportation:  Harry and his friends use numerous forms of alternative transportation.
   • The most eco-friendly would be old fashioned walking.  Wizards do a lot of walking.  Something that we should all do more of.  Why is it that in today’s world we consider walking “alternative transportation”.
   • Traveling by the flue network, broom and apparition rank right up there too, but they rely almost exclusively on the use of magic.  Aside from the fact that we have not yet developed this types of technologies, if we ever do, it will inevitably be very energy intensive.  So they will never be an eco-friendly option.  However, one could argue that broom riding is similar to bicycle riding, and then it would be a very eco-friendly option.
   • Now, determining whether or not flying on a Thestral or Hypogryph is an earth friendly option is a bit tricky.  Keeping a horse, the closest non-magical equivalent, for personal intercity use these days is a bit impractical, but if we could just genetically alter them so that they sprouted wings, then they might be worth the trouble.
   • Finally we have the Hogwarts Express.  We all know that rail transportation is one of the most efficient ways to move things, right?  But how eco-friendly is a coal burning, four car passenger train that travels non-stop from London to Hogsmeade and back about four hundred miles just three times a year?  It doesn’t even stop at the halfway point for the kids from northern England and Ireland.  Instead, on September 1^st every student must make their way from all over the UK to platform 9 ¾ at Kings Cross station
   • Alternative Transportation: some forms are great, some live in the land of myth and science fiction, some are impractical or would cause public outrage, and some are still up for debate.
8. Multi-use Spaces: Talk about the ultimate multipurpose room!  Need a place to hide something for centuries?  The Room of Requirement.  Need a place to secretly study Defense Against the Dark Arts?  The Room of Requirement.  Need a place for your girlfriend to sleep off a night of butterbeer overindulgence?  The Room of Requirement.  Need a place to hide from the bad guys and smuggle all of your friends into the castle? The Room of Requirement.  Including rooms in your house that can serve multiple purposes can save you space, time and lots of money.
9. Native Habitat:  Creating a diverse, natural habitat with indigenous plants on your property can reduce your water use, your time maintaining your property, and it can attract wildlife.  The Forbidden Forest has no irrigation system.  One gamekeeper for hundreds of acres – you do the math.  A herd of Centaurs, a colony of Acromantula, Unicorns, Thestrals, Werewolves, Trolls, and Bowtruckles  – now that’s wildlife!
10. Off Grid:  Hogwarts is so off the grid that there is no grid.  Ok, they use torches, candles, lamps and a bit of magic for light.  But can you imagine what your electricity bill would look like if you didn’t have any TVs, VCRs, DVDs, DVRs, computers, washing machines, dryers, dishwashers, refrigerators, microwave ovens, cell phone chargers, …..!!?

You don’t need to be a wizard to slash your energy consumption, but taking a look at how they do things at Hogwarts could teach you a few things.

Dan Bossenbroek

1. Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFL’s): Replace any incandescent bulb in your house that you use ½ hour or more per day immediately. These will pay for themselves in a year or less, that’s at least a 100% return on your investment. Replace the remaining incandescent bulbs as they burn out. Two words of caution: many CFL’s don’t work too well in cold or wet locations, and CFL’s contain mercury, so dispose of the burned out ones properly.

2. Weatherize Your House: Plug all the cracks in the exterior walls of your house, they can be found around doors & windows, pipes & wires that poke through the wall, and between different siding materials. Also seal all of the outlets, switches and light fixtures that are in any exterior walls or ceilings below an attic. There are a multitude of products that can be used to accomplish this: weather stripping, door sweeps, sealant, foam insulation, outlet and switch gaskets, and aluminum tape, to name several.

3. Insulate, insulate, insulate: Walls, attics and basements should all have adequate insulation. Adding insulation to your walls and attic is one of the most cost effective ways to save energy. First determine how much insulation is recommended in your area, and then add insulation to your attic, walls and then basement to the recommended levels. Fiberglass and cellulose are two of the best insulation choices for your attic. Determining the correct insulation for your walls is a little more complicated, foam insulation is an additional choice here. In your basement, fiberglass batts are typically the insulation of choice.

4. Light up the Night: LED (Light Emitting Diode) nightlights are the most cost effective way to add a little bit of light in just the right places throughout your home. LED bulbs are about 10 times more efficient than incandescent bulbs and 50% more efficient than fluorescent bulbs. By using LED nightlights you can turn off many of the lights that you might leave on so that you can safely walk around your house at night. Consider using a couple of 1 watt night lights instead of a 10 watt fixture.

