No homeowner should be paying a monthly power bill that’s equivalent to one or two months. On many occasions, high energy consumption is due to poorly-maintained heating and cooling components. There are also cases when it’s due to poor habits such as leaving electrical appliances plugged in when not in use.
Given today’s pandemic situation, wasting precious energy or paying too much due to poor energy use habits each month is just not the way to do things. These days, every dollar that you can save will go a long way over time and help you cover other household expenses.
Here are six inexpensive ways to bring down your monthly cooling and heating consumption:
Periodic system components maintenance and repair.
A great part of your monthly power usage relies heavily on your heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system. Incidentally, the products that belong to this system are generally power-hungry ones when compared to other electrical appliances and items in your home such as light bulbs and electric fans. The energy consumption of HVAC system components further doubles if the components are not functioning optimally due to improper or inexistent maintenance.
The simple remedy to this problem is to ensure that you’ll oversee periodic repair and maintenance of your HVAC system to ensure its optimum performance. For example, you should hire a licensed furnace repair and maintenance crew to do periodic checks and carry out repairs and maintenance procedures as needed. You should do the same with your air conditioning units and other HVAC components to ensure that your entire system performs flawlessly without guzzling up power unnecessarily.
Go all-in with insulation.
Your home’s insulation plays a huge role in keeping the indoor temperature within comfortable levels, whether in summer or during winter. By splurging on your home’s insulation, you’ll enjoy lower energy bills, more comfortable indoor temperatures, and even better noise suppression. Data show that with proper insulation, 100,000 homeowners can save energy equivalent to recycling around 800,000 tons of paper. This means that insulation is also better for the environment and not for your finances alone.
While the initial capital outlay for a fully insulated home may look expensive, the lifetime savings you’ll enjoy will dwarf the upfront costs of this upgrade. So, be the wiser and look forward to the bigger picture.
Smart thermostats for smart savings.
Traditional thermostats are not programmable, which means that every time you want to turn it down or up, you’ll have to do it manually. Why subject yourself to such a hassle when you can simply make a one-time purchase of smart thermostats for your home?
When shopping, be sure to check if the thermostats are programmable or controllable via a companion app. These features will help you do away with the manual changing of temperature settings and instead do a one-time programming or wireless manipulation of temperature settings through your connected electronic device.
Get some shades.
Trees, awnings, trellises, and other shade-giving features will greatly help lower your power consumption, particularly during the summer months. Trees cost next to nothing but the shade they can offer are hard to beat (that’s why they’re called nature’s air conditioning units). Meanwhile, Awnings and trellises belong to the middle side of the price scale; however, the cooling and energy cuts they can offer are on the higher end of the energy efficiency spectrum.
The bottom line is that these inexpensive shade-giving features will help lower your monthly power bills significantly, so they’re truly wise investments to make.
Do an energy audit.
If you want to get a bird’s eye view of your home’s energy consumption, as well as pinpoint areas where improvements can be made to bring down power usage, you should do an energy audit soon.
I’m a Gramma to a beautiful, funny, smart little girl who was born in July of 2014. She’s the joy of my family and I’m so very proud to be a gramma (an alternate spelling for grandma)! I am a coffee, music, movie and outdoor lover! My family and I love picnics, festivals and concerts. Spending time with my family is the best part of my life. I love my job as well! Blogging and product reviewing has given my family and I a lot and I have also learned a lot and made a lot of friends.
These are great suggestions! Thank you for sharing such valuable content!