Here are some tips on how to lower your power bill during summer….
1. Turn up the A/C. It’s the biggest money hog in the house. In many climates, running your air conditioner at 78 instead of 72 will save 40% of your cooling bill.
2. Look into putting a timer on your hot water heater.
3. Fluff your clothes for 10 minutes then hang to dry. You can also fluff them after line drying to get out any pollen they might of absorbed.
4. Use CFL bulbs.
5. Anything that is plugged into a socket is using electricity. Unplug everything when not in use!
6. If you live somewhere where there is more than 1 electricity provider, shop around. You might be paying more then necessary.
7. If you wash on hot or warm water, consider switching to cold water.
8. Only dry at night. It really heats up your house and makes your a/c work overtime.
9. Use ceiling fans but not in rooms you aren’t occupying.
10. Cell phone chargers use the same amount of energy rather there is a phone plugged into them or not! Make sure to unplug!
11. Turn down your water heater temp. It doesn’t need to be more than 120 degrees F.
12. Put a lamp on a timer in the main room of your house so it only clicks on and off when you need it the most.
13. Use natural sunlight for light except when it’s hot outside. When it’s hot, cover all the windows as much as possible.
14. When boiling water, use cold tap water and place the lid on the pot until it starts to boil. This will make it boil faster.
15. Turn your lights off whenever you leave a room! It really is cheaper.
16. Make sure your filters are clean. Check with the manufacturer of your equipment or with your utility company to see how often filters on your units need to be cleaned.
17. Set your computers to energy saving mode.
18. Don’t put furniture and other things in front of heating and air conditioning vents.
19. If you will be out of town for more than a couple days, turn off your water heater.
20. Close doors and vents in rooms you are not using.
21. Make sure that outdoor lighting is turned off during the day. Use motion-detectors lights or timer switches.
22. Turn off the water when you are brushing your teeth and take shorter showers. This will not only save water, but it will also save the electricity that it takes to pump and heat the water.
23. Decide what you want from the refrigerator or freezer before you open them so you don’t waste electricity by standing there looking inside and keeping the door open
24. Vacuum the coils of your refrigerator every few months in order to lower your energy bill and to keep the condenser working better.
25. Before putting hot foods into the refrigerator, cool them to room temperature (unless the recipe tells you not to do this)
26. Cook several food dishes in the oven at the same time
27. Keep the oven door closed until the food is done cooking
28. Defrost food before you bake or microwave it. This uses 1/3 less energy than if you baked food that was still frozen.
29. Clean the lint filter of your dryer after every load.
30. Be sure to stop the dryer as soon as the clothes are dry. Don’t just use the timer setting.
31. If you can, shade your air conditioning unit. If your unit is in the bright sun, it will use up to 5% more energy than if it was in the shade.
32. Perform activities such as mopping and washing dishes in the coolest part of the day. These tasks add moisture — and heat — to your home in the summer.
33. With the bathroom door closed, a bathroom exhaust fan or open window will act to remove heat and moisture. This spares the air conditioner extra work.
34. Use your kitchen exhaust fan to remove excess heat, moisture and cooking odors. But don’t let it run more than 15 minutes after cooking or it will be taking out conditioned air.
35. Use ventilated awnings and other shading devices to prevent heat from entering windows exposed to direct sunlight.
36. Each time the door is opened, hot air enters your home. Try to keep in-and-out traffic from overworking your cooling system.
37. Remember that dark colors absorb heat. You can repel excess heat by using light-colored blinds, shades and draperies on the sunny sides of the house. Make sure the draperies are insulated or lined.
Do you have any tips to share?
Do you shop at the Thrift Store to save money?
Learn how to save even more money with these Money Saving Tips.
Also, our local library loans out the Kilowatt readers, small electronic devices that you plug into the outlet, and then plug your electric items into the box. It actually reads how much electricity each item uses, per hour, per minute, etc.
We were shocked to find out that our phone charges DO NOT pull electricity unless a phone is attatched to it. Our living room lamp however, does pull electricity, even when it is turned off.
We switched most of our light bulbs to LEDs at $10 each. It cut our electric bill so drastically, that we made our $ back in two months (we prefer the LEDs over CFLs).
We applied a window tint film (bought at a big box store) to the windows that spent a good part of the day in the sun. It resulted in a dramatic cooling of the room, thus decreasing need for a/c.
We installed a light switch motion sensor in the kids’ bathroom. The light shuts off after 10 min of no motion. We also installed some dimmer switches.
Very good ideas! I don’t think I have seen the LED lightbulbs..
Some of the electric companies have a program where if you attend a class and submit a proposal for how it will save money, they will give you a grant (FREE MONEY) to upgrade things in your home. Some friends of ours submitted to replace all incandescent and CFL lighbulbs with LEDs. The local electric company granted them $250 to change every bulb in their home. :)
Wow, I will have to look into that!
Invest in a rain barrel for watering your plants.That way you are not paying for your water pump to run nor will it add to your water bill.
Good idea!