5. Programmable Thermostat: Turning down the thermostat every night in the winter, turning it up in the morning, down again while you are gone at work and up again when you get home is a great way to save on you heating bills, but can become a real hassle. It’s easy to forget to adjust it, and even when you do remember, it’s a bit chilly in the morning when you wake up. A programmable thermostat will remember to adjust the thermostat for you, and can be set to warm things up a little before you have to get up in the morning. Programmable thermostats: saving energy made easy.

6. Low-Flow Showerheads: Not only will you save water with these water misers, but you will save the energy that heats the water for a double savings on your utility bills.

7. Water Heater Insulation: Another thing that you should consider insulating is your hot water heater, especially if it is warm to the touch.

8. Solar Lighting: Install a few miniature photovoltaic systems to provide accent light in your garden and security lights where needed. Solar powered fixtures have made great strides lately with the advances in battery, LED and solar panel technologies. The increased efficiency of the collectors, smaller size of the batteries and the increased bulb life and output of LED lamps and the decrease in cost of all three will allow the solar powered lights of today to shine brighter and longer than those made just a few years ago.

9. Window Fans: You may want to consider a Window Fan to cool your house during the night when the temperatures are significantly lower than they are in the day. Many times your house or apartment can be cooled off to such an extent that you can close your windows in the morning and the temperature inside will stay quite comfortable for most if not all of the day. Window fans create a great cool breeze throughout the house and can even lower the temperature inside lower than an air conditioner would.

10. Clothes Dryer Heat: There is a handy gadget available that attaches to your dryer vent and directs the warm humid air from your electric clothes dryer back into your laundry room instead of outside through the dryer vent. It has a screen that is easy to clean and a movable damper so that the hot air can be directed outside during the cooling season.

11. Radiant Insulation: More than half of the heat lost up through your roof in the winter and that comes down into your house in the summer is radiant (infrared) heat. Traditional fiberglass bat and cellulose insulation work well to slow conductive and convective heat flow, but don’t do much to stem the radiant heat flow. Radiant insulation reflects the heat back down into your house in the winter and back up through the roof in the summer so that it never has the chance to heat up your attic. Hence, it keeps your attic much cooler in summer and warmer in winter, greatly reducing the difference in temperature between the inside of your house and the attic and in the size of your energy bills both in summer and winter.

12. Drip Irrigation System: Spraying water all over an entire garden might simulate natural rainfall, but it is not the most efficient way to water your plants. Drip irrigation is a method of watering plants by which pipes and/or hoses are run through the garden and emitters or holes in the hoses for water to leak out are placed at the bases of the plants. This way, water is delivered only where it is needed, at the roots. Very little water is wasted through evaporation and none should run down your driveway and make it into the local storm sewer. These systems are very inexpensive and fairly easy to install.

13. Furnace Filter Whistle: Not only will a dirty furnace filter reduce your furnaces efficiency, it will also increase the wear and tear on your furnace. Thus, it pays to replace your furnace regularly, but when should you change your filter? Some say that you should change it once a month, others say once a quarter. Regardless of how often, it is very easy to forget. A Furnace Filter Whistle takes away all of the guess work, and remembering by telling you when your filter needs to be replaced.

14. Space Heater: In the cold of winter it’s great to feel warm and cozy, but you don’t have to turn up the thermostat and heat your entire house. Use a space heater or two to heat the few spaces that you are actually using and save on your heating bills.

15. Hot Water Pipe Insulation: With this strategy you can save energy and water. Pre-slit foam insulation is easy to install, just cut it to length and fasten in place with a little duct tape. By insulating your hot water pipes you will not have to wait as long for hot water to reach the faucet and you can also make sure your pipes don’t freeze in your unheated crawl space.

By employing these fifteen mostly inexpensive strategies in your home, you will be able to save energy, water and hundreds of dollars every year on your energy bills all while making your home more comfortable to live in.

Dan Bossenbroek 

One of the main stumbling blocks to the sustainability movement has been that many people just don’t want to change the way they do things or what they buy. Some don’t like the color of CFL’s, others are concerned about the mercury they contain.  LED’s are very efficient, but they are very expensive and it’s hard to find ones to replace 75 and 100-watt bulbs.  For those that have not made the switch to CFL’s or LED’s there may be some help.

Scientists at the University of Rochester have learned how to alter the filament using an ultra-brief pulse from an ultra-intense laser and make them much more efficient.  So far they have been able to produce a bulb that produces as much light as a 100-watt but uses less than 60 watts.  Furthermore, they have been able to effect the color of the light that the fillaments emit.  Hopefully this technology will soon be further developed and incoporated into mass production.  This way, more and more people will be encouraged to save energy and money.

In short: More efficient incandescent bulbs = a great step in the right direction.

Dan Bossenbroek

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