Posts Tagged ‘save energy’
How To Easily Convert To LED Lighting
November 3rd, 2009
Most people are by now aware that traditional incandescent light bulbs are fast becoming a thing of the past and that LED (rather than CFL) alternatives represent the future of low-energy, low-cost, low-environmental impact lighting. But where to begin?
Now you might think that it would just be a matter of swapping every existing incandescent light bulb for an LED equivalent, however I really would suggest that you don’t go down that route. For a start the up-front cost would be quite steep, but perhaps more importantly it would jeopardize the likelihood of a successful outcome.
LED lighting is a wholly different technology to anything you might have experienced before and it takes time and a bit of trial and error to figure out what works best for your particular lighting needs. But when you get it right, the payback is more than worth it with a clean contemporary look that also delivers a massive drop in electricity costs.
Sound advice then is to begin with an area that either uses a lot of lighting or has the lighting switched on a lot (or simply somewhere you would like to refurbish anyway). In this way, your chances of seeing a noticeable difference with respect to both light quality and running costs are greatly increased.
It’s important to get off to a good start in this way as it will encourage you to then take another step further towards the final goal of switching totally from incandescent to LED. For many, if not most, people then it is the kitchen that invariably matches these criteria - it typically has a lot of lights that get used a lot and refurbishing the lighting provides a relatively cheap makeover.
The typical modern kitchen often uses quite a number of halogen lamps, either mounted on tracks or recessed into the ceiling. These waste a phenomenal amount of electricity as heat and are simplicity itself to replace with retrofit LED equivalents. Just pull the halogen lamp out and push in an LED rated to produce the same level of light. For GU10 LED bulbs that’s it, but for MR16 low-voltage lamps you should also purchase an LED driver to replace the 12v transformers previously used.
It’s the same story with lighting concealed in/over/under cabinets - like for like replacement. And if your kitchen was short of lighting then this present a perfect opportunity to rectify the situation. You can also fit LED strip lights under plinths, covings and kickboard recesses - this latter one can dramatically alter the look of a kitchen by lighting the floor. LED strip lights are lightweight and easy to fit, and come in both rigid and flexible formats which can be cut or joined together to fit any requirement.
Three key considerations should be borne in mind with regard to LED lighting.
1. Quality. There is no point whatever in buying low quality LED lights - they won’t produce the light levels you need, won’t last and won’t really save you much. Expect to pay a relatively high price (10-20 that of a regular bulb) for an LED that will do the job properly and bring in very significant savings over time. Branded products like Cree or Zenigata for example. Don’t forget, if you want a cheap purchase price you can always stick with incandescent bulbs - just don’t moan about the exorbitant electricity bill.
2. True cost. Or what is known as TCO (total cost of ownership). Over a period of 50,000 hours a single LED will incur zero replacement costs and cost as much to run as it costs to buy. Over the same span a halogen lamp will need to be replaced at least 25 times and is likely to incur 1,000 times its purchase price in electricity costs. Even if an LED costs 20 times more (and many do) it’s cheaper just on replacement costs alone and orders of magnitude cheaper on electricity costs.
3. Use. The best way to use LED lights is plenty of them with a mix of brightness and colour temperature and position them to reflect off objects and surfaces. LED lights are high intensity and can be quite harsh if you look at them directly, however they don’t yet “carry” as well as incandescent bulbs. Reflected light however does easily fill a space well with warmer, more diffuse tones and at the same time you get sharp accent lighting on the original feature or surface.
For further information check out these articles that examine the subjects of 12v LED lighting and 12v LED bulbs in more detail.
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Tags: energy, green issues, halogen lighting, home improvement, kitchen lighting, led lighting, lighting, low energy lights, money saving, reduce waste, save energy, save money, technology
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Make Your Own Solar Power Source
June 16th, 2009
Solar power is something which you can tap into anywhere you are on the earth. Wherever the sun heats up a space, there is solar power to be accessed; in a parked car, a home with closed windows and sunlight streaming in and so on.
When you’re in any of these solar heated spaces, you gain a new respect for solar power; it’s hard to stay in these places for long without feeling overcome by the heat. This is heat which can be harnessed to heat buildings or water.
