Survive the Blistering Summer Heat and Lower Energy Bills
It doesn’t take big sacrifices to stay cool in the summer and reduce the high cost of energy bills. A few simple changes in how you do things will help you survive the wild temperature changes and keep more money in your wallet where it belongs.
1.Consider the savings you’ll reap from your outside landscape. Trees not only provide shade and beauty they work as wind and heat blockers to reduce heating and cooling costs. Lowered wind chill and wind speed blocking can result in as much as a 10 degree temperature differential. Trees and plants reduce the spread of both heat and cold before it reaches the walls, windows and doors of your home. Lowering the temperature differential will lower both your heating and cooling energy bills.
2. Avoid using your oven in the summer time during the daytime hours. The heat generated by baking makes your air conditioning work harder. Instead use the microwave or quick stove top recipes or no bake recipes such as preparing cold salads or sandwiches for meals. You will save money on both your electric bill for oven use and energy bill for having to compensate the thermostat changes to keep the room temperature constant.
3. Keep curtains and blinds and shades closed during daytime hours to help block warmth from the sunlight. This is a painless way to help lower the cost of your monthly energy utility bill.
4. Spend one Saturday looking for all potential leaks of outdoor nooks and crannies and foundation and wall and window seals. A little caulking and replacing worn weather stripping around these draft areas will give big savings both in the hot weather and in the cold winter months. You will see both short term and long term savings in your electric and gas bills.
5. Fluorescent light bulbs not only provide energy savings, they also keep you from frequently replacing bulbs. Most homes can save a minimum of $65 a year just in electricity savings by using energy saving Fluorescent light bulbs. As an added bonus, fluorescent lighting often provides even better lighting to a room than incandescent light bulbs.
6. Spin your laundry twice to extract the most water possible from clean laundry, which will cut down on the time and cost to dry them in your clothes dryer. When your laundry has completed it’s fully cycles, just set to spin the clothes again which just takes 2 or 3 minutes and removes additional water that didn’t get extracted in the first spin cycle. If you do a lot of clothes drying, the cost savings of such action will show up immediately on your next utility bill.
7. Use cold water for laundry and instead of hot or warm. It will provide a minimum of $65 savings each year. That’s another painless way to lower your monthly utility bill.
8. Hot as heck in the house? Turn the air conditioner off and spend the day at a cool mall or at a library or museum instead.
9. Take a cooler shower and a shorter shower.
10. If you have central air conditioning but primarily use one or 2 rooms in your house, consider a wall or portable air conditioning unit to use instead of turning on the whole central system. The savings on your monthly energy bill will pleasantly surprise you.
11. If you prefer to use central air conditioning or heating, you can close the output vents of the rooms you are not using and keep their doors closed. Those rooms will be hotter or colder than the rest of your home or apartment because more air will flow into the rooms where the vents are open.
12. Use a dehumidifier to reduce moisture in your home and not get that hot sticky muggy feeling on the hottest days. It is not only energy efficient for your home’s temperature control, it will help prevent mold and other moisture damage to your home which could be potential high cost repair later on.
13. Avoid using the drying cycle on your dishwasher. Just use a clean dishtowel to dry your clean dishes and put them away promptly. This is a great savings to your monthly electric bill.
14. Insulate your garage to keep the house cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter.
15. Keep Your freezer and refrigerator full. Full refrigerators and freezers that are well stocked and not overloaded not only are more energy efficient, but are likely to keep foods lasting longer in a temporary power outage.
16. Be aware of which appliances and electronics in your home are not being used. Just because something is turned off or idle , doesn’t mean it does not consume electricity. Take advantage of “sleep” modes on computers and power down anything that has an energy saver mode. If you are not going to use your paper shredder, unplug it. If you aren’t using your blender or toaster, unplug it. The less things you have plugged in the better. All these little things add up to big savings when it comes to reducing your monthly energy bills.
You can visit your local electric or gas utility company online to learn additional energy savings tips and see current energy efficient heating and cooling products. A little savings every month multiplied by 12 months a year… well you can do the math and see how quickly it adds up. That frees up money for other bills, or money you can be saving earning compound interest at the bank.
