Monday, 11 January 2010 13:19
| One of the first things you can do to take action towards sustainability is to replace all the lights in your house with energy-saver fluorescent light globes. The drop in our energy usage is stunning!
There are many different types available with colours ranging from 'cool white', which are very bright - suitable for our kitchen, but not so nice for a reading lamp, for example, right through to 'warm white'. They don't feel 'fluoro' at all.
Initial cost: Individual globes can cost around $7 each, but a packs of six is around $15-$20.
Initial time: About half an hour to go through replacing globes.
Ongoing time or cost commitment: Zero time; ongoing replacement costs (minimal).
Impact: If every light in the average house was on previously with the old Incandescent light globes it would have been using around 1500 watts. Now with energy-saver fluorescent light globes it would use around 200 watts. Effectively you will drop your electricity usage for lighting by about 85%.
|
|
Monday, 11 January 2010 13:19
| Electronic equipment left on standby uses 10-15% of the power it uses when turned on. Just about everything electrical in our houses nowadays is on standby! Most notably, the computer/ printer/ screen/ speakers/ backup hard-drive gobble up energy. At GreenMe we recommend purchasing a six-point power-board that has its own ‘on/off’ switch. When the computer etc is off, rather than sitting on standby, turn the whole power-board off.
 Initial cost: $20. There are apparently also a range of more expensive options, including ones with a remote switch, for when your power points are in a weird unreachable position, so you can set the switch up somewhere easy.
Initial time: 15 minutes (approx.) to re-arrange the electrical cables.
Ongoing time or cost commitment: An extra few seconds when shutting down the computer to press the ‘off’ switch’.
Impact: At least 12 hours per day that the home office is drawing no power, where previously it was using an estimated 15-20W to sit on standby.
|
|
|
|
| |
