Kitty Purr

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Which is better?

Which is better to save gas, electricity, etc.....
  • Driving to work with the windows down (less aerodynamic) or driving with air conditioning on (uses more gas)?
  • Leaving thermostat at 72 during the day or set it to 75, and run it alot when I get home to cool it back down to 72?
  • Restroom lights at work - Shut them off when exiting (if no one else is in there) or leave them on all the time? (I have been told it costs more electricity to turn them on/off)

posted by Mrs. B at 10:57 AM

7 Comments:

  • I have been told that driving with air conditioning uses the same amount of gas as driving with the windows down. I always set my thermostat to 78 so I'm no help on that one. And I always turn off lights, except at our bathrooms here at work, they are motion censored so I can't control them.

    Lisa

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 11:15 AM  

  • Those are all good questions. Hell if I know, though. Actually, driving with the windows down ends up using more gas because the car has to work harder to overcome the wind resistance. Seriously. Which method (windows down vs a/c) uses *more* gas, I do not know.

    Somewhere there has to be an environmental lobby website which could answer these questions. I hope!

    Whi-TAY

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 11:15 AM  

  • Which is better to save gas, electricity, etc.....
    Driving to work with the windows down (less aerodynamic) or driving with Air conditioning (uses more gas)?
    Actually driving with your AC on uses negligable amounts of gas
    check it: http://money.cnn.com/2007/05/09/pf/gas_myths/index.htm


    Leaving thermostat at 72 during the day or set it to 75, and run it alot when I get home to cool it back down to 72?
    Get a house with a basement, a north west facing, and lots of tree cover your house will stay about 73 all by itself
    so you can turn off the air when your not home.


    Restroom lights at work - Shut them off when exiting (if no one else is in there) or leave them on all the time? (I have been told it costs more electricity to turn them on/off)
    FYI: In general, turning lights (fluorescent and incandescent bulbs) off is more energy-wise. In the past, it was true that fluorescent lights utilized more energy to start up again. Today, technology has improved fluorescent lights so that they do not use appreciably more energy to start up. Turning fluorescent lights on and off does slightly shorten the lifetime of the bulbs, however, you will have to replace the bulbs less frequently if they are not running all day long. Incandescent lights do not require additional energy to start.


    VICKI :-)

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 11:16 AM  

  • Lori USED to have a big tree to shade the house. Then she had it torn down. Or so I've been told... :-)

    Whi-TAY

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 11:17 AM  

  • I saw all this on mythbusters:
    - windows down does save on gas, but not that much
    - leave your thermostat at 74 with the fan on at all times - constant fan does a more efficient job to keep your house cool
    - always shut the lights off if you aren't using them - mythbusters busted this one hard core :)

    K-dub

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 12:50 PM  

  • have some answers for you.

    1.) Windows down is the easy winner. Just because there is a lot of noise when a window is rolled down doesn't mean that its creating a lot of drag. 2 identical cars both filled with 5 gallons of fuel ran side by side to settle the matter once and for all. The car with the windows down went 30 miles more than the car with the AC on.

    2.) That really depends on the time you're away from your house and how well you house is sealed. 2 objects with 2 different temperatures always try to reach an equilibrium with each other. Here in Indiana the temperature rises during the day until it peaks in the late afternoon and then slowly declines as evening approaches. The closer your house temp can be to that max temp the less your furnace has to work to keep your house cool. When you come home from work the temperature has declined a bit and the less your furnace has to work to reach your desired temp. Keep in mind that the human body reaches its max temp. each day at around 4 which is fairly close to when most people head home. As long as your house temp is less than the outside temp your perception of your house temp will be exaggerated because you, an over heated body, have begun to seek a temperature equilibrium with your house. I don't have any hard numbers on the amount of energy used to run the AC hard for a short period of time but unless your house is SUPER efficient I can't imagine keeping your house at a low temp all day would be more efficient.

    3.) Light bulbs don't spike much (they do a little but its almost unmeasurable) during start-up. Fluorescents use a little more energy to start but less energy to run. In fact, Texas is considering baning filament light bulbs after they discovered they could save 4 million dollars a year if everyone used florescent bulbs. So here is the nitty gritty answer. Do light bulbs use more energy to start? Yes. Does it use so much that it would be better to leave them on all the time? Shit no.

    SL

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 9:02 AM  

  • Try the Sierra Club website. I know I have seen these questions in their newsletters before. They have should have a "Ask Mr. Green" section. (You should all become members, BTW)

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 2:54 PM  

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