I’ve always been taught to turn lights off if you’re not home because it costs money, but I’ve recently discovered that it doesn’t cost as much as I thought.
But I’m wondering if my roommate leaves his lights on all day when he’s not home, is it something that’s worth talking to him about since we split bills 50/50?
If it’s like a dollar every money, then I don’t really care. But even like $10 per month adds up especially since I’m a student with no income atm.
EDIT: Thank you to everyone who responded so fast!! I feel better about it now, thank you 🙂
Posted by vxfnt
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Look at your own light fixture and do the math of what it costs in your area.
If you think it’s gonna cause a fight then let it go.
If you’re home all day and he’s not home all day you could go the sneaky way of switching the breaker if it’s a lot of money lol.
What sort of lights are they, LEDs? How many lights is it?
If it’s a single ~5W bulb you could mention it but it’s probably not worth arguing over.
If you’re paying ~20 cents per kWh, you would have to leave a 5W bulb on for 42 days straight for it to cost a dollar. Just switch it off if you see it on and let it go. There may also be other appliances they are leaving on, but that’s another matter.
If they are led bulbs they are usually in the range of a few dollars a year for each light. If they are not led bulbs then its a good bit more, but even those would be hard to add up to $10 a month unless there are a silly number of bulbs in the room.
Leaving a single light bulb on 24/7 costs literal pennies per month.
EDIT: I looked it up because I was curious, but a LED bulb, depending on your hydro costs, is about 3.6 cents per day.
Money or not, why leave lights on if your not around
At 9 Watts, 16 cents per kwh, 24/7 it’s $1.05 per month per bulb. Most lights are 2-3 bulbs.
When you were a kid and your parents were always yell8ng about it, it was 60 watts, so ~$6.50 per bulb per month.
All my bulbs are 11 watt LEDs. Leaving one on 24 hours is 1/4 kilowatt hour or 6 cents.
So yall are telling me that walking around in the dark with the flashlight on my phone on isn’t helping anyone?? Hahah darn
If they are led it probably won’t make much of a difference. I would still talk about it because it will wear out the bulbs faster and than you have to replace them. You would probably save more by looking for vampires electronics. An alarm clock is probably drawing equivalent power, etc. also you can buy switches or relays that you can program to turn off automatically at a set time or if there is no motion in the room.