Happy Earth Day!
While every day is a good day to consider your impact on our planet, we value an opportunity like Earth Day to share a few habits you can start today to help make our planet healthy and happy.
Our decades of experience in the lighting and energy industry have taught us a few things about energy saving. Here are a few quick ways you can start saving energy today, right now, in your home. And here’s the kicker — saving energy not only reduces your carbon footprint, it also cuts down your energy bill and saves you money. So it’s pretty much a win-win!
*Note: If you’re more of a video person, we made a video with a few of these tips here: 3 Easy Ways to Save Energy Video
1. Unplug your chargers when not in use.
This is an easy one! Chargers are a big culprit of something we call “phantom loads.” Phantom loads are when energy is building up but not being used. By unplugging your phone or laptop charger when not in use, you help avoid these phantom loads and avoid wasting energy.
2. Get yourself a smart power strip.
Smart power strips are basically a more eco-friendly power strip that controls which devices are getting electricity or not. For instance, appliances such as TVs, printers, and computers go into a standby mode when not in use and continue to suck energy (some call these “energy vampires”). Smart power strips know to cut energy to these devices when they go into standby mode.
Standby power consumption ranges from 5-10% of household energy, and about 1% of the worldwide carbon dioxide emissions [source: Lawrence Berkley Nation Laboratory]. So getting a smart power strip can save you money, while keeping the earth happy, too!
(This can help you with #1 as well — with a smart power strip, you don’t need to worry about plugging and unplugging your devices.)
You can find smart power strips here. Prices vary from $25 – $50.
3. Try a programmable thermostat.
Similar to the smart power strip, programmable thermostats give you more control over the energy being used in your home — in this case, with heating and cooling. With a smart thermostat, you’re able to turn off heating and cooling while you’re out of the house, reduce heat while you’re sleeping, have heating stop at a certain temperature, and so on. This reduces energy waste and saves you on average up to $180 a year.
One of the most popular is Google’s Nest thermostat which goes for $199. You can check it out here. (According to their website, Google Nest owners have saved over 54 billion kilowatts of energy so far.)
4. Switch to LED lighting.
Naturally, this is one of our favorites. Our expertise is in LED lighting and year after year, research continues to show the benefits of switching to LED (which by the way, stands for light-emitting diode)! These energy-saving bulbs can save you anywhere from 60-80% in energy costs compared to other lighting options.
In addition, LEDs lighting lasts up to 20x longer, and many LED options allow you to control your lighting to be either bright or soft. This gives you the option to create the lighting look you want, while also reducing your energy costs even more by giving you more control.
Take a look at some of our LED options here.
And of course, we’re always happy to help you with custom options. Give us a call any time at 701-205-4953 or chat with us directly on our website, here.
5. Be a thoughtful shopper.
Another way to keep the earth happy is to be a mindful shopper! Who are you buying from? What are their values? How are they contributing to our global effort to maintain a healthy environment?
At GoodBulb — and we’re always so excited to share this — your light purchases provide solar light to families around the world who live without electricity. Often these homes use kerosene for light, which causes fires, eye and lung damage, and is expensive (not to mention the negative environmental impact.) Solar light is a healthier, reuseable energy option that provides light when it’s needed!