Reducing your electricity usage and your bill is more than just turning off lights when you leave a room...
After moving into this cabin my electric bill went up quite a bit from what I was use to. I don't want to spend an extra $30-60 a month as that defeats the purpose of moving my tiny family to the middle of nowhere to be more self sufficient.
I invested in some 4 watt LED light bulbs in hopes this would help. The bill went down but not to levels I was happy with! I also noticed that when the switch to the kitchen light was off the bulbs still were lit up a bit. So my 4 watt LED bulbs were saving me a little money but were still turned on 24/7...
The cabin was built in the early 1970s so I had a thought that the wiring might be shot/chewed by mice or just plain faulty. I had an electrician come by to take a look at the kitchen light in hopes it was a cheap fix. Here is what he told me about my LEDs...
You can not use LED or CLF (the coil fluorescent) bulbs in fixtures that have dimmer switches.
It seems that standard dimmer switches allow a small amount of current to run to the fixture even when turned off. LED and CLF bulbs are very low wattage and will use that current to light up. It is all in how the driver in the bulbs process the current. This will burn the bulbs out faster costing you more money in replacements and used wattage.
To prevent this from happening you can only use LED and CLF bulbs in fixtures with toggle style switches. You can buy dimmers rated for CLF and LED bulbs but they are really expensive. So I have changed all the dimmers to toggle switches. This way I can use my LEDs without issue or ridiculous bills...
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