Steps to Take
- Lighting and Heating
- Turn off your lights whenever you leave. Turning on and off lights does not waste
more power than leaving them on.
- Take advantage of natural light! Open the shades during the day for lighting and heating, close them at night to keep heat in.
- Use Compact Fluorescent Light (CFL) bulbs. They use 75% less energy than incandescents (normal bulbs) and last 10 times longer. There is now a much wider selection of styles and sizes of CFL bulbs than there was several years ago. Even if you were disappointed with CFL's before, it's worth trying them again.
- Set your thermometer as low as possible in the winter and as high as possible in the summer (if you have central air conditioning). Wear an extra layer and keep throw blankets around to stay comfortable in the winter.
- Computers
- Turn your computer off when you aren't using it. A desktop will use 780 pounds of carbon dioxide worth of electricity in 24 hours. Contrary
to what you might have heard, turning your computer off when you aren't using it is not bad for its hardware.
- Set your computer and monitor to go into sleep / stand by when they're inactive for too long. A computer in sleep mode uses about 5% the energy of one running a "screen saver". You can find instructions for enabling power management at the Williams College Office For Information Technology's green computing page. You can also read more about computer power management at the Tufts Climate Initiative page.
- Cell Phones, Steroes and Other Electronics
- Turn off TVs, radios and stereos when you aren't using them.
- Beware of Vampires! 'Vampire' devices draw power even when they are not being used. These include anything with an adapter or charger such as cell phone chargers, lap top cords, printers, speakers... The best thing to do is keep such devices on a power strip and turn the power strip off when you're not using it.
- Appliances
- Purchase energy efficient appliances. Look for Energy Star rated appliances, and consult Consumer Reports to learn which use the least energy.
- Don't keep your freezer or refridgerator too cold. Recommended temperatures are 37° to 40°F for the refridgerator and 5°F for the freezer section. Separate freezers for long term storage should be kept at 0°F.
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