Blackouts & Power Outages – How We Can Use Less Electricity

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We tend to bury our heads in the sand when we don’t experience blackouts and power-outages, soon forgetting that these are both unpleasant, cost us money and simply destroy electrical equipment.

Load-shedding is only for the winter months when everyone needs power to cook and to warm their homes, to keep their offices running and the air-conditioning units in office blocks and shopping centres up and running – right? Wrong – you need to be forearmed and forewarned when the power goes out no matter what the season.

When the power goes down you need to ensure that life goes on and that your business does not take a beating. A loss of revenue can easily be taken care of – all it needs is a little bit of clever planning – this is when life-saving UPS Systems come to the rescue each and every time the power goes out!

Household appliances are notoriously greedy guzzlers of electricity – here’s what to do to cut those bills:

Household appliances are notorious users of electricity, too – but if you are smart you will find ways to use electricity wisely, ensure you are prepared when the power’s down, and be sure to live smartly by cutting your utility bills in half.

Just when we think we can sit back and relax and winter is over with most of us are looking forward to longer days and lower electricity consumption – wham! We fall victim, once again, to an increase in our utility bills.

In 2012, Eskom proposed that there will be regular increases right up until 2017 with Eskom’s main argument being that we, as South Africans, pay a relatively low amount for electricity compare with other countries.

Seeing as though most of us won’t double our salaries in the next couple of years this will mean we will face yet another and bigger hole in our pockets  – that is why it is so important to implement a couple of tips to reduce electricity consumption for savings all round.

Handy tips to slash the costs of that soaring electricity bill:

  • Did you know that a geyser could account for at least 50% of your electricity consumption!!
  • This is where in all probability you could save the most.
  • Simple things like turning down the thermostat from say, 70 deg C to 60 deg C will make a huge difference.
  • Don’t make it any lower as you could encourage harmful bacteria to breed in the geyser.
  • You need to be familiar with your geyser – for example how long does it take to heat up – and do you bath or shower at night or in the morning?
  • By reducing the temperature on your geyser you can save as much as R10.98 a month which translates into R131.76 a year. This might not seem a lot – but remember that pennies can soon add up to pounds.
  • By changing your thermostat setting and turning it off completely daily will mean that you save over R893 a year.

Every single time you open your hot water tap your geyser fires up and even if the water running at first from the tap is cold, your geyser will still start to operate.

  • Always wash your hands in cold water – only use the hot stuff when you are worried about germs.
  • Fix dripping taps immediately – a hot water tap that drips wastes as much as 18 litres a day!
  • When washing dishes, wait until you have enough items before filling up with expensive water.

We are experiencing a dry summer plus the power is only on for as long as we hope – be vigilant, smart and forearmed by installing life-saving UPS Systems for the next bout of load-shedding to avoid any damage caused by power surges when the light come on. Together we can make a difference to keep the lights on – start off small by cutting back on those electricity bills – a win-win situation for all.