Ben here. I’ve been on sabbatical for the past couple of months, taking some time to travel and visit friends and family. And though I was away from the office and the routine, it seems my mind was unwilling to join my body on vacation—wherever I went, I couldn’t help but notice details large and small about power consumption and conservation. In Dublin, Ireland, for example, I visited a “green” organization and store called Cultivate Living and Learning Centre (www.cultivate.ie), where I was pleased to learn about a growing community of sustainable movers and shakers in Ireland, as well as enjoy a store full of resources and products for sale.

In Ireland generally, there seemed to be good awareness of conservation. I got the feeling it was a matter of course for the Irish: the people have historically lived in impoverished conditions, though recently their standard of living has been rising, thanks in part, I suppose, to their membership in the European Union. Here in the U.S., though, it’s a different story. With the forced conservation of the Great Depression long in our past, the majority of Americans have become so accustomed to plenty that we routinely waste energy and resources, largely unaware of the potential for savings that is easily within our reach.

Case in point: I was staying with friends in Virginia and looked into their household energy consumption. Now, I consider my friends to be hip, savvy, progressive, and current events-aware. But they were doing almost nothing to conserve electricity, despite living on a very tight budget in an all-electric household. To their credit, they had purchased a pack of compact fluorescent (CFL) twist lamps; but they were only replacing incandescent bulbs as they burned out. While I admire the conservationist attitude behind that strategy, it seems to me that the urgency of the present energy crisis outweighs the minute savings of retaining working bulbs. Besides, they had already paid for the new CFLs and were getting exactly zero benefit from their purchase!

So I took it upon myself to set my friends on the path to lighting effiency. First, I made a detailed survey of their energy consumption for household lighting. I realized that lighting is not a major player in a house that also depends on electricity for heating and cooling (they have twin heat pumps in their 4-bedroom, 3-story house). But I figured it’s best to do what you can as you strategize other potential major changes. I recorded my survey in a spreadsheet, listing all lighting sockets in the house; that way, I could do a before-and-after comparison to account for energy savings. I recorded the lamp type and Wattage used in each socket. Now I’m not saying everyone has to do it this way, but it gave me very precise data for my comparison and it helped to educate my friends and their two young children about electrical energy use.

I broke down the lighting by floor and ran a grand total for the whole house. We purchased not only many different compact fluorescent lamps to replace incandescent ones, we also replaced a few light fixtures. As is common in their area, the house was built with many candelabra-style hanging fixtures that use those small candle flame-shaped incandescent bulbs designed for mini (Edison E12) sockets. Though there are candelabra-style CFLs on the market, my friends and I agreed that the fixtures themselves were unattractive and harder to keep clean than most standard ceiling fixtures. Besides, my friends are both very tall people and low-clearance lights can be a problem! We found inexpensive dome-style, flush-mount ceiling fixtures to replace the hanging hallway units. The new ones use standard E27 lamp sockets (2 ea.) that will fit the CFL twist lamps we bought. Here’s a screenshot of part of the spreadsheet, showing before (left) and after (right) values for one floor of the house:

Lighting spreadsheet

I was even able to conserve materials in one such replacement project (a wall sconce light at the head of the basement stairs) by using a flush-mount dome fixture I picked up at the local Habitat for Humanity Thrift Store in their town. It was a like-new fixture and small enough to remain out of the way on the stairway wall. We retired the old fixtures to the same Habitat Thrift Shop (but I have to hope no one will use them!).

After all the replacement work, the grand total reduction in lighting Wattage was almost 40%. And the project was not complete when I left: we intended to install motion sensors on the outdoor floodlights (I retired one of the four fixtures that offered redundant coverage) and there was that one remaining floor lamp in the family room that wouldn’t accept the wider base of a CFL… boy, that was a thorn in my side! All in all, a worthy project: educational and energy-saving.

I did the same lighting overhaul at my sister’s house in California (65% Wattage savings) and another friend’s apartment in Massachusetts (50% savings). My experience shows that this kind of electricity savings is easily within reach of almost all households. The quality and versatility of compact fluorescent product lines continues to increase: there are now dimmable CFLs, lamps for all common sockets sizes, and lamps that come in a range of color temperatures to suit a variety of tastes.

And if you’re interested in even greater energy savings, LED lighting is also expanding in the consumer market and promises to be the light of the future. Speaking of being the light of the future—why not take a critical look at your own household lighting and start saving energy today?

~Ben