Posts Tagged ‘energy saving light bulbs’

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Be Energy Efficient this winter

Monday, November 29th, 2010

The “big six” energy companies have come under fire from the regulator Ofgem for increasing their profit margins by almost 40% at a time when people are already struggling to pay their bills.

Ofgem wants to discover whether the energy giants are “playing it straight” with consumers, or whether they are simply “lining their pockets” at the consumer’s expense.

However the findings of the review will not be made available until March next year so Energychoices.co.uk is urging people not to wait that long before looking into changing energy suppliers.

Chris Eagle, is warning people not to sit back and wait to see what happens with the Ofgem review, but to act now if they want to save themselves money.

He says: “Although this is great news that the regulator is investigating the transparency and fairness of the big energy firms, it is not an excuse for you to do nothing and become complacent.

“It is about time the watchdog cottoned onto the fact that energy prices are out of control and people need to know why, however this information will not be available until March 2011.

“In the meantime it is important that you do not just twiddle your thumbs waiting for the verdict, but get online and compare energy prices. You’ll probably find that there are cheaper tariffs available for you and if you were to switch you could significantly slash your gas and electricity bills this winter.”

In addition, Energychoices.co.uk is also recommending that people do what they can to make their homes more energy efficient.

There are a number of things you can do to make your house more energy efficient for little cost, if not for free, which will in turn cut your energy bills.

Here are our top five low-cost ways to cut your bills:

1.    Put draft excluders by the doors and hang up some heavy curtains to keep the cold out and the heat in.

2.    Make sure the timer is set appropriately on your boiler, so you don’t waste money on heating an empty house.

3.    Turn your thermostat down by 1 ̊C, it can cut 10% off your bill and you won’t notice the difference.

4.    Use energy saving lightbulbs to cut your bills and they last 10 times longer.

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Energy Saving Light Bulbs Help Save the Environment?

Monday, November 22nd, 2010

It is endlessly stated that incandescent light bulbs use vast quantities of electricity and damage the environment. Additionally the environmental activists have now lobbied government to legislate for the ban. This is a phased initiative to eliminate the use of incandescents and move to energy saving light bulbs. In this article I provide some data regarding how much you can reduce your carbon footprint by the change to energy saving light bulbs and how this economy compares with other C02 emission savings you can make by decreasing car travel or improved use of domestic electrical appliances.

Carbon footprint reductions from moving to energy saving light bulbs

You might well be curious how lamps can create carbon dioxide? Well they cannot and it is the electricity generating stations, which are normally oil or gas fired, which create the C02. Obviously if your electricity is generated by wave power, windmills or different green processes then C02 emissions will be very little. Lets now look at the data based on a usage of 4 hours per day and assuming you pay 13p per kW hour for electricity. In this case changing one traditional incandescent will save a phenomenal 100kg per year in carbon dioxide emissions.

Looking at the comparison with transportation and other ways to reduce my carbon footprint.

I am sure you are questioning if 100kg of carbon dioxide emissions is a cause for worry and also whether it is not possible to make these carbon footprint reductions through other modes as opposed to changing to energy saving light bulbs? In order to respond to these questions I will offer then following data for appraisal.

1. If you own a Ford Focus C-Max vehicle and you can arrange to drive 340 miles less every year then this is an equivalent saving as changing one of your bulbs to one of your energy saving light bulbs.
2. If you can alter your travel patterns to avoid 1000 miles of train travel, then this will save 100kg in C02 emissions. Energy saving light bulbs offer you a corresponding saving by just changing one!
3. If you fly from London to Glasgow on a full plane then this will result in the release of 100kg in C02.

Now with these choices then changing to energy saving light bulbs has got to be an easy winner.

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LED Lights

Monday, November 15th, 2010

For some reason when we think about energy saving light bulbs we don’t think about LEDs. I do not know why, but we do not think about energy efficient LEDs. And we should – they exist! And they are exactly the same as alternative LEDs, the same brightness, the same prices, but crucially they are far cheaper to run and far better for the environment.

Most modern homes have more LED Lights than traditional light bulbs and we have to start converting them to energy efficient LED Lights. This is a matter that I come across in my work on a weekly basis. I am an interior designer, most of my work is in properties that are up for sale; I dress houses in my furniture, curtains, lights, rugs and ornaments. I only use energy saving light bulbs and in the past year it has been the same with LED Lights. I wouldn’t want to do it any other way.

