Light up your home without wasting electricity

Lights in the home are often a source of enormous waste, which we regularly pay on our bills. And these days, it means increasing the price of our home energy bills. We waste energy by leaving the lights on, especially when we leave the house; or when we transform our home into a Christmas tree, with lots of shine, always on, everywhere. And when we have lamps obsolete, high consumption and without the advantage of energy saving. But the house can be well lit without waste, and without turning it into a catacomb, with a few simple tricks.

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HOW TO LIGHT YOUR HOME WITHOUT WASTE

A good starting point is to correct small habits which, despite being wrong, we continue to implement wasting energy needlessly. Furthermore, choosing the most energy-efficient light bulbs and lighting accessories can make a difference. But that's not all. For example:

• Turn off the lights when you're not using them
• Make the most of it natural light
• Include dimmer controls in your lighting system to adjust the artificial lighting in your home to suit different environments and times of day (they can be useful for understanding Which household appliances consume the most?)
• Use specific apps that can guide you in choosing the most suitable light bulbs in terms of energy efficiency and that help you calculate consumption and savings.
• Install timers and/or motion sensors in areas that aren't used that often (this will ensure that lights are only on when they're needed).
• Painted white (or light colors such as cream, beige, cream) walls and ceilings of rooms painted with dark colors or that do not receive good natural light during the day
• If you can, get some windows or skylights in places in the house where they don't exist but where they would be useful

The latter, if carefully studied together with the architect or engineer, can also be useful for heating the house during the winter or, conversely, for keeping it cooler in the summer.

LIGHT WITHOUT WASTE

What can I do to reduce energy waste?? If this is the question you are asking yourself, know that part of the answer lies in the correct design of thelighting system, which should take into account, as much as possible, the energy saving.

• An effective practice to have light without waste, consists of differentiate the lighting in the homeFor example, rooms like the living room or kitchen may require standard chandeliers or ceiling lights for general lighting. While for a room intended for reading or studying, for example, you can opt for small ones. lamps which, in addition to being functional, are also decorative and furnishing. This avoids wasting the space's overall lighting.
• A very practical and useful piece of advice is to prefer the compact fluorescent lamps (known as CFLs, the spiral ones, so to speak) to halogen and incandescent lights, compared to which they are much more efficient (they consume 65-80% less) and have a longer life (8-10 years). But, even better are the LED lights, economical, versatile and extremely long-lasting: just think that compared to old incandescent light bulbs they allow for an 85% energy saving and have a lifespan of at least 15 years.

HOW MUCH DOES A LIGHT BULBET COST WHEN LEFT ALL DAY?

How much does a light bulb cost if it's on all day? To answer the question, regardless of its energy efficiency, the cost of a light bulb depends on: how many watts does it consume in an hour and, of course, from cost of theelectric energy, which varies based on your provider and the plan you choose when signing up. Given this, if we consider a basic rate of €0,22/kWh, using a 15W light bulb for 16 hours a day (excluding the 8 hours during which we theoretically sleep) will cost the amount resulting from this equation:

15W x 16 hours = 240W

1000 : 0,22 = 240 : X

It follows that X equals approximately 0,05 cents, and this is the cost of using a 15W light bulb for 16 hours a day.

CAN YOU HAVE LIGHT WITHOUT ELECTRICITY?

The answer is yes, and it lies in good old candles or battery-powered flashlights. The following can also be useful: solar lamps, or those lamps that during the day, thanks to the photovoltaic panel They convert solar energy into a rechargeable battery. These lamps turn on automatically thanks to the stored energy.

DOES THE SWITCH WITHOUT THE LIGHT USE CURRENT?

In this case, however, the answer is no. In the absence of a light bulb, no electricity is used. What we pay on the bill is the power consumed by it, and if there isn't a bulb in the lamp holder, or if the bulb has unfortunately burned out, since no electricity is used, no consumption occurs. Therefore the switch turned on without the light bulb It does not consume electricity.

HOW TO SAVE ELECTRICITY AT HOME WITH APPLIANCES:

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• How to use an electric oven or microwave to save energy
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