How I try to raise my daughter to turn off the light

To be honest, I don’t equip my lamps with LED lamps because I know a lot about them, but because everyone does it. But I’ve always wondered if CFLs would be better – if it says energy saving, it should say energy saving, right?

LED lamps are even better, explains Eva Geilinger, specialist for energy-efficient appliances and lighting at the Bundesamt für Energie: “Not only are they more energy-efficient than energy-saving lamps, they also require no warm-up time and immediately shine at full strength. They also contain no mercury.”

Incidentally, new energy labels for light sources have been in force since 2021. Class C is considered good for normal households – although development is currently very fast and there are already the first A-class products, which are not yet on sale.

According to the expert, it does not matter whether I use one large light source or several small ones. Not even how big the room to be lit is. Much more important is how much daylight it gets. Therefore, where possible, roll up the shutters and open the curtains. And: light walls and furniture also help, because the darker the furniture in the apartment, the more light it absorbs. So I proudly pat myself on the shoulder and congratulate myself on my white walls and my white sofa!

So two things are especially important: don’t turn on a light when there is enough light in the room and turn off the light when you leave the room. Besides, even if you only leave him for a while. Because when the light is switched on, more electricity flows for milliseconds, which is negligible in normal households, says the expert. Energy can be saved mainly by not leaving the lights on unnecessarily. Running a 15-watt LED lamp for an hour consumes about as much energy as working on a laptop for half an hour.

The big challenge here is my 18 year old daughter. Even as a baby she hated the dark and then developed a real panic for it. Until primary school age, falling asleep was only possible with full illumination. Since then, out of habit, she always turns on the light as soon as she enters a room. And often let it burn when she leaves him again – or until she falls asleep. This is going to be a tough nut to crack.

“I don’t do it extra,” she says when I ask her about it. That makes it all the more difficult.

She promises to try anyway. That’s how it works for the first few days. I still go into her room quite often and turn off the light when she leaves the house. And twice at night, when I have to go to the toilet, I find her sleeping with the lights on.

Not me a note above her light switch: “Lights off!” Let’s say the success rate is about 25 percent. “When I’m stressed and get lost and still have my hands full, I don’t look at this note,” she says. And: “Moreover: if I looked where it hung, I would look at the light switch and then I would think about it without a note.”

Good point. We’ll leave the note hanging anyway. For your conscience.

In fact, things are slowly but surely improving, but we are still far from our goal. But good will also counts, right?