10 Guaranteed Ways to Cut Your Lighting Bill

Did you know that the average Canadian home has 30 light fixtures that consume close to $200 worth of electricity every year? There are hundreds of ways that you can lower your energy use at home, beginning with your home’s indoor and outdoor lighting.

7 Easy Indoor Lighting Tips

• First and foremost, the easiest way to save energy is to turn off the lights when leaving a room, even if it’s only for a few minutes.
• Use dimmer switches. They will help you to use only the light you need and cut back on energy.
• Install a programmable light switch to turn off lights automatically. The switch can turn lights off when no one is home during the day and lights were left on accidentally.
• Supplement low-level background lighting with high-intensity task lighting (lamps etc.) when you need it. These lights send light to where it is needed without using as much energy as background lighting.
• Place floor lamps or table lamps in a corner. Light will reflect from the two walls, making the room brighter without turning on more lamps.
• Replace incandescent lamps, (i.e. regular light bulbs) with compact fluorescent lights (CFLs). CFLs use up to 75% less energy and can last up to 7 to 10 times as long.
• Dust your lamps and light fixtures with the power off to maintain peak performance.

3 Quick Outdoor Lighting Tips

• Incandescent outdoor floodlights are cheap to buy but they are an expensive and wasteful way to light up the night. Installing motion detectors will help to minimize use. You can also select less-expensive alternatives for lights that will operate for long periods.
• Outdoor gas lamps look really great but they are very costly to operate over the course of a year.
• Consider a low-voltage outdoor lighting system. They’re inexpensive, easy to install, safe, and the fixtures are now available in a wide range of styles.

Remember, you do not have to make drastic changes the way you live your life to become more energy efficient. Replacing even one 60-watt incandescent light bulb with a 20-watt compact fluorescent in every Canadian household would reduce emissions by almost 400 000 tonnes a year – the equivalent of taking more than 66 000 cars off the road. Simply changes make huge differences.