USA Electric knows how important it is to save money.
Why pay more out of your pocket when you can use these few simple tips to get you on the road to savings!
- Seal the house. Ever heard the term throwing away money? Well your dollars could be leaking through cracks around the doors and windows. To ease this painful process, it’s as simple as buying caulk and weather-stripping to seal cracks In fact, you may have caulk left over from other projects. According to Consumer Reports, sealing leaks can reduce energy costs by 15 to 30%.
- Use heat-generating appliances at night. You can be a 2 year old to understand this one! If you like to bake, and you bake whenever the mood strikes, a hot oven in the heat of the day forces the AC to work harder to keep the house at a comfortable temperature. The same goes for clothes dryers and dishwashers. Use these at night when outside temps are cooler.
- Wash laundry with cold water. By doing this, you can save $152 per year. (Do the math energy use calculator.)
- Go retro with a crock pot. Ovens emit so much heat that you could turn your home into a sauna. However, you don’t want to do that. Nothing heats up your house faster than a preheating oven and a few pans on the stove top. Slow cookers, on the other hand, use less energy and won’t turn your kitchen into, well, an sauna. The crock pot often gets a put on the back burner so to speak. When you say slow cooker you automatically think bland recipes created from canned and prepackaged ingredients. But the slow cooker is enjoying a quiet fire of fame, and with it we’re seeing better recipes, such as this pulled-pork sandwich and these triple chocolate brownies.
- Air-dry clothing. Most people don’t like this idea, bet hey, if it saves money, what is there not to like? line-drying. Yes we live in a modern world where you can conveniently throw clothes in the dryer with minimal effort and be done with the task. However, reducing your average daily electricity cost from $2.50 to $1.85 sound sound like a great idea. So, if you have the room to spare, you could dry clothing inside on hangers. We’ve enough space in our laundry room to hang quite a bit of clothing. So start saving by start air-drying more.
- Use fans. Fans also cool a room feel cooler. They could save you up to $438 per year.
- Unplug electronics. You’ve heard it several times and now you’re hearing it again. Unplug those unused electronics. Forgetting about phone chargers and camera battery chargers, is often the case. Because of this, they stay plugged in, drinking pennies, that turn into quarters monthly from our bank account. Using power strips shuts off electricity to these devices all at once. Consumer Reports also found that you can save $25 to $75 each year just by putting your computer on standby.
- Consider your light bulbs. Studies show turning off lights you aren’t using can save you up to $274 a year; turn off a single 100-watt light bulb from running constantly to save up to $131 per year; and replace ten 60-watt light bulbs with compact fluorescents to save up to $123 per year (upfront cost estimate: $32).
- Don’t cool an empty house. If you have a programmable thermostat, such as Nest, program it! You can control lights and air condition when you are home in different rooms or 4,000 miles away. on the other hand, if you leave the house, turn off the air and fans. If you are home, then close off rooms you aren’t occupying.
- Replace air filters monthly. If you are smart, assuming you are since you are reading these tips, it’s good to be diligent replacing your filters. Dirty filters restrict airflow, causing the AC system to run longer and use more energy. It’s ideal to add a recurring task to you calendar to make sure the air filter gets replaced each month.
Tweeking your electrical usage should add up to noticeable savings at the end of the year and don’t require much time or money. Once I’ve taken these steps, you’ll probably notice a bit more money in your savings that you could spend on a small summer vacation. USA Electric, your Los Angeles Electrician knows how to help you save!
