15 Ways to Save Money on Home Energy Bills
The tighter our budgets become, it seems like the more utility companies want to charge us for energy usage. If you’re looking for ways to save money on home energy bills, here are 15 practical money saving tips.
Save Money In The Kitchen By:
Not overstocking the refrigerator. When a refrigerator is overloaded, air cannot circulate properly and the refrigerator’s compressor has to work harder to keep the food at the set temperature.
Using the toaster oven instead of the full-sized stove oven whenever possible. The smaller toaster oven uses less energy to heat and can warm, brown, toast and cook foods.
Use the slow cooker for cooking. A slow cooker costs about 2 cents an hour to use, a stove oven running on a 220 electrical circuit costs about 50 cents an hour to use.
When cooking foods in the oven, use ceramic or glass ovenware. Ceramic or glass oven ware cooks food at a lower heat setting in the same amount of time as other cookware material.
Laundry
Leave the dryer off and air dry laundry. Indoor drying racks allow you to air dry laundry year around.
Wash only full loads of laundry.
Heating And Cooling
Install a programmable thermostat that will automatically raise and lower the temperature at times during the day when less heating or cooling is needed, like during working hours and at night.
Install filters alarms on the home heating and cooling units that make a whistling sound when it’s time to change the filters. Clean filters help heating and cooling units to run more efficiently and use less energy.
When heating with a fireplace or wood burning stove, chop logs to a 4-6 inch diameter to provide a larger burning surface that will create more heat.
When it’s 20 degrees or below outdoors, the heat of from a fireplace goes up the chimney instead of out into the room.
Use the home’s landscape to lower energy bills by planting tree and shrubs that will provide wind breaks to the home in the winter and shade in the summer.
Odds And Ends
Turn off bathroom and kitchen exhaust fans as soon as they are no longer needed. The exhaust fans will suck the heated or cooled air right out of the house.
Install a pet door. Less heated or cooled air is lost through the small pet door flap than if the entire door was opened each time the pet needs to go out or come in.
Check the recessed lighting in the home, they are often big sources of home air leaks and may need upgraded to airtight recessed lighting fixtures.
Reverse the direction of the ceiling fan as seasons change. Counter-clockwise forces warm air down into the room, clockwise removes the warm air from the room.
Beware of “vampire power” usage. Any electronic appliance that remains plugged into an electrical outlet, even though the appliance is turned off, continues to use electricity. Unplug hair styling tools, toasters, coffeemakers, lamps, etc. when they are not in use.
Consumers have to no control over the actual price of kilowatt hours, but we can control how many kilowatt hours we use. Small money saving changes around will add up and lower the monthly energy bill.
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