Monday, December 31, 2007

Wishing You a Green New Year

Making those New Year’s resolutions?
While I’m sure you don’t need any suggestions:
here are a few widely agreed-upon tips that will reduce energy and save you some money.

Use compact fluorescent bulbs which will save you about $30 over their 7,500-10,000 hour life. (You should take them to a recycling center instead of tossing them in the trash, though, because they contain a minuscule amount of mercury.)

Lowering your thermostat 5 to 10 degrees at night and when no one is home can cut heating costs by 20%. Programmable thermostats can make this easier.

Insulate hot water pipes and lower your temperature on your water heater from 130 degrees to 120 degrees.

Choose Energy Star when in the market for new appliances, but be aware that hidden energy drains such as lighting, ice makers, and special settings (such as the pots-and-pans cycle on dishwashers) are not factored into energy-use figures.

2 Comments:

At Tuesday, January 01, 2008 2:52:00 PM, Blogger Unknown said...

I took the PPL energy survey and they had no suggestions to add to what we already do. I always thought my husband was an energy nut. I have already received 2 light bulbs from PPL as they promised. We were able to buy compact fluorescents for the lights on dimmers which are relatively new. What should we do with all of our old light bulbs that are the old fashion type?

 
At Wednesday, January 02, 2008 6:15:00 PM, Blogger Canon Lexa said...

Happy New Year, M.

That is disappointing that PPL has no more suggestions.
Two thoughts.
One. Some fixtures are not deep enough, etc. for the compact florescents. Save your half used ones to replace the ones in them when they burn out.
Two. Carefully wrap and label them so we can send them to PLUS (Food Bank at Bethel) for people who did not do the survey and don't have extra money for light bulbs.
Peace,
L.

 

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