6 Ways to Lower Your Energy Costs

6 Ways to Lower Your Energy Costs

I just walked around my house and shut off eight lights – yes 8 --  that no one was using.  My family seems to think light switches go only one way – in the ‘on’ position.   They just don’t turn anything off.  They wait for me to shut everything off. Sometimes I think they do it just to get me going. 

Today people are looking for creative ways to reduce spending. Utility costs and just overall living expenses keep increasing.  There are ways, though, to lessen the financial burden of heating, cooling and electric bills and have a significant impact on your bottom line.

Here are some tips to lower energy costs and also improve efficiency in your home.

Maintain furnace and air conditioning units.  This should be done on an annual basis. If you have a forced air system, the ducts should be cleaned as well.  Regular inspection and maintenance will increase the efficiency and life of the unit and indoor air will be cleaner as well.

Use programmable thermostats.  They are fairly inexpensive to install and can rack up the savings by customizing the thermostat settings for your lifestyle use.

Decrease your water heater’s temperature. Adjust it down at least one setting and watch the energy savings begin.

Check your appliance setting. Dishwashers, washers, and dryers all come with a lot of bells and whistles which might sound nice but in reality are not necessary to use every cycle.

Pull the plug on standby power. TVs, Wiis, computers, microwaves are constantly drawing power even though they are not powered on.  All these ‘instant-on’ items can draw a considerable amount of energy and really all for nothing.

Invest in some dimmer switches and motion detectors.  Many, many homes have overhead lights installed with a considerable amount of total wattage.  A dimmer switch definitely reduces consumption here.  

Now, the motion detectors are something I have to look into installing.  That way the lights in some of my rooms will turn on and off automatically, and I won’t have to go around switching off multiple lights like I just did.  OR you can just use the good old fashioned way of turning off the lights when they are not needed!!

By following these steps, you are guaranteed to lower energy costs and reduce your monthly bill….and who doesn’t want to put a little extra money INTO their pockets these days!