EspañolThis energy-saving tip can help you to save electricity throughout the whole year. There is the easy part and the complicated part. Here are my tips, Change Your Light Settings for Lower Energy Usage and of course, lower electricity bills.
Light Settings for Lower Energy Usage
- Replace your light bulbs
- Section your home illumination
Let’s start with the easy one.
I’m sure you already know that LED light bulbs are way more efficient than incandescent (old fashion) bulbs, and also better and healthier than fluorescent ones. However, let’s take a quick look at these 3 types of light bulbs.
Types of Light Bulbs
Light Bulbs Comparison
The incandescent light bulbs lifespan is short, they are fragile and they generate heat. Yes, these types of bulbs can cause a fire if they are in direct contact with a flammable material. On the other hand, they use about 6 times more electricity than an LED light bulb. They may be cheaper than the LEDs but if you consider that the lifespan of an incandescent bulb is about 1 year, you may think that you are just throwing your money away.
The fluorescent light bulbs were a good alternative. They lost popularity because of their price and I read that they contain mercury which is highly toxic. The efficiency was improved by using 25% of the electricity as an incandescent bulb and almost 10 times its lifespan.
LEDs or light-emitting diodes are considered expensive but they really save. An electrical current pass through a microchip, which illuminates the tiny light sources we call LEDs and the result is visible light. In other words, high-tech is expensive. Not only that, they don’t produce heat and their lifespan is about 25 times compared to an incandescent bulb.
With that explanation, you can do the math and see if LEDs are worth the investment. As a personal example, I moved to a new apartment and all the light bulbs were incandescent. I remove those and replace them with LEDs, when I moved out, I switch back the old bulbs the apartment was equipped with.
Now, it’s time to raise the difficulty level. In some cases, professional help will be necessary.
Section your home illumination to lower energy usage
Kitchen Lights
Bathroom Lights
Sectioning the lights in your home can be a challenge, however, this can save you a ton of electricity. The idea is to just use the fewest light bulbs possible when it’s not necessary to use more.
You may need to do some cutting through the walls and add some wiring and light switches. This is why I said that you might need professional help.
Just think about this, many kitchens and bathrooms have one light switch to activate 4 or more light bulbs. If you are going for a glass of milk in the middle of the night, you can avoid turning all the light bulbs at the same time if you really just need one to have enough light to reach the fridge and pour a glass of milk. I hope this makes sense as it does for me.
A more affordable way to do this is by using table lamps and just using the one in need.
Timers. You can use timers to reduce the time in use for some light fixtures like the entrance or the home exterior.
Lastly, you can replace your light switch with a smart light switch which you can control from your phone or computer. This will help you to manage your home lights from anywhere you are in case you left home for work or vacation and you forgot to turn them off. You can read more about home automation on this blog.
Smart Light Switch
Cheapest electricity service in Texas
Knowledge is power, if you know more about your energy usage you will be able to see your energy-saving efforts like the Light Settings for Lower Energy Usage. Knowing your daily energy usage will help you to determine if an energy-saving idea is worth it to keep doing it. This is only possible with prepaid electricity services; we offer that with Payless Power.
On the other hand, if you have a postpaid electricity service, which only sends a monthly statement, it will be hard to see the impact on your energy usage after trying an energy-saving effort.
Check our Power Blog for more ideas on how to save energy