Save Energy in the Bedroom         

Zap Rating                

While bedroom energy use might not be as great as other rooms, there are always chances to make savings. Take a look around and see what you’ve got plugged in.

POSITIVE STEPS:

  Lighting:

Aside from making sure that lights aren’t left on unnecessarily, take a look and see how lights in the bedroom can be made more efficient.

Swapping filament bulbs for energy-saving CFLs will reduce lighting consumption by five times and it doesn’t take a moment.

There are also some nice LED lamps coming into the shops that are ideal as reading lights.  Rather than lighting up the whole room, they provide a focussed beam of bright light that is just the job for reading in bed – especially if don’t want to disturb anyone else.

Best of all their power consumption is absolutely tiny – the one in the picture is an incredible 0.7 Watt – ie: you could run 140 of these lamps for the same as one 100W bulb ! Yes, the future of lighting is LED… 

  Radio / TV:

As with all electronics, the savings are to be had by switching fully off when not in use. We have a Clock radio that used to use 6 Watts when on standby – usually just to annoyingly flash 12:00 half the time. As we had a battery alarm clock, we didn’t need the second clock and it saved the pain of having to keep resetting the time. So eventually we unplugged it and now save another 53 kWh / year.

Switching things properly off in the bedroom is particularly important to eliminate the risk of “standby fires”. Although very rare, electronics can sometimes cause fires – the problem with the bedroom is that they may well be detected all too late if the occupants are fast asleep in bed.

Switching off at the wall also prevents other accidents turning into disasters – eg: knocking a drink over onto the mains-powered radio. If it’s off at the wall (or battery powered) you’re much, much safer.
 

  Alarm clock:

Simply replacing a mains powered alarm clock with a battery-powered one (or watch) will cut down several more permanently-on Watts, and save 50 – 100 kWh / year. Thing is mains powered ones tend to use much more power than battery ones – they waste power in transformers and have big, bright displays. Battery alarms are generally much more efficient, and the battery will last ages. If you use rechargeables in them, the amount of power used to recharge will be absolutely tiny compared to what a mains clock would have used.

  Heating:

Obviously a bedroom is somewhere you want warm, but good savings can still be made.  If you’re out all day and your heating is on you’ll be paying all day to heat a room you won’t use until night time. So turning the radiator down and pulling the door to when you leave in the morning will save heating the room for the whole day. It doesn’t take a moment, but can save a lot, especially if it becomes a habit.