We are talking about energy here. Particularly energy at home. It is a fact that the bulk of most family’s home expense is utilities. Electric, water and gas pile up every month and spike up especially during the summer and winter months. Let me remind you of some of the practical solutions that you can easily adopt at home to conserve energy, reduce your green house gas emissions and eventually keep more money in your pocket.
1. Replace old appliances. Refrigerators are usually always working in any family home. And thus consumes energy perpetually. It makes a lot of sense to replace units that are more than 10 years old as study shows that they consume two to three times energy than a new one. If this is you situation, then opt for an energy-efficient model. Do the same for your air conditioner, and replace it with with a split system inverter unit that is rated high in terms of energy-efficiency.
Same goes for your television. Always choose a highly efficient unit especially if your family spends a lot of time in front of the telly.
Source – superdeathsquid
2. Replace your shower head. Make sure that your shower head is the water saving type. A basic saving water tip is to fix defective plumbing or dripping taps. Drips amount to about 1000 litres of water wasted in a month. And your bill most likely will reflect that. Also, hot water consumption is a huge part of your energy bill so using it less is advisable. Time your hot showers to less than 10 minutes as much as possible.
3. Seal, Set, Clean. Check for any gaps on windows, doors where air is likely to leak out and seal them properly with weather strips to keep the warmth or coldness inside, depending on the season. Set your thermostat at a reasonable temperature and wear proper season attire inside the house to lessen the need for increasing the heat or coolness. Use window coverings as well to control incoming sunshine as need be.
4. Put your computers to sleep. The modern times have rendered the family computer be turned on almost all the time. Yet is not being used all the time right? So take time to set the power management features that almost all computers have nowadays to put it to sleep should no one be using it. Also consider a laptop on your next purchase as they are deemed to consume less energy than a normal desktop and monitor package.
5. Monitor your consumption. Grab a convenient and fun to use electricity monitor and know which part of your home drinks up plenty of energy. Use the knowledge gained to create awareness in the home. Use the monitor to gauge electric consumption savings and use this to encourage everyone in the home to adopt the positive changes.
6. Use smart power strip. Appliances that are turned off still consume electricity which when added together will end up costing you. So unplug them from the socket when you can or better yet for convenience sake, use a smart power strip that you can readily turn on and off without the need of unplugging each one by one.
So act now and put these saving tips in place right away at your home to start saving immediately. Not only will the planet be grateful for you but you’ll be too with the extra savings that you will make in the long run.
Guest Blogger Jessy is a stay-at-home mom, frugal blogger and vegetarian.