Time to Change the Clocks!
Time to Change Your Clocks!
Don?t forget to change your clocks March 12th (Saturday night) before you go to bed! Every spring (actually 7 days before spring officially arrives now) we move our clocks one hour ahead and “lose” an hour during the night and each fall we move our clocks back one hour and “gain” an extra hour. But Daylight Saving Time (and not Daylight Savings Time with an “s”) wasn’t just created to confuse our schedules.
The phrase “Spring forward, fall back” helps people remember how Daylight Saving Time affects their clocks. At 2 a.m. on the second Sunday in March, we set our clocks forward one hour ahead of standard time (“spring forward”). We “fall back” at 2 a.m. on the first Sunday in November by setting our clock back one hour and thus returning to standard time.
One of the biggest reasons we change our clocks to Daylight Saving Time (DST) is that it saves energy. Energy use and the demand for electricity for lighting our homes is directly connected to when we go to bed and when we get up. Bedtime for most of us is late evening through the year. When we go to bed, we turn off the lights and TV.
In the average home, 25 percent of all the electricity we use is for lighting and small appliances, such as TVs, VCRs and stereos. A good percentage of energy consumed by lighting and appliances occurs in the evening when families are home. By moving the clock ahead one hour, we can cut the amount of electricity we consume each day.
Past studies by the U.S. Department of Transportation show that we trim the entire country’s electricity usage by about one percent EACH DAY with Daylight Saving Time.
Daylight Saving Time “makes” the sun “set” one hour later and therefore reduces the period between sunset and bedtime by one hour. This means that less electricity would be used for lighting and appliances late in the day.
We also use less electricity because we are home fewer hours during the “longer” days of spring and summer. Most people plan outdoor activities in the extra daylight hours. When we are not at home, we don’t turn on the appliances and lights. A poll done by the U.S. Department of Transportation indicated that Americans liked Daylight Saving Time because “there is more light in the evenings / can do more in the evenings.”
