Do an energy audit on your house. One night, I walked into the living room and discovered that there were 24 blinking LED lights on.
In the dining room was the piano (electric), which had been left on and one little red LED was there. Six phone/ipod/Bluetooth/laptop chargers sat atop the piano—all plugged into a power strip which was also left on (though nothing was charging).
We live in a very energy-efficient house, but we weren’t a very energy-efficient family.
Here’s few ways to triage your energy use:
*unplug it, even if it’s not in use. Most appliances drain a tiny amount of energy even if they’re plugged in but powered off. Unplug the coffee pot, the entertainment center and even the piano, or plug your appliances into power strips that can shut off the whole “block” at once.
*Even if you hate the look of those new efficient lightbulbs—put them in your porch light. In most homes, the porch light gets the most use of any, averaging nine hours a day. I was recently given one of these lightbulbs (usually $5) in return for signing a petition—we also occasionally get them from the utility company.
They don’t look good in our recessed lighting but we have found that they’re especially handy in the vaulted sections of our ceiling—where the bulbs are exceptionally hard to change!
*hang your clothes up to dry—in the shower, laundry room, patio or outside. It’s more efficient and better on your clothes. I found a nice clothesline at the dollar store for…. Wait for it…. A dollar.
*Be thoughtful about your energy use: boil only as much water as you need and think of ways to re-use it. I have a large kettle with a strainer for pasta. I cooked pasta in the strainer, but below I put the garbanzo beans to boil (they were going in the same salad anyhow). After the beans and the pasta were done, I tossed the “pre-compost” bucket into the water and boiled another 10 minutes. Three dishes prepped with one boiling of water and only one pot of water, none of which got dumped down the drain!
* Adding a low-flow showerhead will save you on your energy use as well, by using less hot water to run the shower.
This post is part of a series I’ve entitled “Frugal August” and is inspired by (though not copied from) the book The Complete Tightwad Gazette
IMAGE CREDIT: freedigitalphotos.net.