Conserving some Energy

These days everyone is concerned about conserving energy. We have fuel efficient cars, energy saving light bulbs, energy saving appliances, heck I know we try to conserve water as much as the next person. Over here they are also aware of conserving energy and going green. This is down to the air conditioning units, outlets and switches.

We noticed, even in our hotel for the first month, that there are switches for everything. We have to turn on the switch for the water heater; there are three different water heater switches here, one for each bathroom and one for the kitchen. There are also switches for our fridge, oven, cook top, washer, dryer and dishwasher, not to mention for the lights. It’s all about conserving energy and I think it's great but question if it really works. Even on the outlets there are switches that cut off the power to them so if you are not using the outlet at the time, just flip the switch and the current will be cut off. Our realtor told us that he did that and he saved 7% on his electric bill.

It is also common for people to turn off the air conditioning units when they leave the house to conserve energy (the air conditioning units are turned on and off with remotes, one remote per unit). It is also common to only have one air conditioning unit on at a time, so currently I am in the living room and yes there are two units but we only turn one on, it works but while I am in the living room the air conditioning units are off in the two bedrooms. We turn off the living room air conditioning when we go to bed and turn on the one in our bedroom. We have forgotten a couple of times to turn off the one in the living room but hopfully after a month here it will become second nature. It’s very interesting, but we have yet to see an electric bill. Of course it is going to be less than what we were paying at home just because of the size difference but still I hope it is significantly lower, we shall see.

We realized that if we keep most of our shades drawn when we are gone the rooms are not as hot when we come home so it does not take much for the air conditioning to cool the rooms down, but that’s common anywhere. I will say that it takes some getting used to with all the switches. There have been times where I forget to turn on the water heater before I get in the shower so when I walk into the bathroom I realize I have to turn it on and wait about five more minutes, and then there are times when I forget to turn off the water heater from using the shower. Hopefully I will get better at remembering all of the different things I have to turn on and off!

Another thing, this has nothing to do with conserving energy but we still found it odd. There are no outlets in either bathroom. If I want to dry my hair it has to be done in the bedroom, and thank goodness we have a mirror in there. There is also not an outlet in the hallway. Also the switches for the bathrooms (this includes the water heater switch) are on the outside of the bathrooms, that is another thing that I have gotten use to, I do forget from time to time but not as often as we first got here.

The pictures (from the top) Switches outside of the bathroom, including water heater, air conditioning unit, Outlets, see the little switches? the orange line means that there is current going to that outlet, this one is by the tv so it is always on, and the last picture are all the switches in the kitchen, the one that is not labeled is the one to turn on the lights.