I have been trying to be more energy conscious because I don’t have a lot of money to spend on electricity. I keep my thermostat set at 60 when I’m not home and turn it up to 65-67 degrees when I’m there. I have been very careful about not turning on more lights than I need and turning them off when I leave the room. However, my bill has gone up steadily over the last three months. I cannot afford for it to increase any more if it gets any colder. Is there any advice on how I can reduce my energy costs? Any information would be very much appreciated.
Energy saving light bulbs will help. Also maybe hang dry your clothing by a heater vent or in the bathroom. If you have an electric stove top or oven bbq instead of using those along with cutting back on baking in the oven.Hope this helped a bit.
You should go to Lowes and get some insulation for your windows and any glass doors. They only cost a couple dollars and will help the heat in your house stay in. Make sure all the cracks around doors are weather stripped also. If you have a furnace, make sure the air filter is clean, because this will make the furnace work harder.
If you have a fireplace you should put keep a fire going in the evening when you are home. You may want to buy a few small electric heaters for your bedrooms/den. These are usually better at heating a specific area than a central heating system. This will allow you to keep the thermostat set lower thus saving you money on your heating bill.
There’s a lot of useful tips at http://www.cystem.org
1 go around house and unplug everything except the refrigerator…only plug in what you r using
2 get plastic for the windows…they have heat shrink u can cover them with….
3 only heat the room ur in
4 get a part time job to pay bills…they are trying to raise elect rate 35 % where i live…YAAAAAHHHH
It also costs $$, but WHEN you replace an appliance or other energy user eventually, replace it w/a unit w/the highest energy rating (ie, most efficient) POSSIBLE! All the other answers are great too, insulation, plugging air leaks, UN-plugging ANYthing not being used, etc- BUT…if you STILL cant pay bills, the local utility may have a program for folks on limited incomes for helping you to pay your bills, or averageing them out to pay less during months of greater useage by paying a bit MORE when demand is less. Worth checking into anyway. -Al
One of the cheapest ways to reduce energy use is to eleminate standby energy. I have my tv, dvd, and game system pluged into a power strip with a switch, I think I paid about $2 for it. When they aren’t being used I flip the switch and they all stop using energy. I saved about $25 a month when I did this and started unplugging things. Look for anything with an indicator light or a clock, they are all using electricity when not in use, most things with remotes do as well. I used a watt meter to test energy usage and found the ipod docking stations use as much energy when the ipod is removed as it does to play music. The computer can big a big user too. You should have it on a surge surpressor anyway to save it if you get an energy spike, but if you don’t get one with a switch. My sons desktop used the most energy of all my appliances, 85 watts, and almost 20 watts when shut off. So make sure you turn computers all the way off and plug the monitor and speakers into the same surge surpressor and flip them all off when not in use. The number of things you have on your screen and they type of screen saver you have can use more energy as well, I was able to reduce the amount of energy my laptop uses by removing unneeded icons and switch the screen saver to a black screen and shortening the amount of time before it goes on. My laptop when just sitting there was using 44 watts and jumped up to 53 watts when the screen saver came on.
Methods to reduce energy consumption include:
Installing good insulation and preventing drafts = Energy saving ~ 30%
Replacing lights for compact fluorescents = Energy saving ~ 80%
Turning off a second fridge = Save ~ $100 per year
Add water saving shower rose and tap aerators = Save > 50% hot water
Using a clothes line instead of a dryer = Save ~ $100 per year
To really understand your energy consumption in real time requires measurement. This can be bought for $100. I have written a review on such a meter at http://www.matthewb.id.au/index.php?view=article&catid=6%3Aenergy-efficiency&id=22%3Aelectric-energy-meter-review&option=com_content&Itemid=8
See you power consumption every 6 seconds, daily totals, weekly totals, monthly totals.