I am not an activist, I wouldn’t even call myself an environmentalist, I am just a human, living on planet earth and as such I feel that it is my duty to protect it if I can. We all recycle now, not to would be almost unthinkable. And the same should go for energy efficient light bulbs. It is such a small thing and if we all did it, it would make a huge difference – there is no reason not to.

I think that we are at a point in history where we have to make the change now, because when we look back on this period 50 years from now it will be embarrassing not to have. It is like smoking in pubs – if some one lit a cigarette now in a pub, they would be at best frowned upon, at worst arrested, and that change has been in place for less than 5 years, we should be frowning upon lighting manufacturers that do not come with energy saving light bulbs and surely we are not far away from some sort of legislation that makes this compulsory.

In the meantime, we have to do our best in our own homes, we have to make the change and we, as consumers, have to demand the change from manufacturers.

Conclusion

There is no time like the present. I think we need a sense of urgency when it comes to changing to energy saving light bulbs, particularly with LED lights.

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A Bright Idea

Monday, November 8th, 2010

If you have been following the election recently (or indeed the news in the last two years), you will know that the two main issues in today’s society are the environment and the economy. We could also say that the two main issues in your world are YOUR economy and YOUR environment.

Most of us want to ‘do our bit’ we actively recycle, we buy organic, we use public transport or cycle, we are aware of our carbon footprint – and we WANT to help the world. After all, this is the legacy that we are leaving our children.

It is quite a daunting undertaking; ‘to save the world’. Although it wasn’t so long ago, that very few of us recycled and the collective consciousness was ‘what difference will it make if I do it?’ Now it is almost unthinkable not to recycle – it is practically antisocial not to!

We have found that in order to ‘save the world’ the little things that we do at home make a huge difference when practiced collectively by society. One of these ‘little things’ is changing your light bulbs to energy saving light bulbs. It might not seem like much but you will be reducing your Co2 emissions massively.

For property developers it is now compulsory to build houses that have fittings exclusively for energy saving bulbs. There is a shift happening in society towards the greater good, but most of our energy savings involve some sort of sacrifice on our part – to recycle costs us a little more time, to cycle to work instead of drive costs us a little more energy, the list goes on.

Energy efficient light bulbs are one of the few examples of and environmentally friendly alternative that requires no sacrifice; in fact, it benefits us as well as the environment because our electricity bill is dramatically reduced. That doesn’t mean you can leave your lights on!

If you want to ‘do your bit’ and save money, you simply have to change your light bulbs to energy efficient light bulbs. It is not rocket science. Remember it is the little steps that we all make that create the fundamental shift to a better society.

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Making the switch!

Tuesday, November 2nd, 2010

How many light bulbs do you use regularly in your house? Including lamps? I just counted and I reckon I use 10 bubs for about 4 hours a day (we like mood lighting) and those figures go up substantially in the winter. Most of my bulbs were 100w bulbs and I pay about 10p per Kw/per hr for my electricity. I worked out that if I swapped my light bulbs for the equivalent energy efficient light bulbs, I would save over £120 per year. That is not to be sniffed at.

The cost of changing those 10 bulbs will give me plenty of change from £20 so what am I waiting for? I honestly don’t know. People are strange. I am writing this article to make me change my light bulbs – if I say I will do it that will make me do it. I have been meaning to for ages, but then the weekend comes and it gets put off, time and time again. But no more. This weekend is the weekend for me and some energy saving bulbs. I have already ordered them from the internet, they are in the post, I have no excuses left.

I wonder how many of you reading this are in the same boat. Keep on meaning to do it, but never finding the time? In the last couple of years when a light bulb has blown I’ve replaced it with an energy saving light bulb, but perhaps I am OCD, I just don’t like having a mixture, I want a pure-bulbed-house, not a mixture; it’ll be light bulb Apartheid around here this weekend.

But it is basic common sense – I will save money and I will help the environment, there is absolutely no reason for me not to do it and the fact that I haven’t yet has frustrated me to the point of writing about my frustrations. When I have spoken to my friends about this they all say the same thing “oh yeah, must get round to that.” I think it’s about time we just did it. This lethargy isn’t doing anyone any good.

We all want to help the world, we all want to ‘do our bit’ and we all want to save a little money, I can’t understand why it has taken me so long to change my bulbs. If you are like me, just make a promise to yourself and get it done.

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