13 Simple Energy Saving Tips Every Homeowner Must Know to Save Money
Today it is more important than ever to save energy which in turn will save you money. Below we have included 13 of the simplest ways the average homeowner can save money on their energy bills.
1.) When you leave a room, even for a short amount of time turn off the lights. This is the easiest way to save energy and something we need to teach our children from an early age.
2.) Switch all your lights to the new fluorescent lights that use one-third of the energy as your old style lights. These lights are about as bright as what you are used to but at a big energy savings.
3.) Keep cool air inside your home by opening your windows in the cool summer nights (AC off) then close your windows in the hot daytime, this will reduce your AC usage and we are able to hold off turning on our AC for most of the morning on many summer days.
4.) Close your curtains or blinds on the side of your home sun is hitting this will keep a lot of the heat from the sun out of your home, to really keep the sun from entering your home have a good quality Home Window Film installed, this can reduce the heat coming into your home by up to 15 degrees, plus Window Film will protect your interior furnishings from the suns damaging UV rays.
5.) Turn off or unplug lights, electrical items and small appliances when not in use, items plugged into your wall can still use electricity in what’s known as the standby mode, the biggest offenders seem to be TVs and VCRs.
6.) Let dishes air dry instead of using the dishwasher as much as we are used to and when you use the dishwasher use the air dry feature to cut the cost of using the electric heat feature. You can also run the hot water in the sink (only till gets hot) before starting your dishwasher this will reduce the time it takes for the heating element to heat the water before the dishwasher starts its cleaning cycle.
7.) Try to do as much washing, drying and ironing early or late, as some electric companies charge less money as the demand is down during early and late hours. Also when using the dryer do multiple loads one right after the other this will require less time to heat up your dryer and save you money.
8.) Let clothes air dry instead of using the dryer on warm summer days. In the winter or during rainy days you can also put a clothes line in your basement or do like my wife and use a drying rack in the basement, ours is not far from the homes furnace and will dry clothes quite quickly (be safe and don’t put your clothes too close to your furnace).
9.) When washing clothes use cold water instead of hot water, heating of the water can amount to around 90% of the energy usage of a washing machine.
10.) Make sure you clean or change your filter on your air conditioner and furnace regularly, a dirty filter will make your furnace or air conditioner work harder and longer due to the fact that less air volume is able to get through a dirty filter, this also makes your units work harder had cuts down on life their life expectancy.
11.) Use your microwave instead of your oven this can save around 50% of energy usage and cook your simple meals much faster. We use this all the time to heat up vegetables and re-warm leftovers.
12.) Make sure you have sufficient weather stripping on your windows and doors to keep that cool air inside during hot summer days. The same applies in the winter good weather stripping will keep heat inside your home saving you money due to heat loss.
13.) Install a programmable thermostat, you can easily install this item for less than $100 and can save you around $180 a year in energy costs between air conditioning and heat.
Read the information from the Energy Star website. These are easy to implement changes that anyone can do to save money and using Home Window Tinting Film is the smartest and easiest way to also save energy.