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Answer by Cap10
Walk or ride your bike to school when the weather is good and carpool to school when it is cold. Use recycled paper and energy star computers. The last thing is purchase local. This will reduce the carbon used for shipping your school equipment.

On a school level there is several grants that schools can apply for that grants the school to get solar panels or a wind turbine.

Answer by Lissa Ann
Umm…sensor lights in classrooms. When a room has no movement in it after a few minutes, the lights will shut off.

That’s the only one I got…sorry!

Answer by Stan S
I think each single school in the country should have a fund raising drive to purchase solar panels and slap those puppies on the roof. Think of how many tens of thousands of grade school, high school, and college and university buildings are in the United Says alone, it would get the entire solar power industry rolling full steam ahead. Another idea is that many areas have free energy audits where they take an infrared camera and can tell where buildings are leaking heat in the winter and cold in the summer and you could try and get that done. If I were you I’d recommend your school have a fund raising drive to purchase some panels, and the ideal part is you could have one each year or two and add more panels until the school produced much more energy then it used and it would get a check each month from the power company that it could spend on scholarships or supplies or whatever else the it wanted to. Just remember to shop around for the ideal price as they vary widely. You could have one of those huge thermometer things that had money levels on the side and could paint it in as you collected cash until you reached the mark, I think it would be awesome and instruct everyone in the community about taking care of the environment and about new technology and it would be a symbol of working for a brighter future. It would also help energy independence and help get us off fossil fuels and other forms of non-renewable energy.

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Answer by R C
It is absolutely safe for you to use the more massive flourescent bulbs because they do not draw as much current nor generate as much heat as the incandescent 60 watt unit.

Answer by Bob P
The rating is based on power and the heat dissipated. As long as the power does not exceed 60 W you are OK.
Check the wattage of the new bulb.

Answer by tinkertailorcandlestickmaker
Most compact florescent lamps are marked (on the package anyway) with an “equivalent” wattage and an actual wattage, if the actual wattage is less than or equal to 60W you should be OK (I have never seen one as high as that) I do not have one handy to check, but I’d guess a 100W “equivalent” will be less than 20W actual, so you should be fine.

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Both are excellent answers. Thank you! I do have a massive gap at the top of my energy curtains, so I have to fix that. My windows are old, but we are moving and will not be replacing them.

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Answer by Stephen M
It depends on your windows and I suspect if you feel the need to have thermal curtains, your windows are probably not energy efficient and thus keeping the thermal curtains shut might be a good idea.

If your home were well insulated and had top notch windows, the answer would be to grant the sun in, which is an idea frequently used in passive solar design.

Answer by Peter Reefman
On a cold sunny day it’s ideal to keep the curtains open for the windows that are letting the actual sunshine into the house. You’d need VERY bad windows to let more heat out of those windows than they are harvesting.

The windows that are facing away from the sun can be superior to have their curtains closed, especially if the window is single-glazed, has leaky frames, and you have good quality curtains.

But do not forget lighting either. Even though heating does use more energy than lighting and it’s often more effective to have un-sunny curtains drawn and lights on, light is another good reason to keep the curtains open on windows with direct sunshine streaming in through them.

One point on curtains – You will also need a good quality tight fitting pelmet. It’s not enough to ‘just’ have thermally efficient fabric if you have no pelmet. This is because if there is a gap at the top heat transfers through very easily anyway. It’s a tiny hard to explain without pictures, but state it’s very cold outside and a heater is warming your room with thick curtains that are drawn. The heat inside your room will rise, and the cold outside will cool the air down between the window glass and your (thick) curtain.

If you DON’T have a pelmet, then a convection will be created where the warm inside air will go up while the cold air coming through the glass will drop, and pull warm air down behind the (thick) curtain cooling it before sending it under the curtain and into the room.

If you DO have a pelmet, this convection cannot take place. You will have warm air inside the room, cold air outside, and cool still air between the curtain and glass.

