Where do you use the most energy? Is it heating your home? Powering the refrigerator? Heating water for showers and dishes? Powering your entertainment center? In order to really understand how you use energy, you will need to install some sort of home energy monitoring system like the TED-5000, but you can extract an amazing […]
What Impact Does 1 Watt Have?
One watt (1W) is not a lot of power. It can’t charge your cell phone or even an LED night light. So why should you care about eliminating vampire loads of one or a few watts? The answer is that every little bit helps and that 1W on all day everyday does add up to […]
Reflections on Earth Hour
On Saturday we joined the world for Earth Hour by turning off all the lights in our house as well as most other things too. Well almost all the lights, we left the LED night light on in the kids’ room for them. We also kept the home network on so that our TED5000 home […]
Don’t Forget Earth Hour Tonight at 8:30pm local time
Join in the world wide movement to show support for our planet, Earth Hour. Tonight, beginning at 8:30pm your time, turn out the lights for 60 minutes. Instead of candles, I recommend having rechargeable lanterns and LED flashlights on hand. I have our solar powered rechargeable lantern charged and ready to go. In addition to […]
First Days with our TED-5000 Home Energy Monitor
Understanding your home energy usage is an important step to to reducing it. You can get a good first start by just looking at your energy bills and thinking about why there are peaks and valleys and how this year compares to last. To go beyond looking at your bills and save even more, you need […]
Defanging your Cable Box Vampire
Earlier this week, the EPA released the new Energy Star requirements for Audio/Video (AV) equipment including CD, DVD and Blu-ray players. The new specification establishes On mode and low-power Sleep mode power consumption limits and Auto Power Down requirements that AV products must meet in order to earn the ENERGY STAR label. When you are […]
Building your Energy Savings Toolbox – Kill-a-Watt meter
We can all reduce how much electricity we use around our homes and offices. Everything in our lives plugs in these days, whether it is our cell phone chargers, or cable boxes or computers, they all use electricity. The important questions about each appliance/device are: How much does it use when you are using it? […]
Sleep your PC to Save Energy
Personal computers account for about 1% of the total carbon emissions in the world according to the PC Energy Report 2009. Almost every family in the US has at least one computer at home and the sad fact is that most of the electricity used by computers at home is wasted. Not because the computer is […]
Christmas Light Trade-In at Home Depot – Limited Time!
We’re often asked what people should do with incandescent lightbulbs and Christmas lights strings. We have a limited-time answer and discount! Take your old incandescent light strings (working or not working) to Home Depot and receive a $3 off coupon for the purchase of energy efficient LED Christmas Lights. Limit 5 exchanges per customer and this […]