Smart Ways To Reduce Your Home's Power Usage

Are you looking for ways to save energy in your home? Just about every homeowner has opened up a monthly power bill only to see a ridiculously high amount charged to their account. While it may feel like your power company is robbing you blind, the fact is that you could greatly reduce your bill by making a few small changes to your home.

Curtains

Most individuals and families forget about the importance of curtains when moving into a new home. After all, most traditional blinds provide the privacy necessary to live in a home. However, without curtains up, the sunlight will beam straight through and cook your house like an oven. Just by placing some basic sun-blocking curtains over the windows in your home, you could potentially cut your energy use by up to 10%.

Air Filters

If your home uses central cooling, you should replace the air filters at least once every 90 days. Allowing your air filters to go unchanged for longer than 90 days will cause the intake to suck in less air, therefore making your A/C unit less effective.

Air Conditioning

Many older homes still have the same A/C unit that was installed when the house was originally built. Units manufactured today are made to be more energy efficient with less power necessary to run them. Look on your A/C unit to see if there’s an Energy Star rating displayed. This will give you an idea of how well it performs in regards to its energy usage.

In addition, you should turn your thermostat up during the summer and lower it during the winter. You don’t have to adjust it to the point where you and your family is miserable, but just make small changes and you’ll see a noticable difference in your power bill.

Energy Star Lightbulbs

Did you know that replacing a traditional lightbulb with an Energy Star lightbulb will save the average individual $6 a year or $40 for the lifetime of the bulb. Now, math was never my strong subject, but think about a home with 40 lightbulbs. If you replaced all of those lightbulbs with Energy Star ones, you could save a whopping $240 a year!

These are just a few simple changes homeowners can make to save energy and lower their power bill. If we all do our part and conserve water and electricity, we’ll help keep this planet a clean place for our children to live in. Keep in touch with our blog to learn even more ways you can help save energy in your home.