Reducing electricity costs

**OzFreeBird** · 08-07-2007, 06:23 PM

Hi just a few thoughts about saving electricity

Convert to LED lighting (these bulbs are different to the normal "coil" bulbs that most people have these days in lieu of standard tungsten bulbs) - you can save 30-50% of your lighting costs.

Work out what your biggest electricity costs are. For us its the fridge and freezer (small chest one). How about buying a couple of powerpoint timers, connect them to your fridge and freezer, and have them set to "off" between the hours of 10pm and 6am - you rarely if ever open the fridge after these hours and the latent coolness will be retained until the next morning. Your freezer wouldn't even start to defrost in this period. This way you save 8 hours worth of electricity a day.

Turn every appliance off at the powerpoint, if you can. I know in the US a lot of appliances don't have this option - you either have "standby" or "on".

Any other ideas?

**shadomoon** · 08-07-2007, 08:07 PM

How about buying a couple of powerpoint timers, connect them to your fridge and freezer, and have them set to "off" between the hours of 10pm and 6am - you rarely if ever open the fridge after these hours and the latent coolness will be retained until the next morning

I am curious if you are doing this and if so, how long have you done this and how much of a savings have you noticed?
Thanks

**OzFreeBird** · 08-08-2007, 06:23 PM

A friend who has a solar powered house does this with his large appliances and says it works a treat. I"ll be doing the same shortly once I've bought some timers - the ones I've got now are too old to be trustworthy.

Whilst in wintertime (now, here) 8 hours would not be a problem unrefrigerated, I sort of think you'd have to cut back your "off" hours during the normal hot summertime in Oz.

In any case I'll be starting a log and will let you know of the savings.

**Judi Dial** · 08-08-2007, 08:04 PM

and didn't. (Not enough cash to do it all at once and impracticle since our income comes from DH's computer connection.) Since then, we've acquired a few electric free appliances (freeplay radio, etc.) and plan more (paper shredder next).

But, there's a great book, The Home Energy Diet, which I'd recommend to anyone who wants to reduce their energy use. I found out about it as it was the absolute FIRST thing that was recommended we do, that is, read the book.

jd

P.S. I borrowed a copy from the library. If your library doesn't have it, see if they can do an interlibrary loan for it.

**frugalityisgood** · 08-09-2007, 04:35 AM

What are these "powerpoint timers" you speak off? Are these the kind of timers people normally use to plug lights into to turn them on and off automatically?

**itsahumanzoo** · 08-09-2007, 04:42 AM

I think we have a few of those from when we had reptiles. We plugged the timer into and outlet, and then the reptiles' lamps into the timer and it automatically turned on for 12 hours and then off for 12 hours.

I think we'll try a few of those tricks when we move into our new apartment. I'd like to keep all costs down as low as possible, of course!