Simple Savings

I have made a couple simple changes in the house to save energy and money and I thought I would share with you. First, I have been installing energy saving compact fluorescent light bulbs. These use a lot less energy to put out the same amount of light and they put out less heat. They save an average of $35 over their lifetime which is 5 years. So far I am using 14 in our house. They do cost a little more than conventional bulbs. By my calculations of savings minus the extra cost over the life of the bulb I am saving approximately $500 over the life of the bulbs I'm using now and I have only switched about half of the bulbs in our house. These also use 60% less energy which cuts emissions and helps with the whole global warming thing (for those of you who believe in global warming and for those of you who don't, you are wrong, just kidding).



The other recent change I made was to install a digital programmable thermostat to replace the manual one. With these you know the exact temperature and don't have to guess based on where the little metal piece is on the temperature gauge. They are programmable so you can set the temp to change at certain times of the day. For instance, currently we have ours set to get warmer during the day when we are not home and then start cooling off around 4pm so when we get home it is cooler. You can even make it control the weekends differently because you are home and there is an override button so you can change it at any time if you want it cooler or warmer. They are pretty amazing. Anyway, they save on average $100-$150 a year which also means you are cutting your energy usage.



Whether you think global warming is real or not, these two simple things save you money and cut energy use which means I am using less electricity which is made using fossil fuels which pollutes. Just imagine if everyone made these simple changes. Here is a good website to help you reduce energy usage and save money. http://www.energystar.gov