There's an easy way to save money on your electricity bills that doesn't require any new appliances, smart technology or other expensive upgrades. This revolutionary idea is beautiful in its simplicity: Just unplug your devices when you aren't using them. It turns out that “always on” or standby technology is filling up the electricity meters and draining the pocketbooks of consumers across the nation. Read on to find out more and inspire yourself to pull the plug.

A Shocking Waste of Energy

Ready for a shocker? Idle devices are costing Americans a cumulative $19 billion per year, or $165 per household, according to a report by the Natural Resources Defense Council. The paper, titled “Home Idle Load: Devices Wasting Huge Amounts of Electricity When Not in Active Use,” translates the numbers into something compelling: Each household wastes enough electricity to brew 234 cups of coffee per day. That's a lot of caffeine!

To be more explicit, the excess electricity use is equivalent to the output of 50 large power plants. In addition to spending money unnecessarily, we're creating an enormous amount of pollution just to power electronics that aren't in use. These bits of electricity are called energy vampires or phantom loads, notorious for their scary effect on your wallet and the environment alike.

Devices Gone Digital

Most devices drain small amounts of electricity no matter what, and the proliferation of standby technology that makes it easy to turn things on quickly or via remote control amplifies the waste considerably.

“One reason for such high idle energy levels is that many previously purely mechanical devices have gone digital,” Pierre Delforge, the report’s author and NRDC’s director of high-tech sector energy efficiency, told EnergyEfficientMarkets.com. “Appliances like washers, dryers, and fridges now have displays, electronic controls, and increasingly even Internet connectivity, for example.”

Obviously, you can't unplug your refrigerator or freezer, and some equipment like electric stoves and central air units might be inconvenient or impossible to disconnect on a regular basis. But there's still plenty of savings to be found in your televisions, computers, game consoles, phone chargers and other electronic devices found in the modern household.

What Can I Do?

It’s not realistic to expect every homeowner in America to go around plugging in and unplugging dozens of devices every day. But there are some tips that can help you out:

With just a little bit of extra diligence, you can do your part to reduce our energy consumption in the United States, and save money while you're at it.

If, like many Des Moines homeowners, you’re considering sprucing up or renovating your kitchen, you should absolutely consider a carefully mapped out lighting strategy. This sounds strange to many people, as light is considered to be a foregone conclusion when designing a space; this couldn’t be further from the truth, as properly utilized light is necessary to get the most out of any kitchen. Today, our electricians will share some basic strategies for improving your kitchen’s lighting.

To get a grasp on what it takes to best lay out your kitchen’s lighting, it is important to understand how a kitchen relates to the three main types of lighting available through natural and house wiring: Ambient lighting, task lighting, and accent lighting.

The easiest to understand and utilize is ambient lighting, which is essentially just lighting designed to help us see and navigate inside of a room. Ambient lighting often comes from other rooms, widely dispersed lamps, grid-style can lighting, or natural light streaming in from windows or semi-translucent skylights. This lighting should used to create a generally visible room without any other sources of light on; think of ambient lighting as your basecoat layer of lighting, ideal for illuminating the room, but not great for a highly specific task.

Just as it implies, task lighting is ideal for illuminating a given task; for a kitchen, task lighting is perhaps the most important to properly plan out and execute. If your kitchen features nothing but recessed can lighting, then you will sorely miss the absent task lighting whenever prepping, cooking, or cleaning your kitchen. Lighting a single direction alone, such as the ceiling, will do a very poor job at illuminating spaces under cabinets, in sinks, or on the floor; additionally, one-dimensional lighting creates unsightly shadows and can cheapen the effect of your space. Having specifically utilized pendant lighting over an island or under-cabinet lighting for your countertops can make all the difference in the way your kitchen is used and displayed.

While accent lighting may seem to be the least necessary of all lighting types, as it provides little functional lighting in terms of ambient or task lighting, it can make the largest difference in the display of your kitchen. If you’re hoping to improve the look of your kitchen with an electrician alone or from an entire renovation, then you should put plenty of thought into your accent lighting. For instance: Task lighting under your cabinets can provide vital under-counter illumination, highlight your beautiful green glass tile backsplash, or both, depending on the electrician doing the installation.

Whether you’re concerned about your cavelike kitchen or planning an upcoming renovation, be sure to contact Des Moines’ trusted local electricians at Electrical Gurus today; we have the skills and experience necessary to transform your house’s wiring into the best possible lighting for your home’s kitchen.

Get in touch with our Des Moines electricians today!