Solar power is of course a free source of heat energy. Heating a home or water supply with solar power requires using a device to direct the heat energy of sunlight to your solar power source; this is a device used to absorb and store solar heat energy.
As an example, think of dark colored car seats in a car parked in the summer sun. With the windows rolled up, the seats absorb this heat and become a heat source, raising the temperature of the car quickly and remaining hot even after the car is no longer exposed to the sun.
It’s not that difficult to build a solar power source. Think of what things get the hottest in the sun - metals, glass and anything colored black all do a good job of absorbing heat energy from sunlight.
There is an endless supply of idea to signal the heat your way and trap it for your use. To get the heat to benefit your water system or even your heat, you need to come up with a way that you can circulate a liquid that when it passes by your solar source it will heat the water naturally because of the concentrated amount of heat that was trapped inside your solar source that day.
When the liquid carries through the solar source and travels into the home it can go directly to the water source where it can be kept warm, like a hot water tank, but naturally without using gas and electricity to keep it warm.
Designing and putting together a solar heating source and circulation system like this can be a little bit of a puzzle, but the savings you’ll see over time from heating and hot water bills will be more than worth the time and money spent in building your solar heating system. However, if you’d rather let someone else do the hard part, you can purchase solar sources online and in stores for low prices.
Figuring out how to efficiently circulate your solar power source’s trapped heat into your home is the most challenging part of the project, but a well planned and built solar source heating system will save you a significant amount of money on heat in the winter and on hot water bills all year long.
Not only does using solar energy to provide heat and hot water to your home make good sense ecologically, it’s also a great thing for your pocketbook. The sun has great potential to supply energy - it’s up to all of us to tap into this renewable, non-polluting energy source.
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Tags: energy, environment, home improvement, save energy, save money, solar energy, solar power, technology
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Energy Sources of Today and Why Alternatives Are Needed
April 26th, 2009
One of the main contributors to the amount of carbon dioxide in the air is the production of energy. We all use electricity every day in fact we treat it as a given, we flick the switch and on go the lights, the television and the microwave but have you ever stopped to consider where your energy is coming from? If you havent, then you might not realize that most of our current energy needs are mostly being met by fossil fuels and coal. Both of these energy sources are responsible for a lot of the toxic carbon dioxide that is currently in our atmosphere and it is because of these carbon dioxide emissions that scientists are growing increasingly concerned with its impact on our environment.
Since people are not aware of how much their everyday consumption of electricity can effect the environment, they don’t think about finding alternatives. But, it is more important than ever to find clean, renewable and sustainable forms of energy. Fact is, that the rate at which we are consuming our current energy resources, they could be depleted before very long. We must also be cognizant of the fact that our current energy sources are harming the environment on a daily basis and make that our most important reason for finding alternative energy sources.
Today energy companies are looking into using solar and wind energy on a wider basis than they are currently being used. In areas where there are lakes and rivers that can be reigned in, dams are a good source of hydro power. Where there are consistently moderate winds blowing, wind energy can be harnessed and is a great alternative form of energy, but not many areas fall into this category and the ones that do might not have access to an amount of wind energy to meet their demands.
These days globally, researchers are actively engaged in finding alternative energy forms. Because it does not send carbon dioxide into the air, the most common, though controversial, is nuclear power. However, concerns over the dangers of melt downs and contamination are the main points keeping nuclear power from being developed on a larger scale. Although nuclear energy is a clean form of energy, it has other downsides than the ones already mentioned. It produces nuclear waste which is harmful and takes milleniums to break down. These wastes must be stored and we have just so much land on which to do that.
Until such time as a discovery is made that can help reduce our current energy problems, what we can all do to lend a helping hand, is to consistently cut back on our energy usage. Studies have shown that if we take the time to turn off the lights we are not using, it would reduce by up to 25%, the total amount of energy being consumed.
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Tags: alternative energy, alternative sources of energy, carbon footprint, education, energy savings, environment, global-warming, green-living, hydro electric power, lifestyle, news, nuclear power, save energy, Science and Technology
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