Conserving Energy

Correct me if I'm wrong, but electricity is a renewable resource, is it not? It comes to us by way of lightning, water, wind, and probably many more ways. It is also quite inexpensive. Running a home on natural gas, or propane is what causes problems.

In our house, everything runs on electric except the heater and hot water heater. The heater is left on 70 all winter due to having small children in the house, including a baby who's currently only 6 months old. The hot water.. well who can cut down on that usage?

In the winter our power bill is a minimum of $400 a month. In the summer it rarely gets above $200.

I don't do much to conserve energy, as I see no need to. I am stocking up on electric heaters though, in hopes to keep our gas bill down this winter.

Well, I rent my apartment and it's in a really old building, so I doubt it's that green. I don't use much electricity though, because I am really not at home that much during the day, hense I don't need to have the lights on when I am no there. Even whe I am there I don't need them on most of the time, because with my poor vision I don't need to rely on light that much.

Okay just for the record, I admit that i would die from heat stroke at 85degrees. I have mine set on 74during the day and 78 at night. I changed all my lights several years ago. We do own our place and if and this is a big IF we can ever afford it we are going to change the windows. Most of my plugs are indeed unplugged at night. I also have ceiling fans on in the rooms we use during the day and a fan in my bedroom at night. I am sure there are a million other ways that i could be "greener" but for now that is as good as it gets.

I am not too much of an energy saver, but not by choice. If I had my way, lights would be off all the time, only the glow of my monitor eating electricity. I do try to keep things unplugged and I have some of the lights switched to CFL. I will be installing more soon enough. For now, I try to use the ones that have them in currently.

I have the new lights, and it also helps not to produce so much heat from incandescents. We use as little heat and air as we can stand. I turn the ac or heat off more frequently than hubby. I would rather hang clothes on the line than use a dryer, I use cold water in the washes. That is as far as I can afford to go at this time. I will grill out in the summer rather than use the oven or stove. I cook in other small appliances as well.

Personally, these are some very good thoughts, and ideas, and something we could all benefit from if you can afford to do them. But I know personally myself, I could never tolerate somewhere left at 85 degrees in the summer. 78 for me is a little too warm still as well. I prefer around 70 in the summer and around 65 in the winter. I am Diabetic, so for me, it is to be comfortable more than too warm or too cold. As for the double paned windows, right now we are in a Condo that is for sale, but we have found a New place we are wanting to buy that does have the double paned windows, so we know that will help when we can get that place as well.

Well as you know there is only me and Gissi living here in the Flat
My Electric Bills are awful and I am actually fighting the Company at the moment because of it
The only Lights that are on is the ones that are needed
I have always been like that and not had Electric on where it is not needed but the Bills are still high
I rent to, but it is well insulated in most of the rooms here so it is not to bad

One of the best thing that we can do here is to minimize the usage of electrical appliances.
And making the house well-ventilated as possible to reduce the usage of e-fans, AC and other cooling machines.

Good Discussion!

We can think about these also.

* Put the only relevant and limited items in Refrigerator.
* Plan your cooking

I do what I can. We leave lights off whenever possible. The exception is security lights at night since we have had break ins around here in the past. We usually do not need heat much in the winter and only run it when needed and even then keep it set at 68. As for a summertime setting of 85? Unreal. To me that would be like whats the point of having AC at all then? No, AC for me with my health is a requirement, and I must stay cool so its set at 75. But, its a window unit and its not cooling the entire place. We can't insulate, pretty much impossible in an old mobile home. And sorry, but I'm not spending a fortune on new windows with this old place. What we did instead was use duct tape to seal cracks. Lucky for me the window trim is silver anyway huh? LOL I did it carefully so it really doesn't show very much. We haven't changed the bulbs entirely, but are doing so as the old ones burn out. We don't unplug appliances, which I know we should. But its just too hard to reach some of those plug ins behind furniture when you are disabled. Instead I just turn things off I'm not using. I'd like to do more, but with limited income I just can't.