GYR Tips for Lighting

Incandescent bulbs, now no longer manufactured, put out a lot of heat. Switching to updated compact fluorescents or LED lighting helps to lower the temperature in a room. Turning the lights off as much as possible helps even more! Remember, too, if you live along the coast, select the correct lighting for turtle nesting season.

	Replace incandescent and halogen bulbs. Older style light bulbs are hot to the touch when they are on and this should be your indication that they also throw heat, otherwise known as waste heat. In cooler climates, waste heat can be somewhat of an advantage because it warms a room, but in our climate, waste heat raises the temperature unnecessarily. 90% of the energy that an incandescent bulb uses is given off as heat, and only 10% as light. Replace older style bulbs as soon as you can, and preferably with LEDs.
	Turn off the lights when you leave a room…. well, most of the time. It can’t get any simpler than that. Reducing the light inside a room also reduces the temperature and it saves energy, too! But, be careful. Some types of lighting actually consume a lot of energy when you flip that switch. This is especially true to compact fluorescents (CFLs) which can have a shorter useful life with frequent switching. For older style bulbs, turn them off immediately upon exiting a room. For CFLs, if you will only be gone a few minutes, leave them on, but if you will be gone more than 15 minutes, then it is worth turning them off. For LEDs, turn them off when you leave the room.