Picking Low Lying Fruit

Low Lying Fruit

To quote my favorite green guru, Ed Begley Jr., we picked some "low lying fruit"!  No, not the edible kind, but the kind that will save energy AND money.  Our low lying fruit was the front door lights.   

Every time I'd notice the front lights were ON during the day, I'd cringe.  I knew we were wasting energy and money....ggrrrrr.  The dawn to dusk feature on the motion sensitive front lights was not working, and we ended up leaving the lights on to ensure no one got hurt walking up to the door in the dark.  But, then we'd forget to turn them off, they'd end up being on all night, and many, many times they would not get turned off at all since we don't typically go out that door. 

The electric eye had been broken for some time, and we'd attempted adding a new photo-electric eye, but that didn't work, probably because of the special wiring involved with the motion sensitive part as well as the integrated electric-eye.  We felt so frustrated and confused when the new eye didn't work that we decide to sleep on it before taking any more steps.  But out of sight, IS out of mind and time marched on, and it didn't get fixed. 

I think it was a trip to Lowes that jogged my memory about the lights, and we discussed replacing the fixture completely, and even bought one light figuring we could just replace the one, and move another from around back.  Turns out the one out back also had a busted electic eye!  Hmmm now we began to think that the integrated electric eye was doomed to break, and re-thought our original plan.  We ultimately decided that throwing the lights into the landfill and spending money on two new lamps wasn't the best option either.  

Luckily hubby, being the genius he is, was able to re-wire the existing lights to enable the new electric eye to work!  So we picked the "low lying fruit", and in this situation with a broken fixture, were able to use the two new electric eyes that we thought weren't going to work in our lights, saved the two light fixtures from the landfill, and best of all, are saving electricity DAILY!  I'm so lucky that hubby is such a handyman!!!!