Rule of thumb: Watch your lighting consumption and follow the 80-20 rule. 20% of our gadgets consume 80% of electricity. Carefully choose and observe appliances that have rating more than 1000 W, that includes our A/c, Oven, Geyser, Washing machines/ Dryers, Dish washers.

Air Heating and Cooling : 25 % of all our energy needs

Keep the appliances well maintained. Have the filters on a/c’s cleaned regularly. While selection of A/c follow the simple rule 20 btu per hour per sq ft of carpet area.

Further keep the floors, wall and ceilings well sealed to prevent draft losses. Have double glazed windows with hermetically sealed air entrapment that reduces cooling and heating requirements by up to 30 percent when compared to single glazed windows. Regularly check the window weathering strips/ gaskets for signs of wear and tear. Install storm doors for the entrance to retain the inside heat/cold temp. when compared to normal doors. Prevent heat/cold buildup in attics by providing proper vents.

Using programmable thermostats allows us to configure the settings to minimal requirement when away. Further instead of going for super cool setting, having settings at moderate cool is comfortable and reduces energy consumption by up to 10%.

Avoid installing a/c condenser unit at areas that makes the ac require more efforts than normal. Particularly west facing should be avoided due to sun exposure, further compulsorily use blinds for west facing windows, have some plantation done, as requirements during mid afternoons are particularly high.

Invest in humidifiers to reduce the heating requirement as dry air requires more heating. Ensure fire places have decent dampers installed.

Another rule of thumb: 7 -10 year old equipment uses up 30% more energy resulting in increased electric bills.

Hot Water Requirements: Ensure that you buy the right water heater. If you area family of four your requirement in 40 gallon heater. (10 gallon per person). Further keeping the thermostat setting to 120 Deg F, 50 Deg C provides a great warm shower than a 140 Deg F and again the shower reduces the hot water consumption by 40%.

Washing Machines : Front Loading machines save 50% more energy due to its 50% less water required for its washing cycle than a top loading. You can visibly notice the difference before a washing cycle on the two machines. Further choose machine with greater rpm as it get the time required for the washing/ spinning cycle is less in machines with greater rpm.

Light fixtures: If you still have incandescent lamps in your home, replace them with CFL’s (Compact Fluorescent lamps). 25 W CFL produces the same luminosity 1600 lumens as a 100 W incandescent lamp (yellow bulbs). Further you have options allowing you to produce natural daylight in the evenings. While choosing the CFL just observe the kelvin rating displayed, higher the Kelvin rating more closer is the luminosity to natural daylight. 2500K lighting would be on the yellow side moving on to 3500 – 4000K for white to 5000-6500K for natural daylight effect at night. Don’t be too much perturbed with the exact K rating, choose on the higher side.

Interesting fact: Replacing one normal bulb with CFL, saves enough energy to power up 3 million US homes for a year, savinfg power needs. Comparable power plant emissions to generate that much energy would be same as carbon emissions from 800,000 cars. Are you still using incandescent yellow bulbs.

Already on CFL’s want to save further, use LED lamps – 5 W LED bulbs produce same luminosity as a 25W CFL or 100W Incandescent Lamp. Use it to save up to 90% of your lighting bill component.

Other gadgets: How many of us keep the home printers switched off when using the computer. Some of these home printers take up a whooping 600 w of power. Further activate the sleep mode on when your computer is not in use. LCD consumes 70% less power than Plasma. Get up from your bed/couch while switching off your TV and turn off the power switch.

Believe me just a careful observation would get our bills spiraling down and get our smiles wider.

It is even possible to reduce the bills to zero, yes correct. http://www.tinyurl.com/greenpowerforu

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