October’s electric bill came. Our regional utility, NStar prints Kilowatt hours (KwH) for the previous 12 months, giving a simple year-over-year comparison of use.
In 2004 between 9/20 and 10/20 we used 829 KwH of juice; this year we used 760 KwH, or about 8% less. Our efforts to conserve started with turning off unused lights, changing out a few incandescent bulbs for compact fluorescent, and perhaps a few minor other things. Nothing special or extreme, just simple little things.
One thing we have learned in replacing just a few lights: the daylight or “full spectrum” bulbs are probably best left to growing plants or something; the light (like other “cool” color fluorescents) is odd and unflattering. Go for the 2700 kelvin bulbs, whose light is more like incandescent.
Here’s a link to a site that has compact fluorescent bulbs for all purposes:
- Replace regular bulbs
- Replace 3-way bulbs
- Dimmable bulbs
- 2700K “warm white” bulbs
- Flood lights for indoor and outdoor
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