Monday, July 14, 2008

Electricity tariff going up. Mati loh! See liao! Die lah!


Fuel price up. Food price up. Now, electricity tariff has also gone up, effective from 1 July 2008. Tenaga Nasional has announced the tariff revision. How big a hole is Tenaga going to drill in your pocket? Wait for the bill at the end of this month.

With the electricity increase, this will set off another round of price increase for lots of other goods. Mati loh!, die lah! See liao!

Don't have to mati, die or see. You can reduce the impact. Analyse the high electricity consumption items in your home. Top the list are electric iron, hair dryer, kettle and rice cooker. Let's look at these later.

Lighting consume less electricity than those mentioned above, but because of the number of light units used, this can be a big sum of money involved. Today, I am sharing with you how to cut down on lighting cost. Again, you do not need an electrician to do this. You can DIY. You can easily change your standard bulb to energy saver bulb (mostly screw type). If you have an old bayonet bulb bolder (with two-pin type)you can change this for less than RM5.00.

The standard bulb (incandescent bulb) and the florescent tube consumed more electricity than the new energy saving lighting. The standard bulb used in home are usually 60W, 75W or 100W and the florescent tube is either 20W or 40W. You should replaced all these. Energy saver(called PLE ) bulb of 18W can give you brightness equivalent to 100W standard bulb and the energy saver tube (called PL or PLC tube)give you the comparable saving. Energy saver bulbs/tube also come in 9W, 11W and 14W

There are two reliable brand of energy saver in the market, namely Philips and Osram.These two brands cost more but give you longer life span, about 3 years. There are cheaper substitute from China but very short life span. You decide which is more economical. Experience will tell.