Home Energy Saving Tips

We're pleased to bring you our popular home energy saving tips! We're sharing them with you because as we've found people are usually so busy leading their lives they simply tend to overlook the many little things they can do to reduce their power consumption. These home energy saving tips and ideas - some small, others more significant - should help you to economize, save money and lend a helping hand to our environment.

1. Use your heaters wisely

The first of our home energy saving tips has to do with home heating, more specifically electric radiators. Most radiators were never designed to heat an entire room but that's precisely how we try to use them.

Their intended purpose is only to provide close, personal heating so switch them off as you leave the room. Moderating your heater usage is one of the most common-sense home energy saving tips, but also one of the most disregarded. Sometimes all we need is to "take the chill off the air", so in that case try your heater at it's lowest setting.

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Depending on where your live may be able to have your electric heaters "hard wired" (by a qualified electrician of course) into a cheaper domestic electricity tariff or rate and thus pay a lesser price per energy unit. This can result in massive savings over a given calendar year.

If you use a wood heater or wood fire be sure to have your heater and flu or your chimney serviced regularly. This involves cleaning and giving a detailed inspection for wear. Choosing dense, dry, well seasoned wood and removing excess ash regularly can be beneficial in saving energy and money.

2. Shut that door!

The second of our home energy savings tips also relates to efficiency; if you don't need to warm a room close the door to isolate it from the rest of your house. There's little point in heating a room if it's not being used. It's wasteful, inefficient and will cost you extra money. Close as many doors as practical to contain heat to only the areas which you need heated and stop it (and your money) from escaping.

3. Keep the cold out and the warmth in

The third of our home energy saving tips involves using draft-stoppers at the bottom edge of your doors and also sealing all edges of exterior doors with self-adhesive foam insulation tape. Make sure your windows are properly sealed too. Double glazing creates extra insulation but is quite expensive to install; if you're skilled enough perhaps you can do it yourself. Although this may seem like simple advice, simple and cheap measures such as these certainly help to insulate you from the old and save you on energy.

4. Cover up to get warm; put on a woolen sweater and socks

This is another of our home energy saving tips that sounds obvious, right? But how many of us actually do it? You might have forgotten your Grandma's wise advice - but slipping on a cozy sweater and socks can help you to feel warmer right away, after all it does help insulate you from the cold. Remember, most heat is lost from your extremities. So if it's really cold wear woolen beanie as well. Then try turning your heaters down a setting or two and see how you feel then.

5. Choose and use light globes and lights carefully

The Positive aspects of using energy saving globes...

Using fluorescent (or "fluoro") light bulbs or tubes is one of the most controversial yet popular home energy saving tips we can offer - but this one is a kind of
"double edged sword". Fortunately or unfortunately (depending on your viewpoint) energy saving fluorescent light globes are becoming compulsory in many countries now. Despite the fact that they're more expensive to purchase outright they do tend to last longer.

Fluorescent lighting can be a bit dimmer and harder on some people's eyes than incandescent bulbs (despite many claims to the contrary) so to compensate for the lack of light intensity consider the "cool white" type of bulb - their light is usually a bit brighter. Try using a little bit higher wattage bulbs in recreational areas, particularly those used for reading activities for a compromise between efficiency and saving your eyesight.

Fluorescent globes are usually a little cheaper to buy in bulk but as usual make sure you shop around for the best price. In most places around your home you can usually get away with using relatively low wattage fluorescent bulbs. As usual, only leave as many lights on as necessary; turn them off if you don't need them.

And the negative aspects...

There is one important issue regarding fluorescent globes which curiously is not often discussed in the media. This pertains to the fact that they are potentially dangerous. Be aware that you should handle fluorescent globes carefully because they contain mercury. Most people are blissfully unaware that mercury is toxic. When electricity is applied to this mercury vapor is created - and this vapor produces short-wave ultraviolet light. Next time you switch off a fluorescent light you may see that it will continue to glow faintly for several seconds. What you are seeing is the still “excited” mercury vapor - a deadly poison if ingested.

Mercury represents a significant health and environmental hazard. Although the average fluoro globe only contains only a very small amount of mercury it still pays to be extremely cautious handling new and "blown" fluorescent globes and equally cautious when disposing of them. More pressure needs to be placed on our Government departments to ensure we start getting correctly informed of this danger.

It's disappointing that the widespread use of these globes has been so keenly adopted without governments and media appropriately informing people of the related hazards. The issue may seem trivial on an individual basis but consider for a moment the whole world blindly adopting fluoro globes en masse (such is happening right now) and the tremendous associated issues of mercury disposal and contamination we'll be faced with in the future aside from the health issues.

6. Switch off idle appliances

If you want to be pedantic with saving power you can switch off your appliances when they're not being used, for example DVD players and TV's etc. Also switch them off at the wall outlet. Regardless, certainly disconnect them entirely before going on vacation. These devices consume modest amounts of electricity on an annual basis. It all adds up! This is another of our favorite home energy saving tips.

To learn more home energy saving tips see How to Save on Electricity (page 2)

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