A 16 yr. old is asking "Can't we save $s by never using our outdoor lights at night"?

“Yes, we could! And we would also mitigate light pollution.”

The only need for outdoor lighting is to keep from tripping over something.

Light pollution is about high rise building or similar, not about regular households.

What type of light bulbs are you using? Old style incandescents? LEDs? CFLs? You can have your outside lights and save money if you use LEDs.

I would first congratulate him on his astute observation and then challenge the youngin by asking him….we could save much much more if we get rid of cable or Wi-Fi…how about we do that instead? Let him choose.

Smart kid.

Yes, let’s keep the lights off when we don’t need them on and give the savings to a charity.

Sounds good to me. It’s the very reason we don’t leave our lights on at night. I do want a motion light like I’ve had in other houses.

It’s a tradeoff. Some outdoor lighting helps deter crime. A totally darkened house is more inviting to a thief.

Christmas lights are an utter waste of energy.

If someone trips and hurts themselves and sues you or you have to pay an ER bill for yourself or family member, it’s not a savings. I like @Cruiser‘s idea of suggesting you stop the internet or cable service instead. Outdoor lighting can be seen as crucial but I’d say for the internet, go down to the local library and use theirs.

We don’t have much outdoor lighting around here. Some motion detector lights. No need to waste the money overall.

@elbanditoroso “Christmas lights are an utter waste of energy.” your statement would rest in the lap of the beholder and the person paying the electric bill. Just to be factual….a home with not quite the level of Griswold Xmas lights on their home would pay $115.26 for 3 weeks of usage during a 3 week Xmas season of lighting their home with conventional lights. The next door neighbor who hung LED lights would have spent a whopping $15.32 for the same illumination and duration. “Utter waste” during the holiday season IMHO is purely subjective.

Hot water heater is pretty much the big killer in electricity usage. At my last apartment our hot water heater basically got so rusty the bottom fell out and we flooded the apartment below us. Our electric bill went from 120 a month to 90 once a new energy efficient hot water heater went in.

And if you contact the local utility company they can often help subsidize more energy efficient windows and heaters. My sister got all new windows and furnace in a 4,000 square foot house for around 5K with the help of the local power company. It saved them a ton in electricity usage.

This is a teachable moment for everyone involved.

Let’s figure out how much is actually saved by turning off the lights. (You should put in your own numbers obviously.)
What bulbs do you have? I will assume 2 – 60 Watt incandescent. That is 120 Watts when on.
How many hours per day are they on? I will assume 5 . So you use 120×5 = 600 Watt-hrs or 600/1000 = 0.6 kilo Watt hr kWh.
What does electricity cost in your area? I will assume similar to me $0.11 per kWhr.
So every night you spend .6 kWhr x $0,11 = $0.066. To get monthly multiply by 30 to get $1.98 per month for those 2 lights . You decide if it is worth it.
Do this for other appliances. You both will learn a lot.

Then they will never been used. Lights are for when it’s dark out.

Led lights and a gas water heater made my electric bill go from $300 to like $100. My outdoor led lights are on motion detect and outside xmas lights are on a timer so they turn on at dusk and shut off about 10:00. Biggest thing for LED lights is they are supposed to last and you don’t have to fuss with changing them. We’ll see CFL lights were supposed to be that way. It’ll take quite a while to recoup the cost of an LED. Another thing to consider is power use when on a backup generator. I could just about run my house on one of the 2kw models now with most appliances on gas.
@LuckyGuy is correct though turning off certain appliances the savings are somewhat insignificant. Pretty much anything with resistive heat is going to cost you though. For most swapping your electric tanked water heater for natural gas or a tankless is the easiest way to reduce energy cost.

@flo “Light pollution is about high rise building or similar, not about regular households” this is not correct.
Light pollution from sprawling suburbs of single-family houses has rendered many telescopes far less useful than when they were built. E.g. The telescope that Hubble built on Mt Wilson North of Los Angeles is far less useful now that the San Fernando Valley is full of subdivisions.
Street lamps contribute a lot of the light pollution that causes moisture in the air to haze up.
Many cities and states now have ordinances that require shielding/shading of outdoor lights on homes so the light isn’t sent off into space, and require non-essential lights to be turned off in the wee hours of night.

I meant to comment about light pollution.

Everything counts!

The town I lived in in TN didn’t allow uplighting on houses to keep the skies dark and starry.

^^As an amateur astronomer I can appreciate that.

I haven’t fisnished reading the answers, but motion dectector lights are a outdoor lights, too, just because they’re not indoors. So, if you’re saying no need for outdoor lights you’re including motion detector lights, eventhough you may not mean to.

Thank you all.
@dabbler
“Light pollution from sprawling suburbs of single-family houses has rendered many telescopes far less useful than when they were built”
The security of residents of the homes (burglary) and their physical (tripping etc) and psychological well being (less worrying anxiety) are infinitely more important than the hobby of watching the stars.
“Street lamps contribute a lot of the light pollution that causes moisture in the air to haze up. ” I don’t know, it could be, but I’m sure you’re not suggesting to do away with street lights, so why bring it up?

I agree with reducing cost of elecricity in all the ways suggested above but not anything security related.

@flo This is what is called an opinion. Many of us have a difference of opinion on this statement:

“The security of residents of the homes (burglary) and their physical (tripping etc) and psychological well being (less worrying anxiety) are infinitely more important ”

I would get rid of street lamps.

@flo Outdoor motion detector lights are only on for a few minutes at a time when there is motion. If no one or nothing comes near the house they’re off all night. They use much less electricity than lights that are on all night, and only cause light pollution momentarily.

@zenvelo I have a very récent O P about the expression “That’s saying nothing.”.

@JLeslie Yes they’re excellent and they’re classified under outdoor lights.

@flo Your recent post on “saying nothing” has absolutely nothing to do with what I said. YOU are a light polluter.

I agree with the vast majority of you. There are so many other places to look at for savings! The one place not to think of is outdoor lights unless it’s just to switch to motion dectector of course.