Habits are difficult to break, but what if we told you that the incentive to change is more than just some loose change in your pocket? By incorporating a few or all of these energy saving tips into your lifestyle, you can save hundreds of dollars a year on your home’s electricity bill.
Keeping refrigerator door open longer than necessary wastes energy.
- Close the refrigerator door! You probably don’t need that extra piece of cake anyway, so if your routine is to stand in front of the fridge deciding what to eat, make those decisions before you take a peak. Research shows that the average person spends about 10.4 hours a year staring at an open refrigerator.
- Next time you go to change out that burned out bulb, think “CFL”. Why buy energy wasting incandescent bulbs when CFLs can save you $40 over the lifetime of use.
- The nightly habit of falling asleep in front of the TV may be costing you on average $55 a year, maybe more, depending on when you wake up from that preliminary snooze to hit the off button.
- To save an average of $180 a year, program your programmable thermostat. Enough said!
- We all want a fully charged laptop and cell phone to head out into the world in the morning. Did you realize that any charging past 100% is just a waste of kilowatts? It’s hard to put a price tag on the extra energy lost in this daily habit but we know it’s a place to cut back, especially if you have three kids and everyone is plugged in and charging. On a related note, put your computer on standby mode when you’re not using it.
- Replace your outdated conventional hot water heater to a solar powered one. Why pay for electric when the sun is out and free every day in the Southwest desert? Not quite ready to make the switch? Why not install a DIY timer on your current one?
- When you step out of a room–turn off the lights and fans. For your convenience, the switch was placed on the wall right as you enter or exit a room, so train the kiddos to reach up and flip the switch each and every time. Fans do not cool a room; they cool people, so it’s a big waste of energy to leave these on especially when leaving the home for the day.
- Replace your HVAC air filters on a regular basis. This is a no-brainer that so many of us fail to take advantage of.
Why not have a professional come to your home and perform an energy audit? It most likely will pay for itself over the next several months in energy savings alone. And when you go to sell, you can share freely with buyers how low your energy bill is compared to the other homes they may be considering.
Breaking a few bad habits and creating a few good ones can lead to big savings over the course of a year. Just do it!
Make DCRanchHomes is your “go to” source for community and real estate information. Contact us at 480-360-0281 if you are looking for DC Ranch homes for sale, or have a DC Ranch home you would like to sell.
Don Matheson
Realtor | Founder
The Matheson Team – RE/MAX Fine Properties
21000 N. Pima Rd., #100, Scottsdale, AZ 85255
480-360-0281
don@scottsdalerealestate.com
