Lighting

With an average of 20-30 light bulbs in a typical home, it's easy to see how our energy consumption adds up. Following these tips should help you use your lighting energy more wisely:

• Buy compact fluorescent bulbs which produce the same amount of light at a fraction of the wattage of incandescent bulbs. They last 10 times longer too.
• For light fixtures that take more than one bulb, leave only one working bulb or replace higher wattage bulbs with lower wattage.
• Keep fixtures, lamps and bulbs clean since dust and dirt lower efficiency and lighting levels.
• Turn off the lights, television, computers, stereo and radio when you leave the room. The actual switching on or off of these appliances does not use up extra energy - it saves energy to switch off even if you're leaving the room for only a short time.
• Instead of lighting the entire room, light only the area you are reading or working in.
• Replacing a 100watt outdoor floodlight with a 90watt parabolic halogen floodlight will offer the same amount of light and save 10% in electricity.
• Install a motion sensor light near the entrance of your home instead of leaving the outside light on.