Hope that makes sense!

By the way a great curtain/pelmet combination is Roman blinds, as they ALWAYS have a pelmet built in.

Answer by Rachel
It depends on the type of shades your using, if you have honeycomb shades its superior to use that since the cellular shade designs help a lot with insulation and cuts down on energy consumption. These shades work great regardless of the season since it helps maintain the rooms temperature without using any power.

For more information check out:

http://www.honeycombshades.ca

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Answer by Chuck P
That would be on things that have pre warmers in them like Television sets, no it’s not worth the effort.

Answer by William B
only if your going to be gone for a while,
the hot water heater is the one that will draw the most electricity,

Answer by ron
yes, many electrical items will use electricty even when turned off if left pluged in, such as televisions, computers, and other items that will come on nearly emediatly when turn on.

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Answer by Brian S
You’ll want to turn it off before you unplug it, but no… there is no danger of losing what is stored in that case.

Answer by John R
It’s safe but unneeded.
Just shut it down and power on each time you use it.

You will not lose any of your info on your hard drive.
If you have a window open and do this it will not be saved, but you might be prompted to save your data.

Answer by Kent P
I was thinking the same thing! Before i asked i decided to check to see if anyone else had the same concern, my personal is hooked to a light switch outlet so with the flip of the light switch the power can be turned off to that outlet. I have everything connected to that outlet from my world wide web modem, computer, cpu, a lamp, printer, things like that and everynight i turn it off which is the equivialent to unplugging it.

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Answer by Bologna
I think people should be granted too…I know the umbrella like clothes lines are pretty ugly…but regular ones aren’t that bad and it’s helping the environment and people can save money…I do not think it’s fair to tell people you cannot dry your clothes outside just because it doesn’t look nice…

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Answer by Prophet 1102
Because they are flourescent bulbs – which require a certain voltage level to react – then it’s all or nothing.

Answer by macroeye
all energy saving lamps, or CFLs are actually compact fluorescent lamps. they do not work on a dimmer and require the voltage specified, usage of a dimmer will seriously damage the lamp & cause it to fail. for usage with a dimmer, only conventional bulbs or halogen ones will work, but if you ask around, dimmable CFL can be found but they are costlier than standard ones as they are fitted with an electronic ballast.

Answer by sensible_man
Dimmable CFL bulbs are available now. More costly though. I think I even saw them at Walmart.

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Answer by fallingfromgrace09
using cold water instead of warm water to wash clothes in the washing machine..
taking care of plants and growing them..
dont leave the fridge door open to long..

theres a lot more………

Answer by Ms. Arial
catch the bus instead of driving, stop smoking and recycle

Answer by POETSAILOR4V
Use screw in florescent lights instead of incandescent lights. In all your non dimming fixtures (they require a special dimmer) An incandescent light is actually a small space heater which gives off visible light as a byproduct. Nearly all the power consumed by an incandescent light is turned to heat. Florescent lamps require about 1/4 of the power to provide you with the same amount of light. They cost more up front but last for several years and actually cost less in replacement over time.

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Answer by Bergi
if you do it offen then it will save you alot, but doing it like once a week it will be very little

Answer by scoutma53
A dryer is a HUGE user of power, you will save lots. Even just hanging your damp clothes on a clothes horse in your house, they will dry quite quickly. I do not find cold water washes are really effective in removing grease stains. I do not have a dishwasher but I know they go on for about 45 mins and it takes me 5 mins to wash dishes by hand.

Answer by krk
Since it is routine work you will save a lot of power.

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Answer by Texperson
Start with mid cool on the 5 setting. Adjust from there as needed to get the room to your comfort level.

Answer by Bonno
If the low cool setting did it, stick with it …slower moving air across the coil picks up more cool, & it might be that this coupled with the size of your cooled area, & heat gain, match up just right. The slower the fan speed & the less time the compressor runs, the less you pay………

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