Helpful Information

When you think of it, most of our time at home is spent in our bedrooms. Here are 10 helpful tips on how your bedroom can save energy and lower your electric bills:

1. Draw your curtains when the sun goes down. This will help keep the cold air out.
2. Use a hot water bottle under the covers instead of an electric blanket.
3. Put another blanket on the bed and lower your thermostat at bedtime.
4. Towel dry hair thoroughly before using your electric blow dryer.
5. Keep bedroom door closed.
6. Don’t leave the TV on when no one is in the room.
7. Turn the TV off at the outlet. Remote controls leave the TV in stay by mode.
8. Switch your desktop computer for a new laptop. This lets you compute in bed, in your easy chair or wherever. Plus, a new laptop uses 85% less electricity than a desktop computer.
9. Wear socks when you sleep to stay toasty in bed.
10. Remember, people actually sleep better in a cold room.

The good news is TV sets are getting more and more energy efficient. The new flat screens are far less of an energy drain than their cathode ray tube predecessors. In fact, technological tweaks over the past few years have improved these flat screens’ efficiency by up to 60%. That’s the good news.

Here’s the bad news: the DVRs, cable boxes and other accessories that we hook up to our plasma TVs. These little boxes have become the single biggest electricity cost on the American home. Today’s combined entertainment centers oftentimes eat up more power than a 21 cubic foot refrigerator or an entire central air conditioner system.

Although, these sleek black boxes look innocent enough, they are total energy hogs. It is estimated that a high-definition DVR and high-def cable box will use an average of 446 kilowatt hours a year. A study by the Natural Resources Defense Council concludes that these little TV boxes consume $3 billion in electricity a year in the U.S. alone.

The problem with these digital boxes? They run 24 hours a day. There is no stand–by mode. So once they are plugged in they just suck power.

Are there any work–arounds?  Sure. You can unplug these devices when you go to bed and plug them back in each morning. However, the reboot and load time is incredibly slow. The best fix? Don’t buy them. Try to get by with antenna fed TV programming only. Remember, your flat screen is efficient. It’s those little black boxes that are running up your electric bills.

No question about it––today is the day of the fluorescent. The incandescent bulb has all but been legislated out of existence. LED lights are popular, but pricey. So it seems more and more homes and apartments have fluorescent fixtures everywhere: kitchens, bathrooms, work rooms, even bedrooms.

But then one day it happens.  The flicker shows up––that, annoying strobing. So what’s that all about?

How Fluorescents Work

Well, the thing to remember is fluorescent lights are nothing but gas-filled tubes. The fluorescent gas is  a combination of low pressure mercury vapour and inert gases. When exposed to the electric current this gas is “excited” and produces a kind of greenish light. Ballasts send pulses of electricity throughout the gas. These pulses turn the light on and off at a very fast rate, usually unnoticed by the naked eye. However, some individuals have a sensitivity to this normal, fast-paced flickering. For sensitive people like this, migraines, headaches, eye strain and other physical problems occur. This problem may be overcomed by utilizing lights with electronic ballasts, rather than magnetic ballasts.  Or you can simply replace the tubes more often. The older the bulb the more obvious the flicker.

Check the Fixture

Older fluorescent fixtures use a “starter” to fire up the gas in the tubes. When the starter doesn’t work, the light just flickers, never truly fully lit. In most fluorescent fixtures, you can remove the bulb and then remove the starter. It’s a round plug that sticks out through a hole in the housing. Check to see if the starter is properly seated in the housing. If it is, then it has probably become defective and needs to be replaced. Take the old starter to a hardware store or home center and buy a replacement with the same amp rating. Then plug it in and let there be (constant) light. Or, if all else fails, simply replace the entire fixture with a newer self-starting model.

Fluorescent lights are a long lasting, economical and energy light bulb alternative. But like everything, they take some getting use to.