Posted by Rachel on: 11.14.2007 /
Inspired by the Summer 2007 issue of Creation Care magazine, our family has set a goal of significantly lowering our electric bill. We started with a family meeting, where we agreed that we need to reduce our use of electricity to be better stewards of our financial resources and of God’s creation. We came up with the following ideas:
1. Use the heater less - this one will be toughest for me as I am constantly cold and I find it very easy to just turn on the heater every time I go into a room, I’m working on wearing a sweater and using lap blankets more
2. Add more compact fluorescent light bulbs - about half the light bulbs in our house are still incandescent so we will purchase several more “twisties” and work toward 100% fluorescent
3. Turn off the heated dry on the dishwasher - this will require some towel drying but it will save a lot of electricity
4. Taking shorter showers - or using less water for a bath
5. Turning off unnecessary lights - we can always improve on this one
6. Unplugging appliances and electronic equipment when not in use - according to the Creation Care article:
Anything with a timer, instant on, or remote control draws electricity even when off - in fact stereos in the United States use more energy when off than on. A simple fix is to put electronic equipment on a power strip that can be switched off completely.
Do you have more ideas for conserving electricity? Go ahead and add them to the list.
Leave a Reply
Comment by: Benjamin ady
1 11/15/07 6:57 PM | Comment Link |rachel,
ok–see you inspired me. I just went out and bought two screw in flourescents. Yay for me.
But I got ya beat on the dishwasher thing. We hand wash and drip dry.
Ideas for conserving electricity? I think we have a hard time with this up here in the Pacific Northwest because we get awfully cheap electricity, many thanks to all the dams on the columbia and other rivers.
In Australia, everyone drip dries their clothing, even if it it’s raining they trot out a clothes horse and hand the washed clothes on it to drip dry. Saves a ton of electricity. I’m going to should on myself and say I ought to do this more. alas.
Comment by: Staci
2 11/20/07 5:40 PM | Comment Link |Good list.
I would add washing clothes with cold water as much as possible so energy isn’t used to heat the water. (Added benefit of clothing lasting longer and colors not fading as quickly.) Benjamin’s thought about drip drying also extends clothing life.
When running the washer or dishwasher, be sure it is full - don’t run it for a partial load.
Regularly changing and/or cleaning your airfilters helps too as that makes your heat source run more efficiently. If you can, adding a programmable thermostat can help with efficiency too.
Comment by: Ron
3 11/21/07 12:22 PM | Comment Link |On washing clothes in an electric washer: turn the nozzle closed a bit on the hot water feed…this way, if you do use a hot or warm water cycle, less hot water is actually being used (I read somewhere recently–think it was the ‘green’ issue of “This Old House” or something–that most dirt and stains come out of fabric in room temperature water).
Comment by: benjamin ady
4 11/21/07 12:36 PM | Comment Link |Ron, Staci,
Ron–that’s brilliant. We actually turned off the hot water tap to our washer altogether a while back, and our clothes come out fine.
Staci–yeah–I have some friends who hand wash and drip dry their clothes expressly because it’s make their clothes last like 3 times as long.
I’ve heard the air filter thing before as well. We burn wood for our heat–I guess that’s probably bad for the air. Alas. But it doesn’t use up electricity. I wonder which is worse?
Comment by: Ron
5 11/28/07 1:43 PM | Comment Link |I’ve thought about this before, Ben. Brian (McLaren) said something at his globalization workshop at the OTM converence that I’ve been thinking about a lot, and that was understanding our ecological address (e.g. we know who we are as U.S. citizens…but do we know who we are as citizens of our specific watersheds?).
In regards to energy conservation, I don’t think a blanket statement is all that useful…because different areas use different types of energy. In the PNW, we predominantly have hydroelectric power, so it might actually be more ‘green’ and less polluting to use my baseboard heaters for warmth than to cram the old wood stove with lumber all night. Using energy, at least the kind we have here, maybe isn’t as bad as other parts of the country (where it might be less polluting to use the wood stove?).
For me, at least in my watershed, I think the use of water is a pretty critical issue. I live in an a heavily agricultural area that is predominantly fed via irrigation lines that draw water from local rivers and streams. In my experience, most people who use irrigation (even homeowners who just use it for their yards, etc.) think it’s a free license to run it all the time, especially when they aren’t paying for it like the city folks are. Besides, the rivers tend to look like they’ve got plenty of water flowing in them anyway. But the more we send through our sprinklers, the more we’re affecting instream flow, which inevitably affects habitat and conditions for salmon spawning, and possibly groundwater tables, and oxbow levels for amphibian habitat, and maybe, eventually, the amount of overall water available to flow through the dams and provide our electricity.
Anyway, I think I sort of ‘rabbit-trailed’ the topic a bit. But, in the case of the PNW, maybe our energy and water use are inextricably bound up together.
Comment by: Rachel
6 11/28/07 10:46 PM | Comment Link |That’s a great reminder, Ron! I definitely need to learn my about my own ecological address. I liked how McLaren said that we have been accustomed to thinking nationally and that we need to instead think both locally and globally.
Comment by: Elaine
7 12/2/07 9:53 AM | Comment Link |Reading the posts has brought to mind my frustration this summer with those who watered their lawn - in particular the city government properties. While we did not officially have a drought (only 5 inches for the whole summer until October - in Southern Ohio) - apparently because we have this amazing aquifer which did not suffer from the drought - they did not ask people to conserve their water usage. Boooo.
How short sighted is that?
The good news was I noticed a significant number of homes who had let their yards go brown like ours. Trees were the one thing I thought it was important to water.
But that is just my take on it…no science behind it. ;)