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Develop the habit of living in darkness

Posted By: The crazy Colombian
Posted On: April 28, 2010

(This idea was originally written as part of the article "How to reduce your carbon footprint" at Reflections of a crazy Colombian; to read the whole article, go to http://tinyurl.com/howto-rcf)

How many lights do you typically have turned on at night throughout your house? If you’re like most people, you will have too many – your bedroom, your living area, your kitchen, your bathroom, your garage. Just think whether you really need all of them on at the same time. Do you?

In case you answered ‘Yes’, let;s examine a simpe example and see if your answer remains vaid. I’d like you to think about the time you spent cooking and having dinner yesterday (probably 20 to 60 minutes). How many of the other rooms did you go to during this time period? Even if you did go to another room, for how long did you stay before you returned to the kitchen or dining area? Obviously, you need to consider other members of the family, but you can apply the same logic to their activities. My guess is that there were various areas of the house that remained lit without a real need for it.

Learn to ‘live in darkness’ – or at least in semi-darkness. Turn lights on as you need them, and get into the habit of turning them off as you leave the room. Worried that this will shorten the life of lightbulbs, and hurt your pocket? Change your light bulbs for the environmentally friendly type and you will prolong their life. In the process, you will also put some additional money in your pocket from both the increase in the life of light bulbs (less money spent over a year in light bulb), and from the reduction in electricity consumption (lower electricity bills).