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Show Inexpensive tinner recommended Save energy costs by turning off lights By STEPHEN POE USU Cooperative Extension Energy Specialist The average home will spend from $50 to $150 for lighting over a year. In December, with its Christmas lights and extra household company, electricity used is often more than many other months combined. While it is true that energy used for lighting only accounts for three lo five percent of your energy usage around the home, you could cut that usage easily by 50 percent and maybe $ 1 0 per month. First the easy part. When you leave a room, turn off the lights. We had heard that one for years and most of us probably feel guilty enough that we comply without even thinking about it. It is important that you either manually or automatically turn your lights off. I recommend an inexpensive inexpen-sive timer. No sense keeping the lights on after about 10:30 p.m. Remember that part of being good all year is conserving energy. Second, there are a few things that can be done with a little work. Use high-wattage lamps or bulbs only for reading or working. A side benefit is that as you replace higher wattage bulbs with lower energy consumptive bulbs, the life expectancy expec-tancy of the bulbs goes up. If you have a choice between incandescent in-candescent lights and fluorescent lights, choose the fluorescent. The problem with incandescent lights is that only 10 percent of the electricity electric-ity used by the bulb is used to produce pro-duce light. If you've ever tried replacing a warm bulb, you know the remaining 90 percent is given off as heat. Fluorescent lights and compact fluorescent lights use about one quarter the energy to produce light as an incandescent light. The environmental envir-onmental benefits of these bulbs can be dramatic. An example from the "Consumer Guide to Home Energy Conservation ' is as follows: "A single 18-watt compact fluorescent flu-orescent light used in place of a 75-watt 75-watt incandescent light bulb, will save about 575 kilowatt hours over its lifetime. If your electricity is produced from a coal-fired power plant, that savings represents over 500 pounds of coal that would release 1 ,300 pounds of carbon dioxide and 20 pounds of sulfur dioxide." Although you spend more for these bulbs, you save money in the long run because they last ten times longer. Finally, as you repaint your walls, select lighter colors that will give maximum illumination with fewer light fixtures. Also, don't forget to open your drapes and let nature give your electric meter a rest. |