LOL! That's a classic. Anyway, I also do my bit by using only compact fluourescent lights, what most people know as "energy saving bulbs". And now, I'm also switching to air-conditioners with inverter and PWM control. May cost a bit more but it will help reduce my power consumption.
Hey! Where did you get those little nifty inverters and those Pulse-Width-Modulation things? Right now I guess I need to tell my parents to fit our home with all energy saving bulbs. Too bad solar panels are expensive though!
You can't adapt your present air-conditioners with them. You need to replace them with new models that have inverters and PWM control. Companies like Panasonic and Hitachi offer air-conditioners with inverter and PWM control but they require special piping which is quite expensive. Daikin is the only company that offers air-conditioners with inverter and PWM control that supports the standard pipes. You can even reuse your old piping. Well, the first step is to replace all incandescent light bulbs with compact fluourescent bulbs. They make a HUGE difference in power saved. An incandescent light bulb can consume up to 100 watts of power. You can replace that with an 15-18 watt CFL. Generally, CFLs use 6-7X less power than incandescent light bulbs and last a LOT longer.
Oooh thanks for the ideas. I might need to do it one by one. My airconds are old, and maybe I might be using less of them nowadays. I'm only thinking how to replace the incandescant light in my bathroom. The socket is just for that thing and I might need a brighter one. Might call an electrician one day to fix that.
My dad didnt get one of those aircond I have 5 (i think) new airconds at home(malaysia) last year but 90% of my house hase the envergy saving bulbs.
You can get CFLs for the same sockets as incandescent lights. All you need to do is remove your old incandescent lights and replace them with equivalent CFLs.
Wow... That's a lot. The main advantage of these new air-conditioners is that it converts AC to DC which is then converted back to AC power of variable voltages. This allows it to control the power output of the air-conditioner to suit the temperature. Standard air-conditioners powered by direct AC, in contrast, have to run at full speed and turn off their power when they hit a certain temperature. They are actually more efficient if you have to run your air-conditioners at max speed all the time (since you do not have convert to DC first). But most of the time, we do not need the air-conditioner to run at full speed after we hit the temperature we want. So, air-conditioners with inverter and PWM control will have overall lower power consumption.
You are right about the mercury but I think the newer bulbs have very low mercury content. Also (from Wikipedia) : I guess there are always cons to everything.