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Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
09/07/09
Call me crazy, but replacing a $30 land line with $200 of cell phone bills does not equate to "savings" in my book.
Ignoring my obnoxious comments - the article has excellent suggestions and information.
04/30/09
09/07/09
One of the often discussed items that use enormous electricity are the dozens of devices sucking power in the house that are not doing anything. This is generally a product of having homes on "AC" power when nearly all electronics use "DC" and must convert that power. While it is a great idea to unplug this power converters and devices when not in use, when you actually measure their power draw it becomes apparent that they do not waste nearly the electricity that is often advertised. Some do - but they are rare. Still, unplugging them when not in use is still a brilliant idea, if possible.
04/23/09
04/23/09
04/23/09
"EEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeyow...!"
04/23/09
lampshade: is it on?
bulb: awww c'mon. don't make me.
04/23/09
04/23/09
04/23/09
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04/23/09
04/23/09
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04/23/09
04/24/09
If it took four tries, it was because he was trying to _not_ destroy the filament, not because the bulb was shrugging off the hammer blows like they were being administered by a feather duster. Yes, you would have a hard time crushing a small bulb within your hand (no, don't give it a try), but hammer on one side and table on the other results in a very uneven distribution of force. The only reason they don't always break when you drop them on a hard floor is because they don't have much inertia when they're only falling a few feet.
04/23/09
They're gonna have to make them a BIT more durable. You can't even use them outside or in wet locations like the bathroom.
04/23/09
04/23/09
04/23/09
04/23/09
04/24/09
Houses or institutional buildings? Because I could buy that whole "flourescent in the bathrooms" thing a lot more if it referred specifically to dorms and hospitals and such. If it was against code, every Lowe's and Home Depot in the country wouldn't have vanity fixtures set up with incandescents.
Now, are you maybe getting incandescents mixed up with halogens? Because I could totally see them not wanting to have you use those near a steamy shower.
04/23/09
I think that's more sensible than creating artificial markets for aftermarket "bulb enhancers", or worse, creates a black market for banned bulbs that undermines the energy savings while lining the pockets of criminals.
04/23/09
04/23/09
04/23/09
04/23/09
They force sellers to and makers to stop selling them, they will ban the import of them and after a couple of years the frosted light bulb will disappear.
04/23/09
04/23/09
Why so dickish Europe? I know Microsoft hates you, but do you want the rest of us to hate you too? Suck on your mercury!
04/23/09
04/23/09
04/23/09
04/23/09
your freedoms are inefficient, therefore are void.
04/23/09
04/23/09
04/23/09
04/23/09
This is also the same EU that has emissions standards that greatly exceed those in the US for cars btw. Ever see how much soot is allowed to escape from a diesel vehicle there?
04/23/09
04/21/09
The beauty of it is that I can still use my remote to turn the thing off and on. Its perfect.
04/21/09
Netflix and Handbrake FTW. Want to really get the most out of Netflix. Get a show in, burn it using Handbrake, and return it. This cuts down on disks lying around doing nothing. You can watch your shows whenever you want. This of course doesn't work for Blu-Ray titles, but it's nice to get 20 to 40 more disks a month.
Attraction memberships. As a father, I make it a habit for the family to get out of the house and do stuff. One of the boys favorite thing to do is go to museums, the zoo, or parks. However, a lot of places have entrance fees. You can eliminate that by joining a membership. Depending on how many times you go, you can save hundreds of dollars. Added in the fact that my sons have my old hand-me-down cameras, they spend extra hours on Photoshop editing their photos and posting them on their own Flickr account. This sounds like its expensive, but it really isn't. Especially in contrast to how expensive toys and video games are.
Which leads me to Gamefly. I pay about a fourth of what I would buying games. The boys usually play a game, finish it, and it's never heard from again. This way, they get a game in the mail, rip it open, play it, beat it, return it. Probably at the cost of $12 per game.
04/21/09
04/21/09
04/21/09
If you live in an area where you could lose power/water due to natural disasters, the 40-50 gallons of water you have in that heater may be the only potable water you have for a few weeks. In case of a disaster that's a couple weeks worth of drinking water.
As for the CFLs, CFLs tend to put out poor light until they heat up. If you're like me where most of your light use is: Turn the switch on, find something, and tun the switch off, you end up looking around wondering if you're going blind because the damn light is so dim. I'm sorry, I probably have the lights on in my place for less than an hour total each day. I shower, brush, etc in the ambient light in the morning.
I find it easier to cut bills by simply cutting consumption period. I don't need the lights that much, so I don't use them. I unplug computers/electronics when they're not in use regularly.
What I'm currently trying to figure out is the tradeoff between paper towels/wash cloths. Which is worse?
04/21/09
Also you will find with CFLs that the better quality light you get, the better the ballast inside is. The better the ballast, the quicker the warm up time. If that's a concern of yours, pay the extra dollar or two for the name brand bulb.
And definitely go with wash cloths and rags. I made the switch two years ago. I bought fifty cotton shop towels from the hardware store for about $5. I keep some for clean up use and others for food and hand drying use. When those get too ragged looking, they go in the cleaning pile. Yes, it uses water and resources to clean them... but I can usually toss them in with a load of laundry that's going to be washed anyway.
04/21/09