Raised in a Barn?
I don’t know if this is a part of a familiar expression at your house or not, but it seemed the question was asked repeatedly at ours. It’s connected to a why question. Principally, why didn’t you shut the door when you came in, or went out? Or perhaps it was bigger than that. Maybe it was connected to the economics of heat. Back in the day when shutting off lights and closing doors meant heat and electricity, not energy, we got, and, later, gave the “it costs money to heat the house and pay the light bill” lecture. I remember seeing my Dad go from room to room turning off the lights. Sometimes he didn’t notice we were actually present, and we found ourselves suddenly sitting in a dark room.
Nowadays, it’s the same lecture but it has new buzz words: green and energy. Conserving energy equals saving money. Going green equals saving the world’s resources. Of course, now we are using a lot more electricity. I moved into an old house that had two electrical outlets in the living room. That was sufficient, I suppose, for a couple of lamps and the tv or the radio. The kitchen was wired in much the same way; an outlet for the refrigerator, and one for the mixer, or toaster.
When I sit in my living room today, I count four lamps, a television, a receiver, a CD player, a DVD player, a gas fireplace, and my desk tools, which include an electric pencil sharpener, an external hard drive, the laptop, and a charger. When it’s hot, we plug in a fan. That’s fourteen electrical plugs. The kitchen has four plugs in constant use, and several more when we are actually cooking something.
Beside the obvious tactics of closing the door, and shutting off lights and appliances, there are several other approaches. Good insulation has always been a homeowner’s best friend. Weather strips, double panes, caulking cracks, and closing gaps will help. Believe it or not, carpet and blinds and curtains perform heat-saving tasks. Overhead fans will circulate the air, hot or cool, to keep the air at the correct temperatures. Shutting the doors to any outer rooms not in use will also reduce heat loss. My bedroom feels like a refrigerated room when I enter it at night. I like to turn my electric blanket on 30 minutes before I go to bed, so that I have a warm bed to climb into. I turn it off as I climb in, because it gets too warm, and 7 hours of heat energy is more than I want to claim.
You may have an electric company that does a 12 month amortization program, in which you pay an average monthly amount rather than the high-cost bills of the seasonal heat usage months. This helps if you have allocated a regular amount of income to your electricity budget. Perhaps you might even qualify for some subsidies when/if you agree to have energy saving home improvements installed. These are questions for your utilities company.
Don’t forget to have blankets or throws on hand for your use. The cozy feel of slippers and a warm blanket on a winter’s eve is one of the pluses of the season. Thirty years ago, when we were young, and students, unemployed, and living in a trailer, our efforts to conserve money were extreme. We wore multiple layers of clothing, and piled the blankets on our bed. We turned off the water heater, only using it one day a week. We heated water on the stove for the few instances of washing dishes, or washing up. To warm up the trailer, I baked rolls, or a casserole. We took our clothes to the laundromat, and brought them home wet, to dry on the line. I am not advocating any kind of return to that lifestyle. Life should be more pleasant than that, not an arduous fight to stretch a penny. The efforts we make and the time and money we spend to conserve our resources will pay us back, not only in savings, but in providing us with an environment we can also enjoy