frugality
I did my taxes this weekend and learned I would be getting an $800 refund. I felt so good I went and bought a whole mess of compact fluorescent lamps to replace all of our incandescent bulbs. All of them. I found a place online that sells them at damn near wholesale cost ($2 for a 13w spring lamp, for instance) and has more varieties that you can imagine. CFLs now come in all kinds of shapes and sizes. I got a G25 style globe lamp for the dining room, 3 R20s (reflector spot lights) for the floor lamp in the study, a R30 for the entry way lamp, a 3-way lamp for the living room floor lamp, and the normal spring-style lamps for everything else. Most of the lamps are 2700K color temp (warm light -- similar to an incandescent) and the ones for the study are 5100K (cool full spectrum light). In addition to the direct energy savings (I've calculated we'll typically use 1/3rd of the energy that currently do), the CFLs will generate less heat which will mean in the summer, the AC won't have to work as hard. In particular the study, which has poor ventilation as it is, should be a lot more bearable during the summer.
Doing the rough calculations based on how we typically use our lights, we could save upwards of $60 a year (they'll pay for themselves shortly after that). I certainly can't complain about that. To help cut energy use down even more, I've set up a scheduled task on my computer to suspend it at night. That save about 80w of power 16 hours a day which is about $16-17 a year. Jane's agreed to do the same so hopefully that will be about $30 saved per year and again, there are indirect savings there by having to run the AC a little bit less during the summer. Just today, she noticed that with our computers off for most of the day that the room was very noticeably cooler.
Doing the rough calculations based on how we typically use our lights, we could save upwards of $60 a year (they'll pay for themselves shortly after that). I certainly can't complain about that. To help cut energy use down even more, I've set up a scheduled task on my computer to suspend it at night. That save about 80w of power 16 hours a day which is about $16-17 a year. Jane's agreed to do the same so hopefully that will be about $30 saved per year and again, there are indirect savings there by having to run the AC a little bit less during the summer. Just today, she noticed that with our computers off for most of the day that the room was very noticeably cooler.