More on how to save electricity.
How to save electricity,
6 easy, practical energy saving tips that can save you thousands of Rand a year
Okay, you've tackled the geyser, AC or heating wastage -- now here are a few other easy extra steps to reduce your electricity costs even more. You may not believe it but one or two simple steps which you may not have ever thought of before, can save you literally hundreds -- even thousands of Rand a year.
#1: Are low voltage lights cheaper to run?
I’m afraid not. It’s the Watts and not the voltage that affect the cost. A 50 Watt low voltage halogen lamp wastes the same energy as a normal 50 Watt incandescent lamp. In facts it waste slightly more if the transformer is not the electronic type – and you’ll need more lamps than you would otherwise because low voltage does not spread well.
#2: You don't need to run the pool pump on as much as you think you do.
Program your timer to switch off the pump for longer periods. Try to find out which is the most frequent time of the day that you experience blackouts and set your pump to be "off" at those times.
As a general rule the pool should be filtered once every 24 hours in winter and twice in summer (that's if you use your pool frequently, otherwise stick to the winter schedule). Any more than this is a waste of energy - and remember that South Africa is a little power starved for the moment.
This means that the pool pump needs to run long enough each day to filter all of the water in the pool (one filtering cycle).
If you own an average townhouse pool and don’t want to be bothered to work it out, operated the pump for 4 hours per day during the summer and for 3 hours per day during the winter. If this proves insufficient to keep the pool clean, increase the pump time by 30 minute increments until the water remains clear.
The calculation goes like this.
- Say your pool holds (x) liters,
- Your pool pump is rated at (y) liters per minute,
- Divide (x) by (y) = total minutes / 60 = That's the hours that you pump must work.
#3: A simple shower head can save you as much as R40,00 a month.
Remember the rule -- geysers are the biggest culprit of electricity wastage in your home. Changing your shower head for a low-flow type may sound frugal, but it actually does make a difference. You can reduce your shower water usage by half which means 50% less heating.
#4: A whopping 85% of the energy used by a washing machine goes straight into heating the water.
So you can save a bundle by simply lowering the temperature. Try using warm (or at cold) water for the "wash" cycle instead of hot water. Anyway, hot water shrinks your clothes - and also fades and wears out your clothes out quicker. If you feel that warm water doesn't clean as well for you as hot water, then just do a warm pre-soak before you shove the cloths into the drum. Soaking clothes in warm water is usually just as good if not better.
#5: Turning up your thermostat doesn’t heat the room faster.
- And before you forget to turn it down, here are the facts. A thermostat acts like a switch – not a tap. The temperature in a room is independent from the thermostat until it reaches the temperature set by the thermostat. So it doesn’t make an inkling of a difference. Set the thermostat at the right setting from the beginning. However, the position of the thermostat will make a difference.
#6: Leaving appliances on standby costs you R400 - R500 a year.
It can actually add up 6 – 10% to you electricity bill. It’s best to switch the appliance completely off. Fact is that most devices continue to eat up energy when they're switched to standby, sometimes as much power as when they're on! Yes even the TV. If you switch off using your remote control, it's not off.
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