The rising cost of electricity in America has left many homeowners stressed because their utility bills seem to increase steadily every month. The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that an average family in the country spends a minimum of $2,200 on electricity annually, which translates to at least $183 per month.
At this rate, you’ll end up spending all your monthly earnings on electricity. You need to figure out ways to lower your electricity costs, and this article offers quick tips on reducing your electricity bill.
Making Your Lighting More Efficient
Your home’s lighting alone can consume up to 60 kWh per month. Therefore, you should replace your current incandescent bulbs with more energy-efficient bulbs. LED bulbs are highly efficient, consume 75 percent less electricity than incandescent lights, and can last longer.
Insulate Your Home
Your heating and air conditioning system consumes a significant amount of energy when it’s turned on. Unfortunately, it will consume even more electricity if it has to overwork to keep your home cool or warm due to leakages within your home.
To avoid this, you must make your home airtight, ensuring that the warm and cool air doesn’t escape through openings in your home or the windows. Fortunately, there are different types of affordable insulations that you can use to insulate your house.
Installing a Programmable Regulator
A programmable thermostat functions according to pre-programmed settings. Therefore, it will turn on and off your HVAC appliances using the pre-selected settings. This will help you lower energy consumption.
Using Dimmer Switches
Dimmer switches reduce the amount of electricity flowing to the bulbs, thus regulating energy consumption in your house. They’ll not only save energy but also prolong the lifespan of your light bulbs.
Replace Low Energy-Efficient Appliances
If you have home appliances that consume too much energy, you should replace them with more energy-efficient ones. Most of the latest models of home appliances come with an ENERGY STAR label, meaning they do not consume as much energy as their predecessors.
Reducing Your Showering Time
Hot showers are quite costly because they consume a lot of electricity. Since you can’t survive cold showers all the time, you should reduce the time you take in the shower, and this will reduce energy consumption during showering.