Is it just me, or have energy costs just been going up and up lately? Unfortunately, this results in substantial increases in our house energy bills.
Thankfully, you will find a lot of relatively affordable (sometimes free) changes you can make around the home which will save you money. I’ve put together a list of 12 suggestions that cover heating and cooling, lighting, appliances, and home electronics. These areas all tend to be well known energy hogs. Let us get started.
Heating and Cooling Suggestions:
1. In the event you haven’t already, switch to a natural gas water heater (electric water heaters use twice as much energy).
2. Whenever possible, cool your house naturally. For instance, you are able to plant shade trees around your home (particularly on the east and west sides). Their protection keeps the sun from beating on your roof and siding throughout summer time, which could naturally keep your home 4 degrees cooler. (Trees also assist insulate your house against cold winds in the winter.)
3. Seal your home to protect against heat loss in cold weather. Seal the ductwork, close the fireplace damper when it is not being used, and install a timer on the bathroom exhaust fan.
Money-saving Lighting Suggestions:
1. Use dimmers on all your bulbs, and only keep lights as bright as needed for your work. Rather than turning on large watt-sucking overhead lights, use task lighting when appropriate.
2. Use timers and motion- or heat-sensing lights outdoors.
3. Make the most of the natural light from outside. Think about skylights and well-placed mirrors, which could reflect more light into a room, thus decreasing energy expenses.
Home Electronics Energy-saving Suggestions:
1. If you don’t really need 10 clocks glowing greenly at you for 24 hours, unplug TVs, DVD players, stereos, and so on. when not in use (you can plug them into a power strip with an on/off switch to make this easy). 60-80% of the electricity used by these units is sucked down when they’re idle.
2. Unplug chargers whenever you aren’t actively charging your cell phone, iPod, battery charger, etc. Why? Simply because as long as the plugs are inserted into an outlet, they’re drawing electricity.
3. Unplug or turn off your pc when it is not in use. And in case you forget, set the system to lapse into sleep mode after a particular amount of idle time (sleep mode draws 60-80% less energy than full-power mode).
Tips for Saving Energy with Appliances
1. In case your refrigerator was made before 1993, replace it. It might be sucking down $140 a year in electricity as opposed to newer models, which need significantly less. Today’s Energy Star-rated refrigerators only use about $20 of energy a year.
2. Do all your laundry on the same day, and dry the loads back-to-back. This utilizes residual dryer heat.
3. When you have a top-loading washing machine, replace it with a front-loading model. These generally use 50% less energy and 1/3 less water.
That’s all the advice for this article. Apply these simple energy-saving suggestions, and you’ll soon be looking at smaller bills.
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