Lights!

No Daphne like me you are a canny Scot. I live on my own and always switch off lights- a true paragon of virtue but I pay the bills.

I also have a DH who loves the bright lights and if left to his own devices would have every light in the house on all day and night, yet consistently draws the curtains to prevent sunshine shining on the TV screen or 'fading the carpets'. Also usually has the gas fire on full blast as well as the central heating and sometimes the open fire in the back living room too. Visitors ask if we have a sauna or are growing cannabis! Then he will suddenly decide it IS too hot. Does he switch everything off? No. He opens every door and window to let cold air and swarms of midgies, fruitflies and wasps come in and enjoy the light and heat.

Although we have the highest fuel bills of anyone I know, the thing that annoys me most is that everytime he passes through the low lit back room (where I am happily on the computer) en route to the kitchen or toilet, he switches on all the big lights as he goes but does not switch them off when he returns to the front room and his TV.

G23 love the reference to the 'big lights'!

I thought everybody said 'big lights'? You know, "Please put the big light in". My DH still smiles when I ask him to put the light in. He's long stopped saying it's already in, but he'll switch it on!

It's me who turns on the lights in our house. I like lamplight in our bedrooms as soon as it gets dark and I like the bathroom light on too. Don't know why really.

LED bulbs are the way to go - they cost next to nothing to run and leaving them on does not cause your bill to inflate or the planet to ignite.

Got them in the kitchen luckygirl but when the ensuite lights and fan operate together is it any wonder the fan in the en suite burned out and had to be replaced while the one in the other bathroom (which I use) is still going?
Then there is the study light, his desk light, the "big light" in the bedroomm and his bedsid table light. All with energy saving "long life" bulbs, but it is unnecessary.

Smart meters are the answer! DH would always leave the kitchen lights on until we had the smart meter fitted last week and he saw how much it cost to leave them on (actually it wasn't that much, but it's the principle that counts). It's strange isn't it? I can remember my dad going round switching the all the lights off when I lived at home.

DH is like this but I think it's incipient cataracts. He has a ridiculous extra light on the breakfast table. And yet,and yet he never replaces a light bulb. It baffles me. I can get up in a morning and find one bulb has triggered the fuse and no lights working and he says oh yes it went when I was watching tv!

It's me in our house. I think it's a reaction to living with my grandparents who put all the lights off everywhere. If I wanted to go upstairs I could put the hall light on but put it off as soon as the landing light was lit.

We always leave the lights on all night over both sets of stairs but when sister in law comes she puts them all off which wakes me up.

I also put lamps on in the bedrooms as soon as soon as I can get away with it.

I am so glad others are the same. My OH says "it is so dark in here" and turns all the lights on, when I was quite happy - especially if watching TV a few side lights are fine. And he never turns them off, and yes the bathroom fan is very annoying. He also never remembers the light over the mirror and that is an expensive one to run. I have been known to get up in the night and go out and turn the spotlight over the garage door off - I can't sleep thinking how much it is costing. A few years ago I made him change all possible lights to LED, cost an arm and a leg but at least don't need to change bulbs any more and it is a lot cheaper (think we save about 50p a day, which meant I saved the money back within a year or so).

Am I a sad old git?

Two types of people in the world, those who turn the lights on and those who turn them off .

I am the latter as I pay the bills!

Granny23 you are more than welcome to him!!!

Luckily we're both the "turn them off " kind cornergran

I always turn off lights ( if not needed) so does DH.
Years ago ( 60's) there was a Armchair Theatre episode on tv, that featured a miser and his life, who,when he was dying , pointed up at the lighted dusty lighbulb above his bed and although there was nobody else there ( had driven all his family away with his miserly ways) with his last breath croaked 'lights!'

Think we all have our little idiosyncrasies about money saving, my daughter has a thing about saving water,my husband does not throw things away, I don't put the heating on until we are all turning blue

Mine drives me mad switching lights off in rooms where I am actually doing something and need the light on. If I've left a light on somewhere it' because I'm coming back again in a minute with an armful of washing or a vacuum cleaner and won't have my hands free. I seem to be continually yelling "I'll let you know when want to break my legs!".

When we are away (which is very often) I like to leave sequenced lights on around the house so that the house appears to be occupied.. Mrs P moaned about the cost, I worked it out to be a few pence a week, low wattage energy saving bulbs are very cheap to run.

Boiling a kettle of water uses about 3kw x 0.1 hrs = 0.3kw hrs, a 10w bulb would run for 30 hrs for the same cost.

I've got a smart meter and it's interesting to see what appliances are actually costing.

I walk round switching lights off all the time. However, I have a habit of letting the bathroom extractor fan run on until all the steam has dissipated however long it takes. My DD often says I am beinf wasteful but I tell her how many thousands it would cost to change the tiles were they to become blackened with mould as they used to before we got the new bathroom without the fan.

I have observed that those who are generous in their outlook and expansive in their habits are often those who do not pay the bills and the ones who pay are frugal and prudent.

Hmm... not sure I should tell you this... but we live in a tiny hamlet with no street lights. For 26 years we've kept our outside light on every night so people can find their way home !

I'm a lights off person - don't see the point in paying to light a room I'm not in - but DD is a lights on person who will even put ALL the lights on in the house if it's a grey day.
Luckily she runs her own household, as I would object to paying those bills!

I used to pay the electricity bill and my DH would happily leave lights on. Now he pays it, I get nagged all the time.

In our house, since I retired, my husband checks the smart meters every day to see how much we have spent, then goes upstairs leaving lights and TV on, comes back down later, leaving every upstairs lights and his music on. He then has the cheek to complain about the electricity we have used. It drives me mad. Don't even mention the central heating!

Lamps on for me but only with low energy bulbs. I can't stand passing through the hall when it's dark so have a small lamp on all evening. My friend's DH follows her around switching lights off and when we visit, the hall and porch are completely black so hardly welcoming as one stumbles up the steps!